Peter Henry Oberwetter

Peter Henry Oberwetter is the man behind one of Central Texas's best-loved fall flowers. He imported oxblood lily bulbs from Argentina in the 1850s and sold them; they naturalized around old homesteads, where they are called schoolhouse lilies for blooming as classes begin. Born in Westphalia in 1830, he reached New Orleans in 1848, settled in Comfort, and in Austin worked as a printer, a landscaper at the Capitol grounds and the School for the Deaf, and by about 1889 a florist with a greenhouse for exotic bulbs. By 1883 he was regarded as an important local botanist.

What the plaque says

Peter Henry Oberwetter (January 8, 1830 - May 21, 1915) A native of Germany, Peter Henry Oberwetter migrated to Texas about 1849 and settled first in New Braunfels, then Comfort. He later moved to Austin, where he gained distinction as a botanist. He pioneered in crossbreeding the amaryllis, imported rare bulbs, and wrote articles regarding his botanical research. He was also a landscape artist for the State of Texas. Married to Catherine Marie (Mary) Schade (d 1914), he had six children. Recorded - 1977

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.4 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Cemetery — 0.6 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 0.7 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.

More markers nearby

• Abner Hugh Cook — steps away
• Susanna W. Dickinson — steps away
• Andrew Jackson Hamilton — steps away
• Col. Lewis Miles Hobbs Washington — steps away