Benjamin Smith Barton

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Benjamin Smith Barton

Benjamin Smith Barton (born February 10, 1766 in Lancaster , Pennsylvania , USA , † December 19, 1815 in New York , NY ) was an American botanist , doctor and pharmacist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Barton ". He is the uncle of the botanist William Paul Crillon Barton (1786-1856).

Live and act

Initially, Barton went to school in Philadelphia , but in 1786 moved to Edinburgh and London to study medicine . In 1789 he returned to teach at the University of Pennsylvania as a professor of natural history and medicine. During this time he also dealt with chemistry and pharmacy (Materna Medica). In 1793 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He wrote the first North American textbook on botany, Elements of Botany , which appeared in 1804. His other publications illustrate his wide range of interests. There are treatises on the rattlesnake , on the origins of the Native American Indians and several medical works.

Barton also supported the important Lewis and Clark Expedition that set out in 1804 to explore western North America. Barton did not take part in the expedition himself, but trained its participants in collecting, documenting and taxonomically correct naming of finds. After the researchers returned, Barton began evaluating the samples in 1806, but died unexpectedly in 1815 before he could finish his work.

In 1789 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1804 he received the Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society. From 1812 he was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . In 1801 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Honor taxon

After him the plant genus is Bartonia Muhl. ex Willd. from the gentian family (Gentianaceae). The magazine "Bartonia" is named after him and his nephew William Paul Crillon Barton in 1908 ff.

Works

  • Fragments of the natural history of Pennsylvania . 1799.
  • Elements of botany ... 1804 (2nd edition 1812–1814, 3rd edition 1827).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Walter Erhardt among others: The great pikeperch. Encyclopedia of Plant Names . Volume 2, page 1880. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008. ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7
  2. ^ Member History: Benjamin Smith Barton. American Philosophical Society, accessed April 21, 2018 .
  3. ^ The Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society , website of the APS . Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  4. ^ Members of the previous academies. Benjamin Smith Barton. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on February 18, 2015 .
  5. 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. 32.
  6. Robert Zander : Zander hand dictionary of plant names. Edited by Fritz Encke , Günther Buchheim, Siegmund Seybold . 13th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-8001-5042-5 .
  7. a b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]