Victor Félix Schiffner

He studied natural sciences at the University of Prague, where he subsequently worked as a lecturer and as an assistant to Heinrich Moritz Willkomm at the botanical garden. In 1893-94 he was stationed in the Dutch East Indies, being based at the Buitenzorg herbarium on Java. In the meantime, he collected liverwort specimens on Java and Sumatra. In 1895 he returned to Prague, being appointed professor of botany at the university.[1][2]

In 1901 he participated in a government sponsored mission to southern Brazil, where he collected bryophytes. After returning to Austria, he was appointed professor at the University of Vienna, where he remained until 1932 (year of retirement). During the latter part of his career, he focused his energies towards flora native to Europe. His personal herbarium contained 50,000 hepatics and mosses, a collection that was acquired by Harvard University in 1931.[2]

The following genera are named in his honor:

• Schiffneria, (author Franz Stephani, 1894), genus of liverworts,[3]
• Schiffnerina, (author Otto Kuntze, 1903), former genus of liverworts,[4]
• Schiffnerula (author Franz Xaver Rudolf von Höhnel, 1909), genus of fungi,[5]
• Phaeoschiffnerula (author Theiss. 1914), former genus of fungi,[6]
• Schiffneriolejeunea, (author Inez Clare Verdoorn, 1933),genus of liverworts, [7][8][1]

He was editor of the section on Hepaticae in Engler and Prantl's Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien.[2] The following are a few of his principal writings:

• Monographia Hellebororum, 1890.
• Conspectus hepaticarum archipelagi Indici, 1898.
• Die Hepaticae der Flora von Buitenzorg, 1900.
• Kritische Bemerkungen über die europäischen Lebermoose mit Bezug auf die Exemplare des Exsiccatenwerkes Hepaticae europeae exsiccatae, 1901.
• Hepaticae (Lebermoose), 1909.
• Bryophyta (Sphagnales - Bryales - Hepaticae), (with Carl Friedrich Warnstorf and Wilhelm Mönkemeyer), (1914) In: Adolf Pascher's "Süsswasser-flora. Deutschlands, Österreichs und der Schweiz".
• Studien über Algen des adriatischen Meeres, 1915 - Studies on algae of the Adriatic Sea.[9]