The Herbarium Bernense also comprises a collection of beautiful scientific illustrations of plants, fungi and algae. Compared to herbarium specimens, botanical illustrations have the advantage that natural colours can be captured, a perfect specimen with all the important characteristics can be shown and small structures can be enlarged. At the same time, they have the disadvantage that they usually do not provide information about where and when a species has been observed and they do not provide genetic information or microscopic structures that have not been drawn in the first place.

Gustav Otth

Gustav Heinrich Otth (02.06.1806 – 08.11.1874) was a Swiss mycologist and military officer. He described several new fungi species and the genus Pucciniastrum within the family Pucciniastraceae. Detailed information about the life and works of Gustav Otth can be found in Eduard Fischer: Gustav Otth, ein bernischer Pilzforscher: 1806-1871, in Mitteilungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Bern, 1908, pp. 1665-1700 .

Gustav Otth compiled 13 volumes of beautiful original watercolours of mushrooms that are now part of the Herbarium Bernense collection. PDF-versions of these works can be accessed via the links below. His herbarium collection is located at the Fungarium of the United Herbaria Zurich Z+ZT.

agaricus adiposus

Bernhard Studer-Steinhäuslin

Bernhard Emil Studer-Steinhäuslin (23. May 1847 - 28. March 1910) was born in Bern as the son of a pharmacist. In 1860, he suffered a serious accident and was left with a lifelong paralysis of his left hand. In 1865, he entered the pharmaceutical profession and studied at the University of Bern and at the Remigius Fresenius Institute in Wiesbaden (Germany). After educational trips to Paris, England and Scotland, he took over his father's pharmacy in the Spitalgasse in Bern, which he ran for 33 years together with his brother Wilhelm. He was a long-standing board member of the City Pharmacists‘ Association, the Cantonal Pharmacists’ Association, the Swiss Pharmacists‘ Association, the Pharmacopoeia Commission of the Swiss Pharmacists’ Association and treasurer of the Natural Science Society in Bern. In addition to his job and all the offices he held, he found time for research in pharmacy (urinalysis and bacteriology) and fungi. Studer's extensive work on hymenomycetes is scientifically sound and valuable. He learnt watercolour painting and created impressive pictures which were donated to the Botanical Institute in Bern in 1912. In addition to his theoretical studies, he was also involved in practical work, published a book on edible mushrooms, held public mushroom courses and founded a mushroom inspection centre in Bern to promote edible mushrooms and dispel prejudices. The author abbreviation of Bernhard Studer-Steinhäuslin is Stud.-Steinh. (Clitocybe aurantiaca, Pourretia mexicana var. argentea). His numerous publications are listed in the obituary: A. Tschirch: Bernhard Studer-Steinhäuslin, Apotheker in Verhandlungen der Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, 93, 1910, S. 36-42 .

The Herbarium Bernense contains 5 boxes with 1,245 mushroom illustrations by Bernhard Studer-Steinhäuslin. These are unique specimens that are listed in a catalogue compiled by Eduard Fischer in 1914.

Die Hymenomyceten des bernischen Hügellandes zwischen Alpen und Jura, Mitt. Naturf. Ges. Bern, 1914, 136-167 . Cortinarius traganus

On the back of some of the pictures there are comments by a researcher friend from French-speaking Switzerland. They are listed behind the annotated images. His wife, Julie Luise Studer-Steinhäuslin, was a member of the advisory commission of the League of Nations and campaigned for an international agreement on stricter laws against trafficking in women and children.

A project of the Herbarium of the Botanical Garden of the University of Bern