Karl Sigismund Kunth

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Karl Sigismund Kunth

Karl Sigismund Kunth (born June 18, 1788 in Leipzig , † March 22, 1850 in Berlin ) was a German botanist . He spent 16 years of his working life, as the successor to his teacher Carl Ludwig Willdenow in Paris, creating and preparing for publication the scientific description of the plant species that Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland had brought back from their trip to South America. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Kunth ".

life and work

Karl Sigismund Kunth was the nephew of Gottlob Johann Christian Kunth , the educator of the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt. He attended the Leipziger Rathsschule, but could not take up an academic course due to lack of financial means. His uncle Gottlob Johann Christian Kunth got him a job in Berlin at the Prussian Sea Trading Company , where he found the opportunity to close his scientific training gaps autodidactically and to deal with botany, supported by Carl Ludwig Willdenow. His first publication was Flora Berolinensis in 1813 , a botanical science of Berlin based on the Linnaeus system .

On Willdenow's recommendation, he replaced him in the scientific processing of the botanical yields from Humboldt's and Bonpland's American trip in Paris in 1813. "Only now - nine years after Humboldt and Bonpland returned to Paris - did the methodical recording of the yield of the expedition begin," says Hans Walter Lack , "and the work done by Kunth is still admirable and of outstanding importance." It was Kunth who, at Humboldt's instigation, visited Bonpland in Le Havre, which was embarking for Buenos Aires , in 1816 and summoned, if not the parts of the herbarium of the American voyage already stored on board, in his possession, at least to hand over the Journal botanique to him without the Kunth would not have been able to continue the systematic recording and publication of the botanical travel income that had begun. This is the field book - recently available online in the form of digital copies - in which mainly Bonpland and occasionally Humboldt entered the description of the plants and animals observed in the area, including provisional determinations, “where each entry begins with a number, followed by a provisional determination, a description and mostly an indication of the location ”.

In Paris, Kunth, who shared an apartment there with Alexander von Humboldt, used the large collections of the Jardin des Plantes for his development work; and he soon enjoyed high esteem from famous French botanists such as Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu and Louis Claude Marie Richard . Lack sees a “masterpiece of coordination” in the fact that Kunth not only managed to complete the seven volumes of Nova Genera et Species plantarum in the nine years between 1816 and 1825 , but also to have them appear more or less regularly over the years, especially since he also had to guide and supervise the work of the engraver Pierre Jean François Turpin and also initiated and completed two subsequent works of his own: firstly, Mimoses et autres plantes Légumineuses du Nouveau Continent, recueillies par MM de Humboldt et Bonpland ; on the other hand Synopsis plantarum, quas, in itinere ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi, collegerunt Al. de Humboldt et Am. Receipt plan .

In 1818 Kunth became a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris. From 1822 he was a member of the Leopoldina , from 1826 a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Two years after Humboldt, Kunth returned from Paris to Berlin in 1829. He followed a call as a full professor of botany at the Berlin University and also took on the role of vice director in the botanical garden . In the same year he was accepted as a full member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences , in which he lectured and published botanical treatises in the following years.

Between 1833 and the year Kunth died in 1850, his work Enumeratio plantarum omnium hucusque cognitarum, secundum familias naturales disposita, adjectis characteribus, differentiis, et synonymis appeared in five volumes. It served Benjamin Daydon Jackson as one of the basic works for the creation of the Index Kewensis . In 1850, Kunth, suffering from depression in his last months, committed suicide . In the obituary that Alexander von Humboldt dedicated to him, it said, among other things: “But who could his early death shake more deeply in his innermost feelings than me, who, with his 37 years of common ideas and endeavors, a large part of the friend It owes the favor and attention which the public has given and which has given Bonpland's botanical research in the equinoctial zone so abundantly and continuously. ”The Journal botanique was handed over as Bonpland's property to Humboldt, who in turn sent it to the Muséum d'histoire naturelle in Paris; Kunth's herbarium, containing 55,000 species, and his library were bought by the Prussian state at Humboldt's instigation from Kunth's widow and transferred to the Berlin Botanical Garden.

Honors

According to Kunth, the genus Kunthia Bonpl. from the family of the palm trees (Arecaceae) and Kuntheria Conran & Clifford from the family of the timeless plants (Colchicaceae) named.

Fonts (selection)

  • Flora berolinensis, sive Enumeratio vegetabilium circa Berolinum sponte crescentium . Berlin 1813 ( online ).
  • Nova genera et species plantarum quas in peregrinatione ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi collegerunt Bonpland et Humboldt . Paris ( biodiversitylibrary.org - 7 volumes; 1815–1825).
  • Mimoses et autres plantes Légumineuses du Nouveau Continent, recueillies par MM de Humboldt et Bonpland . 1819.
  • Synopsis plantarum, quas, in itinere ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi, collegerunt Al. de Humboldt et Am. Bonpland . (1822-1823).
  • Les graminées de l'Amérique du Sud . (2 volumes; 1825–1833).
  • Handbook of Botany . Berlin 1831, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb11272059-7 .
  • Enumeratio plantarum omnium hucusque cognitarum, secundum familias naturales disposita, adjectis characteribus, differentiis et synonymis . Stuttgart and Tübingen ( rjb.csic.es - 1833–1850).
  • Flora berolinensis sive Enumeratio vegetabilium circa Berolinum sponte crescentium secundum familias naturales disposita . Berlin 1838 ( online ).
  • Textbook of botany . 1847, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10302133-1 .
  • Les melastomees et autres plantes legumineuses de l'Amerique du Sud . (1847-1852).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Wunschmann:  Kunth, Karl Sigismund . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, pp. 394-397.
  2. ^ Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 65.
  3. ^ Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 74.
  4. ↑ Examples here
  5. ↑ Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 23. With the help of the mere key figures that were attached to the collected - and sent on various occasions - finds, the correct subsequent reassignment was ensured: "The Journal botanique proves to be exemplary document of the work done in the field and also meets the most modern requirements for a field book. "(Ibid.)
  6. ^ Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 63.
  7. ^ Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 74 f.
  8. ^ List of members since 1666: letter K. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 6, 2020 (French).
  9. ↑ 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. 142.
  10. ^ Benjamin Dayton Jackson: The new 'Index of Plant-Names'. In: The Botanical Journal - British and Foreign . Vol. XXV. West, Newman & Co., London 1887, pp. 66-71
  11. ↑ Quoted from Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 91.
  12. ↑ Quoted from Lack, 2nd edition 2018, p. 93.
  13. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Kunth, Karl Sigismund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kunth, Carl Sigismund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1788
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1850
Place of death Berlin