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Patron Plant Scientists
Along the frieze and on the window tablets of the Administration Building are inscribed the names of 68 scientists. Who are they? Why were they so honored?
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Adanson
Michel Adanson (1727-1806). Rejected all artificial classifications for natural ones. In his Familles des Plantes (1763) he described taxa more or less equivalent to modern orders and families. [Adansonia]
Amici
Demonstrated that intercellular spaces contain air rather than sap. First to observe that pollen tubes enter the micropyle (1823).
Aristotle
Established at Athens the first known botanical garden. Teacher of Theophrastus.
Bauhin
Jean (Johann) Bauhin (1541-1613). French-Swiss physician. In his posthumous Historia Plantarum Universalis (1650), Bauhin dealt with approximately 5,000 plants. One of the first to distinguish the species from the genus. [Bauhinia]
Bentham
George Bentham (1800-1884). An amateur botanist until almost middle age. His earlier works included world monographs of the mint, heath and buckwheat families; he later published, jointly with Hooker, the Genera Plantarum.
Boussingault
Jean-Baptiste Boussingault (1802-1887). Experimental plant physiology. Showed that nitrates are the most suitable form of nitrogen supply for plants. [Boussingaultia]
Brongniart
Alexandre Brongniart. French paleobotanist and colleague of Georges Cuvier, with whom he conducted a landmark geological study of the Paris basin, establishing the basic principles of biostratigraphy.
Robert Brown
(1773-1858) Discovered the nucleus in plant cells. Demonstrated that the gymnosperms (conifers, gingko, cycads) are a group apart from the angiosperms (flowering plants) and distinguished from these in having naked ovules.
Camerarius
Rudolf Camerarius (1665-1721). Discovered sexuality in plants, which made plants available for studies of genetics and heredity.
Cesalpino
Andrea Cesalpino (1519-1603). The "first plant taxonomist." Although the system in his De Plantis (1583) is artificial, his use of characters such as position of ovary within a flower and the number of locules in an ovary influenced the thinking of later botanists. With Aldrovani, he was the first to form an herbarium. [Commemorated in the genus Caesalpinia.]
Cohn
Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898). His comprehensive study of the then-known kinds of bacteria earned him the title "Father of Bacteriology."
Valerius Cordus
(1515-1544) First named "pollen." Urged botanists to cease copying the ancient classical descriptions and describe anew from nature. Made many original observations himself.
Darwin
Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Voyage of the Beagle. His On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) provided the rationale for a natural system of classification.
De Bary
Heinrich Anton de Bary (1831-1888). German mycologist who worked out the complex life cycle of Puccina graminis and was the first to recognize the Pyrenomycetes as a coherent group.
De Candolle
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841). Swiss. He coined the term taxonomy in 1813 to describe the science of classification. The first to perceive the major trends of floral evolution in the angiosperms. Initiated the monumental Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, which proposed to classify and describe every species of known seed plants. He produced the first seven volumes; the remaining 10 were completed under editorship of his son.
Delpino
F. Delpino. Florentine botanist who made early studies on pollination. [Delphinium]
De Vries
Hugo de Vries. In 1900, following his own experimental lines, rediscovered Mendel's Laws, which were also independently verified by Correns in Germany and von Tschermak in Austria. Theory that mutations are the driving force of evolution.
Dioscorides
Dioscorides Pedanius of Anazarbos (circa 20 A.D.), Greek pharmacologist. His five-volume work, De Materia Medica, was the first systematic pharmacopoeia, containing objective descriptions of approximately 600 plants and 1,000 different medications. [Dioscorea; family, Dioscoreaceae]
Dutrochet
Henri Dutrochet (1776-1847). French naturalist. Discovered and named the process of osmosis. Also the first to carefully study respiration and light sensitivity in plants.
Elliott
Stephen Elliott (1771-1830). Eminent citizen of South Carolina, author of the remarkable Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia. [Elliottia]
Fries
Elias Magnus Fries (1794-1878). Swedish mycologist. Father of systematic mycology. His works serve as the starting point for nomenclature in the fungi.
Ghini
Luca Ghini (1490-1556). Professor of botany at University of Bologna. First to use dried plants for scientific study. Established the first botanic garden, at Pisa (1543-44).Teacher of Cesalpino.
Asa Gray
Asa Gray (1810-1888). Dean of American botany in his time. Professor at Harvard University and founder of the herbarium that today bears his name. Early proponent of Darwin's theories in the United Sta
Gärtner
C.F. Gaertner (1732-1791) Distinguished spores from seeds, endosperm from cotyledons.
Grew
N. Grew (1629-1711). A plant physiologist and anatomist. He assumed that the pollen contained in the stamen was necessary for pollination. He was also the first to describe tissues built from cells as be the basic elements of vegetable structures. He described the development of wood and the arrangement and shape of stomata. Coined the term "parenchyma." [Grewia]
Hedwig
Johann Hedwig (1730-1799). recognized sexual organs of mosses. The father of bryology: the present delimitation of the bryophata was established by him in 1782.
Hofmeister (west window)
Wilhelm Hofmeister (1824-1877). Discovered alternation of generations, which is the basis for the explanation of the life cycle in all known plants.
