Alexander Braun (botanist)

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Alexander Braun, lithograph by an unknown artist, 1850

Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun (born May 10, 1805 in Regensburg , † March 29, 1877 in Berlin ) was a German botanist and university professor. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " A.Braun ".

Life

Braun studied medicine and natural sciences, especially botany, in Heidelberg from 1824 to 1827 . During his studies he made friends with Karl Friedrich Schimper , Louis Agassiz and Georg Engelmann , with whom he had been in contact throughout his life. In 1830 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy . He continued his botanical studies at the University of Munich until 1831 and in Paris until 1832 . In 1833 he was appointed professor of botany and zoology at the Polytechnic in Karlsruhe . In 1837 he also became director of the grand ducal natural history cabinet . In 1840 he founded the Karlsruhe Natural Science Association .

In 1846 he was appointed full professor of botany at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau , where he also became director of the botanical garden . As early as 1850 he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Gießen and then moved to the University of Berlin in 1851 . In 1869 he was one of the founders of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory . He was then deputy chairman until his death in 1877. He was a member of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors and was elected a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1854 . In 1861 he was elected to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , in 1865 to the National Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Sciences, and in 1870 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

plant

Braun was the main representative of the idealistic comparative morphology of plants. On the basis of his natural philosophical views, he developed his doctrine of the leaf position of plants, which was based on earlier theories of Karl Friedrich Schimper. This approach is also based on his plant systematic and flower morphological work. In his systematics, he tried to place the arrangement of plants on a comparative morphological basis in connection with the historical development of the plant kingdom. His microscopic investigations into cryptogams made important contributions to the development of cell theory .

Honor

The bryologist Wilhelm Philipp Schimper named a moss genus Braunia in honor of Braun . The plant genus Albraunia Speta from the plantain family (Plantaginaceae) is named after him.

Fonts (selection)

Plate XXXII of the investigation into the order of the scales on the pine cones (1831)
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literature

Web links

Wikisource: Alexander Braun  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Alexander Braun  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry of Alexander Braun at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
  3. ↑ Member entry of Alexander Braun (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on February 5, 2016.
  4. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 48.
  5. ↑ a b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic 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 .
  6. ↑ Try to explain the metamorphosis of plants .
  7. ↑ With contributions by Robert Caspary and Anton de Bary .
personal data
SURNAME Braun, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Braun, Alexander Carl Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1877
Place of death Berlin