Host and the Host garden

In 1787, at the age of just 26, Nicolaus Thomas Host obtained his doctorate in medicine and botany at the University of Vienna. Supported by his doctoral supervisor, the director of the Botanical Garden Nicolas Joseph von Jacquin (1727 to 1817), he first became a rehab physician and then personal physician to Emperor Franz II (I) in 1792. Host suggested to the Emperor that he should create a garden for the ‘Flora austriaca viva’ in which he wanted to display living plants from all parts of the monarchy on the site of the former kitchen garden at Belvedere Palace. Just one year later, this was realised as the Imperial and Royal Botanical Garden at the Belvedere, with the Emperor himself stipulating that only plants that grew in the wild in the Austrian monarchy should be cultivated there. Host became director of the Garden and over the next 41 years enriched it with species that he collected on his travels through Tyrol, Styria, Carinthia and Istria.

As a member of many learned societies, Host was in contact with renowned botanists and acted as an advisor to the Emperor. Towards the end of his life, between 1827 and 1831, he published with the generous support of the Emperor ’Flora austriaca’, a book containing an overview of all the plants of the monarchy.

Host died in 1834. Not much is left of what he planted, but the garden in the area of today's Flora of Austria group still exists. It has belonged to the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna since 1930 and is still referred to internally as the ’Hostscher Garten’. Host also lives on in the plant genus Hosta, which was named after him. Some Hosta species grow in group 19 in the Botanical Garden.