Heer
Oswald Heer. European paleobotanist. Important work with Miocene Age plant fossils.
Hooke
Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Improved the compound microscope. In his Micrographia he described the cellular structure of plants. Introduced the term "cell."
Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911). Second director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, England. With Bentham, drew up the monumental Genera Plantarum; the families recognized in that work are, in general, those recognized today.
Jussieu
Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836). French. Made the first real progress toward grouping the genera of angiosperms into natural families. Founder of the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, today the largest herbarium in the world. First to recognize the nture of liverworts and separatthem from mosses.
Knight
(1758-1847) Physiologist. Discovery of geotropism: plants' positive and negative responses to gravity.
Koelreuter
J.G. Koelreuter (1733-1806). Director, Botanic and Grand Ducal Garden in Karlsruhe (1768-1786). First to investigate sexuality of plants scientifically. First to recognize importance of plants in hybridization studies. First to produce artificial plant hybrids. [Koelreuteria]
Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus or Carl von Linné (1707-1778). Father of systematic biology. Established system of biological nomenclature for plants and animals. His Species Plantarum (1753) is the starting point for the naming of plants
Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694). Italian professor of medicine. Anatomist. First to observe bordered pits in wood sections. Gave first account of the development of the seed. [Malpighia; family, Malpighiaceae]
Mendel
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Austrian monk at Brünn, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Brno, Czech Republic), whose work with pea plants laid the foundation for the science of genetics.
Mirbel
Charles Brisseau-Mirbel (1776-1854). Founder of vegetable histology in France. Proposed that all plant tissue is modified parenchyma. Major student of the liverwort genus, Marchantia.
Von Mohl
Hugo von Mohl (1805-1872). Applied the term "protoplasm" to the living content of plant scribe vegetative cell division. Explained the nature of lenticels.
Nägeli
Carl W. von Nägeli (1817-1891). Description and function of the apical cell. Explained significance of primary meristem. Indentification of starch grains.
Persoon
Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761-1836). Born in South Africa, he worked as a mycologist in Germany and Paris.
Pliny II
Plinius Secundus or Pliny the Younger (23-79). Wrote 15 books on botany. Is credited with being the first to distinguish between vegetative (growth) and flowering (fruit) buds on trees.
Pringsheim
Nathaniel Pringsheim (1823-1894). Reported penetration of sperm into egg cells of algae. Described sexual process in many algae and alternation of generation in mosses.
Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (1783–1840) was an eccentric and legendary naturalist, polymath, and collector. His most important work was Medical Flora, a manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America (1828–1830).
Ray
John Ray (628-1705). English philosopher, theologian, and naturalist. In his Methodus Plantarum (1703) he proposed a classification for nearly 18,000 species. One of the first to distinguish between monocots and dicots. One of the first to suggest that sex exists in plants.
Sachs
Julius von Sachs (1832-1897). Founder of the experimental approach to plant physiology. Inventor and builder of numerous devices for the study and quantitative analysis of plant physiological processes.
Schleiden (north window)
Matthias Schleiden (1804-1881). German botanist who, with zoologist Theodor
Schwann, proposed the Cell Theory: All living organisms are composed of cells
or cell products.
Schwendener
Simon Schwendener. Swiss botanist. First to discover that lichens are composed of two organisms, in 1867.
Sprengel
Curt von Sprengel (1750-1816). German botanist. Professor of medicine at Halle. Discovered dichogamy. Investigated insects and pollination.
Strasburger
Eduard Strasburger (1844-1912). In 1877 reported the fusion of gametic nuclei in plants.
Theophrastus
(370-286 B.C.) The Father of Botany. Author of the oldest treatise on pure botany, Historia Plantarum, in which he described about 480 kinds of plants. [Family, Theophrastaceae]
Torrey (north window)
John Torrey (1796-1873). One of the fathers of American botany. Professor of botany at what is now Columbia University. Published, with Asa Gray, the Flora of North America (1838-1843) and the only Flora of the State of New York. [Torreya]
Tournefort
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708). Swiss botanist who developed our modern concept of the genus. [Pittonia]
Marshall Ward
Harry Marshall Ward (1854-1906), English forest-botanist and writer. Works include Grasses; a handbook for the use in the field and laboratory (1901); Text-book of the Diseases of Trees, with Robert Hartig (1894); The Oak; a popular introduction to forest-botany (1892); and the first English translation of Julius von Sachs' Lectures on the Physiology of Plants (1887). (Thanks to Barry Landry, Austin, Texas)
Wolff (south window)
Friedrich Wolff (1733-1794). German physiologist who reported that specialized organs arose out of unspecialized tissue, in contradiction to preformation and homunculi theories. The new description was termed "epigenesis."
Designed and produced by Jim Santo. Original biographical research by Thomas J. Delendick. Additional biographical information: Eric's Treasure Trove of Scientific Biography, Lecture notes, "History of Systematic Botany,", by James L. Reveal, Norton-Brown Herbarium, University of Maryland.
Scientist portraits courtesy of Hamburg University's Botany online web server.