thumb|Franz von Paula Schrank.
Franz von Paula Schrank (21 August 1747, in Vornbach – 22 December 1835) was a German priest, botanist and entomologist. He served as a professor of agriculture and auxiliary sciences at the University of Ingolstadt from 1784.
Biography
thumb|left|Beyträge zur Naturgeschichte.
Schrank was born in Vornbach, the son of a Passau lawyer who worked as a monastery judge in Vornbach. He received a Jesuit education in Raab, Tyrnau and Vienna after which he taught for some time in secondary schools, for sometime under Ignaz Schiffermüller and looked after the Linz botanical garden. From 1772 he lived in Burghausen. He received a doctorate in theology from Vienna in 1776. He was ordained as a priest in Vienna in 1784. In 1786 he was named chair of mathematics and physics at the lyceum in Amberg, and in 1784 became a professor of botany and zoology at the University of Ingolstadt (later removed to Landshut). Schrank was the first director of the botanical gardens in Munich from 1809 to 1832. He taught on natural history, botany, mining and forestry.
Schrank was the first author to use the genus name Triops, which he used in his work on the fauna of Bavaria in 1803. He was against the idea of growing Robinia trees as a source of firewood which was promoted by Friedrich Casimir Medicus.