Wilhelm Philippe Schimper

Who was Wilhelm Philippe Schimper?

Wilhelm Philippe Schimper was a French botanist born in Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel, Bas-Rhin, a town near the River Rhine in Alsace. He was the father of botanist Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper, and a cousin to naturalist Karl Friedrich Schimper and botanist Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper.

Following graduation from the University of Strasbourg, he worked as a curator at the Natural History Museum in Strasbourg, becoming director of the museum in 1839. The museum has a bust of Schimper at the top of the stairs.

From 1862 until 1879, he was a professor of geology and natural history at the University of Strasbourg.

Schimper's contributions to biology were primarily in the specialized fields of bryology and paleobotany. He spent considerable time collecting botanical specimens in his travels throughout Europe. Among his writings was the six-volume Bryologia Europaea, an epic work that was published between 1836 and 1855. It was co-written with Philipp Bruch, and it described every species of European moss known at the time.

Schimper also made significant contributions in geology. In 1874 he proposed a new scientific subdivision of geological time. He called the new epoch the "Paleocene Era", of which he based on paleobotanical findings from the Paris Basin.