Frits Heide

Who is Frits Heide?

Frits Ferdinand Rudolf Heide was a Danish botanist and science writer. He studied botany at the University of Copenhagen from 1906 under professor Eugenius Warming, but never actually graduated. In 1909, Frits Heide revised J.P. Jacobsen’s translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. He also translated Darwin's autobiography into Danish. Much later, in 1935, he finally published his own translation of the Origin of Species. Heide was a prolific writer in Danish popular science, but also contributed with more purely scientific texts on plant biology, forest history, ethnobotany etc. He also served as a private teacher. From around 1920, he was as a consultant for the Dutch government in Java, still publishing botanic works in Danish, Dutch and English on the side. He also founded and edited the journal Journal de Botanique Historique 1918-21.