Alfred Rehder

Alfred Rehder (born September 4, 1863 in Waldenburg (Saxony) , † July 25, 1949 in Jamaica Plain , Massachusetts ) was a German - American gardener and botanist specializing in dendrology . Rehder was probably the most important dendrologist of his time. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Rehder ".

Life

Rehder's father was park director in Waldenburg. Alfred Rehder learned the gardening profession from his father. He attended the grammar school in Zwickau .

His professional career began at the Botanical Garden in Berlin in 1884. Here he deepened his botanical knowledge by attending lectures by Paul Friedrich August Ascherson and August Wilhelm Eichler, among others . In 1886 he went to Frankfurt am Main , six months later to the Muskau park . There he met his future wife, the daughter of the park director there. A year later, in 1888, he moved to the Darmstadt Botanical Garden .

Another year later, he moved to the Göttingen Botanical Garden , where he was head gardener from April 1, 1889 to June 30, 1895. During his time in Göttingen he worked as an independent employee of several horticultural journals . In addition, he was also involved in the creation of the botanical alpine plant garden initiated by Albert Peter (1853–1937) in 1890 on the Brocken in the Harz Mountains . In 1895 Rehder became the second editor of one of the leading specialist magazines, Möllers Deutscher Gärtnerzeitung, in Erfurt . In 1898 the editors sent him to the USA for six months , where he was supposed to study woody plants as well as fruit and wine growing in the northeastern US states . There he met Charles Sprague Sargent , director of the Harvard University- affiliated Arnold Arboretum , located in Jamaica Plain , Massachusetts .

Rehder took on US citizenship, but never broke his ties to Germany.

In 1913 Harvard University awarded him the title of "Master of Arts". In 1914 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . From 1918 to 1940 he was the curator of the Arnold Arboretum . In 1934 he was appointed "Associate Professor of Dendrology" at Harvard University.

Rehder was the founder of the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum , which appeared as a quarterly journal from 1919 to 1990. He played a major role in the systematization of the plants Ernest Henry Wilson collected in China . Rehder also created the first system of isothermal zones for the United States, which related geographic winter temperatures to the hardiness of plants.

Honors

The plant genera Rehdera Moldenke from the family of verbs plants (Verbenaceae), Rehderodendron Hu from the family of styracaceae (Styracaceae) and Rehderophoenix Burrett from the family of palm trees (Arecaceae) have been named after him. The genus Rehsonia Stritch from the legume family (Fabaceae) honors Rehder and Ernest Henry Wilson .

Works

Rehder's work comprises around 1000 publications. Rehder's most famous work is the Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs, published for the first time in 1927 , Hardy in North America , which became, so to speak, the "Bible of the dendrologist". His most comprehensive individual work, on the other hand, is the Bibliography of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs Hardy in North America , published in 1949 , a veritable mammoth work that Rehder compiled over decades based on around 150,000 individual data. Here is a small selection of his works:

• The Bradley Bibliography; a Guide to the Literature of the Woody Plants of the World Published before the Beginning of the Twentieth Century . In: Publications of the Arnold Arboretum , No. 3. Foreword: Charles Sprague Sargent . Riverside Press 1915, doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.50453 , Textarchiv - Internet Archive
• with Ernest Henry Wilson : A Monograph of Azaleas. Rhododendron subgenus Anthodendron. University Press, Cambridge 1921, doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.25818 , doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.51369 , doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.55595
• Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs, Hardy in North America . 1927; revised second edition 1940.
• Bibliography of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs Hardy in North America . 1949 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.60035
• Plantae Wilsonianae , with Ernest Henry Wilson

literature

• Clarence E. Kobuski :? In: Journal of the Arnold Arboretum . tape 31 , no. 1 , January 1950, p. 1-38 .
• Reed C. Rollins: The End of a Generation of Harvard Botanists . In: Taxon . tape 1 , no. 1 , September 1951, p. 3-5 .

Web links

• Horticultural-Botanical Brief , 1999/4 No. 137 (PDF; 125 kB), contains a biography
• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Alfred Rehder at the IPNI
• Historical Biographies: Alfred Rehder (1863-1949). Archives of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
• Professor Alfred Rehder's Retirement . (PDF) In: Arnold Arboretum Bulletin of Popular Information , No. 11 (October 25, 1940), pp. 57–58
• Clarence E. Kobuski: Obituary . In: Journal of the Arnold Arboretum , Volume 31, January 1950.
• Alfred Rehder (1863-1949) papers, 1898-1949 . (PDF) Archives of the Arnold Arboretum , II A – Z, Guide (with detailed biography) + photos
• Lisa Pearson: Remembering Alfred Rehder . (PDF) Library and Archives at the Arnold Arboretum, 7 pages
• Arnd-Rüdiger Grimmer: Lecture on the 150th birthday of the dendrologist Alfred Rehder.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{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 .