Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University
Index to the Moss Herbarium of Max Fleischer
Fleischer was born in Upper Silesia, Germany, in 1861 and died
in Menton, France, in 1930. (See obituary by P. de la Varde, Ann.
Crypt. Exot. 3: 161-166, 1930, with portrait and bibliography.) He
pursued the two careers of artist and bryologist throughout his life,
his first visit to Java being on commission to prepare landscape
paintings for the Paris Exposition of 1900. His major monograph was
Die Musci der Flora von Buitenzorg, published in parts from 1900 to
1922. He issued sets of bryophyte specimens over a long period:
Bryotheca europaea meridionalis, with Warnstorf, 1896-1910; Musci
frondosi archipelagi indici (the last fascicle by Reimers), 1898-1933.
He was always interested in classification, and his new arrangement
of families and genera of mosses was adopted by Brotherus in the
second edition (1924, 1925) of Engler and Prantl.
Fleischer's moss herbarium of over 25,000 specimens was purchased
by the Farlow Herbarium in 1930 from Weigel in Leipzig. It is of
course rich in specimens from Malesia, where Fleischer spent the
years 1898-1902 and 1908-1913 (see Flora Malesiana 1[1]: 167 for
localities). On several world tours he collected also in Polynesia
and other Pacific localities. He received Asiatic and South American
specimens from, among others, Renault, Paris, Thériot, Herzog, Ule,
Bescherelle, Husnot, and E. Levier. His own European specimens were
augmented by those of Carl Müller, Geheeb, Milde, Bauer, and others.