In 1836, Endlicher was appointed keeper of the court cabinet of natural history,[1] and in 1840 he became professor at the University of Vienna and director of its Botanical Garden.

Endlicher was fundamental in establishing the Imperial Academy of Science (German: Akademie der Wissenschaften), but when contrary to his expectations the Baron Joseph Hammer von Purgstall was elected its president in his stead, he resigned.

He presented his library and herbaria to the state, and passed several hours every week for 10 years in the society of the Emperor Ferdinand, but he received no other reward than the title of councillor (German: Regierungsrath).

[citation needed][3] Endlicher made valuable contributions to the science of old German and classic literature, and pointed out new sources of Hungarian history, publishing Fragmenta Theotisca Versionis antiquissimae Evangelii Matthaei (edited with Hoffmann von Fallersleben, 1834), an edition of two poems of Priscian (1828), and Anonymi Belæ Regis Notarii de Gestis Hungarorum Liber (1827).

His other principal botanical works are: Ceratotheca (1822), Flora Posoniensis (1830), Diesingia (1832), Atacta Botanica (1833), Iconographia Generum Plantarum (1838), Enchiridion Botanikum (1841) and Synopsis Coniferarum (1847).

[5] Although Endlicher never offered an explanation for the name, later writers speculated that he must have been inspired by the achievements of the American Cherokee Indian linguist Sequoyah.

[6][7] Recent scholarship supports this hypothesis; Endlicher appears to have combined the Latin sequi (meaning to follow) with his admiration of Sequoyah and coined "Sequoia" because the number of seeds per cone in the newly classified genus fell in mathematical sequence with the other four genera in the suborder.