Karl Ivanovich Maximowicz (1827 - 1891)

Karl Ivanovich Maximowicz was a Russian botanist. He was born in Tula. By origin he was of the Baltic Germans. In 1850 he graduated from the institution which is now University of Tartu, Estonia.

From 1852 he worked as curator of the herbarium at the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden, and in 1869 he became its director. From 1853-1857 he traveled around the world. Maximowicz spent most of his life studying the flora of the countries he had visited in Asia, and discovered many new species.

He travelled with another scientist Leopold von Schrenck to the Amur region in eastern Asia. From 1859 to 1864 he also visited China, Korea and Japan. He arrived in Japan in late 1860, initially basing his operations in Hakodate.

He explored the south of Japan, including the region of Yokohama and Mount Fuji, and ended the trip in Nagasaki. He also studied the flora of Tibet, concluding that is was chiefly composed of immigrants from Mongolia and the Himalaya.

Maximowicz described and named over 2300 new plants which were previously unknown to science. Many of them bear his surname.