Quick Facts
Biography
Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg (1 December 1880 – 14 June 1963) was a Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica.
Education
Skottsberg was born in Karlshamn, began his academic studies at Uppsala University in 1898 and received his doctorate and a docentship there in 1907.
Career
Skottsberg participated in the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901 to 1903 on the ship Antarctic, and was leader of the Swedish Magellanic Expedition to Patagonia, 1907 to 1909. Carl Skottsberg is believed to have been the last to have seen the Santalum fernandezianum tree alive when he visited the Juan Fernández Islands in 1908.
He was conservator at the Uppsala University Botanical Museum 1909 to 1914, but led the work on the new Botanical Garden in Gothenburg from 1915, and was appointed professor and director of the garden there, Göteborg Botanical Garden, in 1919.
Skottsberg was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and several other Swedish learned societies, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1950. That same year he presided the 7th International Botanical Congress. He was awarded the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1958 and the Linnean Medal in 1959.
He is buried at Östra kyrkogården in Gothenburg.