Species Schotia speciosa

For Richard van der Schot (c 1730–1790), Dutch gardener who studied in Leiden. He became head gardener of the Imperial Gardens at Schönbrunn, Vienna, Austria, having been appointed by the French botanist Nicolaus (Nicolaas) Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817). In 1755, Jacquin was asked by the Emperor Franz Ferdinand (Emperor Francis I) to lead an expedition to the Caribbean to collect tropical plants and other ‘curiosities’ for the palace’s natural history collections. Van der Schot joined Jacquin on this four-year journey, visiting Grenada, Saint Vincent, Aruba, Cuba and Curacao, and returned to Vienna in 1759. Although some sources state Van der Schot visited South Africa between 1785 and 1788, just two years before his death, he did not, both according to our research and confirmed in a 1970 Taxon paper Jacquin Names, Some Notes on Their Typification, by WG D’Arcy.