Josephine Ettel was born in
Vrchlabí (then Hohenhelbe) in
Bohemia,
Habsburg monarchy, the daughter of a paper manufacturer David Ettel. She married pharmacist Adalbert Kablik in 1806 in Hohenhelbe who very supportive of his wife's interests. In 1822–1823, she had lessons in botany from
Wenzel Blasius Mann. Kablik created her own
herbarium to hold her collections of plants from around Hohenhelbe. She especially liked
lichens. She was not discouraged by bad weather and ventured into the field to "traipse through forest and climb high mountains in order to search for new species of plants and fossils." She collected plant and fossil samples especially from the
Sudetes for schools, museums, learned societies and universities throughout Europe.
Filip Maximilian Opiz's
Interchangeable Institute for the exchange of herbarium specimens (German Pflanzentausch-Anstalt) lists over 25,000 specimens collected by her. Her admission into the Regensburgische Botanische Gesellschaft in 1841 required the objections of
Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius to be overcome. ==References==