Cryptogamie, Bryologie
36 (2) - Pages 203-205Hans Hürlimann, Swiss botanist and leading specialist on the liverwort flora of the South Pacific region, died on 1 October 2014 in Basel at the age of 93. Born in Brugg (Kanton Aargau), Hans went to school in Winterthur and studied biology at the University of Zürich, where he obtained his doctorate in 1950 on a prize-winning study dealing with the life history and ecology of the common reed. Following his promotion, he left to the South Pacific to join the Second Swiss Botanical Expedition to New Caledonia. During two years, from 1950-1952, he made large collections of bryophytes and flowering plants (the latter together with his field companions Marcel Baumann-Bodenheim from Zürich and André Guillaumin from Paris), mainly on New Caledonia, but also on Tahiti, Fiji and Tonga. The identification of the specimens and publication of the results would occupy him for the rest of his life.
