Rauwolf, Leonard

, a skilful botanist, was a native of Augsburg, and a pupil of Rondelet. He sailed from Marseilles, in 1573, for the Levant, and performed a laborious and dangerous journey through Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt; of which he has left an account in German, full of curious information relative to medical and other rare plants, with several wooden cuts. He died physician to the Austrian army, at Hatvany, in Hungary, in 1606, according to Dryander, Bibl. Banks, v. 395, though Haller says 1596. The latter writer mentions his being obliged to quit his country, on account of his religion, which was protestant. His splendid herbarium, once the property of queen Christina, and of Isaac Vossius, is preserved in the university of Leyden. From it Gronovius composed his “Flora Orientalis.” An English translation of his journey was published by Staphorst in 1693, 8vo. ²