Der Botaniker Rupert Huter

In 2016, the longstanding project of restauration and registration of the Herbarium Rupert Huter was successfully completed. The herbarium, owned by the Vinzentinum in Bressanone/Brixen, since 2010 has been in the custody and under scientific supervision of the Museum of Nature South Tyrol in Bolzano/Bozen, which is largely responsible for the implementation and completion of the project. The present paper is meant as a prelude to a series of papers presenting new insights in the Herbarium Rupert Huter and in Huter’s scientific life gained from the intensive work on the collection and from additional archive studies. Rupert Huter not only leaves behind to posterity a herbarium of high scientific value including ca. 74.000 specimens and almost 15.000 currently accepted taxa but also more than 100 described taxa and hybrids (among them about 25 are still considered as of taxonomic value, excluding hybrids) and remains in memory as an ambitious, tireless, and systematically working botanist-priest. He turns out as an excellent networker, who planned botanical excursions meticulously by announcing and promoting them in scientific journals and by collecting money through a prepayment system. Also, he was keen on enlarging his collection towards a herbarium of the Flora of Europe which he almost achieved through an intensive and professionally managed exchange of duplicates.