Genus Guilandina

For Melchior Wieland (Latinised as Guilandinus) (c 1520–1589), Prussian naturalist, traveller and lecturer (professor) and demonstrator of medicinal herbs at Padua, and praefectus (director) of the Botanical Garden of Padua. After studying in Königsberg and Rome, he was commissioned by the University of Padua to travel to Greece, Syria, Asia, Palestine and Egypt to collect plants. During his travels he was captured by pirates – Gabriele Fallopio, chair of botany at Padua paid the 200 scudi ransom – and later shipwrecked before returning to Italy. In 1561, he succeeded Anguillara as second director of the Botanical Garden at Padua. He featured in Alpino Prospero’s De Medecina Aegyptiorum and wrote Epistolae de Stirpibus (1558), Papyrus (1572), and Synonyma Piantarum (published posthumously in 1608).