Benedikt Roezl

The statue and especially the granite stairs are currently being reconstructed. It's getting pretty nice

You can find this monument on Prague's Charles Square near Faust's house. The history of its origin is so interesting that I recommend you get to know it. The sculptural group represents a standing botanist and a traveler in a hat and an unbuttoned coat with a book in his right hand and a bronze flower in his left hand. Behind his stepped left leg sits a naked Indian boy with a machete in his right hand. Benedikt Roezl was born on August 12, 1824 and spent 22,343 days in this world.

Benedictus Roezl great traveler and botanist. This statue dedicated to his supporters.

We are with you on the south side of the Charles Square park, which is framed by a beautiful pedestal of the monument to Benedikt Roezl. I don't know why, but in some sources his surname is spelled "Rötzl" in Russian. For those who are ignorant, I will say that this is a famous botanist, gardener and traveler, the most famous orchid collector of his time. Thanks to Roezl's research, about eight hundred species of flowers and plants were discovered, and as many as four orchids were named after him. In 1854, in pursuit of his dream, he went to the American continent, where he settled in a small deoevushka on the west coast. There he opened his gardening and periodically went deep into the forests of Mexico, from where he brought many new and unknown plants to science. In 1868, when he lost his left arm as a result of an accident, a new stage of his scientific activity came - for more than seven years on horses, trains, boats, on foot he traveled around the USA, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, collecting and replenishing the collection of rare plants. The famous botanist died on October 14, 1885 in Smichov - now a district of Prague, which, by the way, is located on the opposite bank of the Vltava from Charles Square. Kaiser Franz Joseph I himself came to the funeral of the brave traveler. If you pay attention, the monument to Benedict Roezl has two hands, in one of which he holds a branch of an orchid, and at his feet a mythical character bowed to the ground, in search of mysterious plants. Behind the monument to Roezl, if you look a little to the right, you can notice a small quaint house - this is the House of Faust.

Interesting sculptural group of Czech (despite the name) of traveler and botany - a searcher for new species of plants in South and Central America. But if not for this memorial in a rather exposed place, he would be an already forgotten person for the uninitiated.