Hugo von Mohl

Who was Hugo von Mohl?

Hugo von Mohl was a German botanist from Stuttgart.

He was a son of the Württemberg statesman Benjamin Ferdinand von Mohl, the family being connected on both sides with the higher class of state officials of Württemberg. While a pupil at the gymnasium he pursued botany and mineralogy in his leisure time, till in 1823 he entered the University of Tübingen. After graduating with distinction in medicine he went to Munich, where he met a distinguished circle of botanists, and found ample material for research.

This seems to have determined his career as a botanist, and he started in 1828 those anatomical investigations which continued till his death. In 1832 he was appointed professor of botany in Tübingen, a post which he never left. Unmarried, his pleasures were in his laboratory and library, and in perfecting optical apparatus and microscopic preparations, for which he showed extraordinary manual skill. He was largely a self-taught botanist from boyhood, and, little influenced in his opinions even by his teachers, preserved always his independence of view on scientific questions. He received many honours during his lifetime, and was elected foreign fellow of the Royal Society in 1868.