Albrecht Wilhelm Roth

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Albrecht Roth

Albrecht Wilhelm Roth (born January 6, 1757 in Dötlingen , † October 16, 1834 in Vegesack ) was a German doctor and botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Roth ".

biography

The Linnaeus Obelisk in Höpkensruh Park in Bremen-Oberneuland . Erected around 1800 to commemorate Roth, Carl von Linné , Albrecht von Haller and Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin .

Roth was the eldest son of eleven children of Pastor Gottfried Roth (1720–1784). After finishing school at the old grammar school in Oldenburg , he attended the orphanage school in Halle from 1772 . From 1778 he studied medicine at the University of Halle , joined in the 4th semester of Erlangen and was there in 1788 as a doctor of medicine doctorate . Already during his studies his main interest was botany and as early as 1778 he published an introduction to the systematic collection of plants and advocated the inclusion of the subject natural history in school lessons in a short treatise. In 1778, at the age of 21, Roth settled as a doctor in his home town of Dötlingen, but moved to Vegesack as early as 1779, where he was the only doctor to find a very wide field of activity in the village, which at that time had around 1000 inhabitants and its surroundings. In 1781 he was appointed country physician and published some medical reports.

No sooner did he settle in Vegesack than he began a lively scientific research and publication activity and from 1781 published a series of fundamental treatises in which, among other things, he described his discovery of the stimulus mechanism of the sundew . At the suggestion of Georg Christian von Oeders , with whom he met in Dötlingen in 1779, he then published from 1788 Tentamen florae germanicae , a system of all German plants, which enormously increased Roth's fame as a researcher. The Bremen doctor and natural scientist Wilhelm Olbers Focke was able to rightly write in an article about Roth: "During the first decade of the 19th century, Roth was one of the most respected German plant experts [...]".

In 1787 Roth acquired a plot of land on the high steep bank of the Weser in what was then Neu-Vegesack, today Weserstrasse 74, 75, 75c, on which he created a large garden. At that time, this part of Vegesack still belonged to Kurhannover and only became part of Bremen in 1803. Part of the garden now serves as Vegesack's public city ​​garden . His house was on the other side of the street at the level of Weserstraße 32 at the corner of Kimmstraße, which was rebuilt in 1840.

He also earned special merit through research into the algae flora , in which he was supported by Johann Friedrich Trentepohl . In 1802 his research trip to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea took place to explore marine algae. His numerous studies and papers earned him the appointment of a member of a total of eighteen scientific societies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and England. The high reputation of Roth and his own knowledge of his writings prompted Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to propose Roth for the botany chair at the University of Jena in 1803 and at the University of Erlangen in 1810. However, he turned down both offers, as he feared interference by Goethe in his work and in his scientific independence. In 1789 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1808 he became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . With increasing age, his professional work gave him less and less strength for his research. After 1810 he published only one larger work on the Indian flora based on an extensive plant collection of the British East India Company that was available to him, as well as two revised new versions of his "tentamen".

Despite his inadequate resources, Roth's work formed the cornerstone and starting point for further research and contributed significantly to the fact that botany was able to develop from an auxiliary science of medicine to an independent scientific discipline during his lifetime.

family

Roth was married three times. On June 19, 1783 he married the Bremen broker's daughter Philippine Margaretha Brockmann (1765–1802). After her death, on August 30, 1804, he married Margarethe König (1778–1813), a merchant's daughter from Bremen. On March 11, 1814, he finally married Clara Dorothea Henriette Augusta Steinberg (1789–1872), the daughter of the Hanoverian lawyer Johann Steinberg. These marriages resulted in a total of three sons and three daughters.

Honors

  • The plant genus Rothia Schreb. from the sunflower family (Asteraceae) is named after him.
  • In Bremen-Vegesack, Albrecht-Roth-Strasse was named after him.
  • His tomb with a portrait relief made of bronze is located in front of the Vegesack Church at Kirchheide 18.

Fonts (selection)

  • Instructions for beginners to collect plants for use and pleasure and to determine them according to the Linnaeus system . Gotha 1778, 1783, 1803.
  • About the way and the need to cover natural history in schools . Nuremberg 1779.
  • List of those plants which, according to the number and nature of their genitals, do not belong to the appropriate classes and orders of the Linnean system . Altenburg 1781.
  • Contributions to botany . 2 volumes. Bremen 1782–1783.
  • Herbarium plantarum officinalium . Hanover 1785.
  • Botanical treatises and observations . Nuremberg 1787.
  • Tentamen florae germanicae . 3 volumes Leipzig. 1788–1800 ( doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.6694 ).
  • Remarks on the Study of the Cryptogamic Aquaculture . Hanover 1797.
  • Catalecta botanica quibus plantae novae et minus cognitae describuntur atque illustrantur . 3 volumes, Leipzig 1797–1806.
  • New contributions to botany . Frankfurt. 1802.
  • Botanical remarks and corrections . Leipzig 1807.
  • What are varieties in the plant kingdom and how can they be identified? . Regensburg 1811.
  • Novae plantarum species praesertim Indiae orientalis ex Collectione Benj. Heynii cum descriptionibus et observationibus . Halberstadt 1821.
  • Enumeratio plantarum phaenogamarum in Germania sponte nascentium . Leipzig 1827.
  • Manuale botanicum peregrinationibus botanicis accomodatum . 3 volumes, Leipzig 1830.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member entry of Albrecht Wilhelm Roth at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.
  2. ↑ Prof. Dr. Albrecht Wilhelm Roth , member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
  3. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Albrecht Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roth, Albrecht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1757
PLACE OF BIRTH Dotlingen
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1834
Place of death Vegesack