Philipp Wirtgen

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Philipp Wirtgen (around 1860).

Philipp Wilhelm Wirtgen (born December 4, 1806 in Neuwied , † September 7, 1870 in Coblenz ) was a German school teacher , botanist and fossil collector . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is “ Wirtg. "

Live and act

Philipp Wirtgen was the son of a tin bat . He attended elementary school in Neuwied and was also supposed to learn the trade of a carpenter. The parish priest and church councilor Johann Jacob Mess, who recognized the boy's interest in nature, found the fourteen year old a job as an assistant teacher at the elementary school in Neuwied. In 1824 he passed the exam as a teacher and was initially employed at the elementary school in Remagen , but moved to Winningen that same year . Seven years later he went to Koblenz and became a teacher there in 1835 at the newly established Protestant Higher City School. He held this position until his death.

Although he was older, he became a member of the Euterpia student association , which included Karl Wilhelm Arnoldi , Julius Baedeker , Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Albrecht Schöler .

Wirtgen dealt in particular with floristry , plant geography and soil science of the Rhineland . His first publication was a systematic overview of the wild-growing phanerogamic plants of the Rhine valley from Bingen to Bonn and appeared in Regensburg in 1833 in the Allgemeine Botanische Zeitung . He was friends with Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck and was in contact with the paleontologist August Goldfuß , who tried to win him over to the Bonn Botanical Garden , but he refused.

Together with Karl Wilhelm Arnoldi, Michael Bach , Nees von Esenbeck, Johann Carl Fuhlrott , Aimé Constant Fidèle Henry , Ludwig Clamor Marquart and others, Wirtgen founded the Botanical Association on the Middle and Lower Rhine in 1834 , thereby significantly stimulating botanical research in the Rhineland.

On January 1, 1852, Wirtgen with the academic surname Erhart became a member (registration number 1648) of the Leopoldina . He was a member of the Natural History Association of the Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia , the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors (Botany), the Botanical Society Regensburg and the Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique . At the request of Ludolph Christian Treviranus and Johann Jacob Nöggerath , the University of Bonn awarded him an honorary doctorate on January 18, 1853 .

His son Ferdinand Wirtgen (1848–1924) was a well-known florist who left extensive collections of vascular plants and mosses.

Honors

Carl Heinrich Schultz named the genus Wirtgenia of the sunflower family (Asteraceae) in his honor . The genus Wirtgenia established by Justus Karl Haßkarl in 1844 , which he named after a suggestion by Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn , is today a synonym for the genus Spondias of the sumac family (Anacardiaceae).

In Koblenz and in Cologne-Riehl streets were named after Philipp Wirtgen. Parts of his collection can now be found in the Wiesbaden Museum .

Fonts (selection)

  • The botanical association on the Middle and Lower Rhine . In: Flora or general botanical newspaper, 21, 1841, pp. 322-335 digitized
  • Guide to teaching botany in high schools and senior citizen schools . T. Hölscher, Coblenz 1839
  • Flora of the administrative district of Coblenz . Hölscher, 1841; digitized version
  • Prodromus of the flora of the Prussian Rhineland: first division, phanerogams ... Henry & Cohen, Bonn 1842; digitized version
  • Flora of the Prussian Rhine Province and the initially adjacent areas: a pocket book for determining the vascular plants that occur . Henry & Cohen, Bonn 1857
  • About the vegetation of the high and the volcanic Eifel . C. Georgi, Bonn 1865; digitized version
  • The Ahrthal. Nature, history, legend . A. Henry, Bonn 1866
  • From the high forest . R. Voigtländer, Kreuznach 1867
  • Flora of the Prussian Rhineland: or the vegetation of the Rhenish slate mountains and the German Lower Rhine plains . A. Henry, Bonn 1870
  • Neuwied and its surroundings in a descriptive, historical and natural history presentation . Heuser, Neuwied 1891; digitized version

proof

literature

further reading

  • G. Matzke-Hajek: List of scientific writings by Philipp Wirtgen (1806-1870) . In: Decheniana . Volume 156, 2003, pp. 113-117
  • G. Matzke-Hajek: Philipp Wirtgen (1806-1870), taxonomist and plant geographer . In: Decheniana . Volume 158, 2005, pp. 31-42

Web links

Wikisource: Philipp Wirtgen  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lutz Neitzert and Joachim Krieger: Die Euterpier or “A Muse on the Mosel” , manuscript for a contribution in the SWR online as pdf, p. 5
  2. ^ Members of the Botanical Association on the Middle and Lower Rhine as of July 31, 1836
  3. ^ Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann , Jena 1860, p. 277 (archive.org)
  4. ^ Directory of the members of the Natural History Association of the Rhineland and Westphalia (January 1, 1854), p. 9 ( digitized version )
  5. ^ Official report on the thirty-third meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors in Bonn in September 1857, Bonn 1859, p. 23 ( digitized version )
  6. ↑ Flora or General Botanical Newspaper . Volume 25, No. 2, p. 433, Regensburg 1842; online .
  7. ↑ Plantarum javanicarum aut novarum aut minus cognitarum adumbrationes . In: Flora or Allgemeine Botanische Zeitung . Volume 27, No. 2, p. 624, Regensburg 1844; online .
  8. ^ Topographical and scientific journeys through Java . 1845, p. 278; online .
personal data
SURNAME Wirtgen, Philipp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wirtgen, Philipp Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German school teacher, botanist and fossil collector
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuwied
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1870
Place of death Coblenz