Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck

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Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1855).

Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck or Christianus Godofredus Nees from Esenbeck (born February 14, 1776 at Reichenberg Castle near Reichelsheim in the Odenwald ; † March 16, 1858 in Breslau ) was a German medic, doctor, botanist , embryologist , naturalist, "Mesmerist" and natural philosopher as well as writer, politician and member of parliament. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Nees ".

Life

origin

Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees was the son of the count's rent master Johann Conrad Nees and his wife Katharina Friederika Dorothea Esenbeck. The botanist Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck was his brother.

family

On August 19, 1802, he married Wilhelmine Luise Katharina von Ditfurth (1773-1803) in Sickershausen . After the wedding, the couple retired to the wife's estate in Sickershausen and he devoted himself entirely to his research. His wife died on September 22nd, 1803, and since then Christian Gottfried Daniel added his family name “Nees” to “Nees von Esenbeck”.

After a short period of mourning, Nees married Elisabetha Jakobina von Mettingh (1783–1857) on March 5, 1804. With her he had three daughters and two sons, namely:

  • Friedrich (* 1806), teacher in Hamm, pastor in Boppard,
  • Maria Carolina Friederike Clara (* 1807)
  • Karl Heinrich August Theodor (* 1809), from 1853 to 1880 inspector of the Wroclaw Botanical Garden
  • Emilie Elisabetha Franziska (* 1816) ∞ Christian Cron (1813–1892), high school professor for classical philology in Augsburg
  • Julia (1819–1887) ∞ Siegfried Pfaff, Dr. phil., high school professor in Erlangen, parents of Hermann von Pfaff

At the beginning of 1830 Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees left his family and settled in Breslau with Marie Hüllmann, the wife of his colleague Dietrich Hüllmann . On October 10 of the same year he was legally divorced from his wife. Three years later he married Marie Hüllmann in Breslau in 1833. After six years of marriage, Nees also left this wife (no divorce) and lived with his cook Christiane Kambach from 1839 until the end of his life. With her he had a son and three daughters.

Working as a scientist

After his first lessons by private tutors, Nees attended grammar school in Darmstadt . From 1795 to 1799 he studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Jena . His teachers were professors August Batsch , Justus Christian von Loder and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland .

After Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees had received his doctorate with a medical dissertation at the University of Gießen in 1800 , he went back to the Odenwald and practiced in Erbach at the court of Count Franz I. von Erbach . Two years later he settled in Sickershausen near Kitzingen / Main.

In 1815 he was co-founder and director of the Society of Corresponding Botanists initiated by Christian Friedrich Hornschuch . With effect from May 3, 1816, Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees was registered under matriculation no. Admitted to the Leopoldina as a full member in 1054 with the academic surname Aristotle III . During these years he corresponded frequently with the entomologist Friedrich Klug and his house became a meeting place for like-minded scientists such as Joseph Eduard d'Alton , Ignaz Döllinger , Georg August Goldfuß , Christian Friedrich Hornschuch, Dietrich Georg Kieser and Elias von Siebold .

In addition to general meetings and discussions, there was also scientific work at Gut Sickershausen. Christian Heinrich Pander and Karl Ernst von Baer carried out their examinations on the chicken embryo here. Lorenz Oken (1779–1851) took advantage of the seclusion of rural life and wrote a number of writings here. Nees wrote two reviews of two of Oken's early works, The Generation and Outline of the System of Biology in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literaturzeitung in 1806 and 1808, respectively .

For economic reasons, Nees accepted a position as a lecturer for botany at the University of Erlangen in 1817 and was appointed professor for natural history and botany at the University of Bonn in 1818 . On August 8, 1818, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina elected him to succeed Friedrich von Wendt as its new president. In 1835, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed him an external member of the mathematical-physical class.

In Bonn, he was - without having written a dissertation in this subject - the end of 1818 Dr. phil. PhD. From March 1819, he and his brother Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck led the reconstruction of the botanical garden . He held this office until 1830; by his own admission, it was a pleasant pastime . In 1819 Nees met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar . For a long time he has been enthusiastic about its metamorphoses . In a letter dated April 5, 1823, he informed Goethe that a plant species had now been named after him in his honor: Goethea semperflorens and Goethea cauliflora . Nees received the seeds of this mallow plant from Maximilian Prinz zu Wied , who brought them to the Rhine from Brazil.

After separating from his wife, Nees von Esenbeck went to Breslau in 1830, where he was entrusted with the management of the botanical garden. This fast, unbureaucratic transfer was only possible by swapping jobs with Ludolph Christian Treviranus .

He had also made a special contribution to the systematics of cryptogams , he conducted research in the zoological field and was one of the main representatives of natural philosophy of his time.

Political commitment

Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees was politically active. At least since 1840 he was close to the political Vormärz . In 1845 he joined the German Catholic movement and was instrumental in founding the workers' association in Wroclaw in 1848 . On August 23, 1848 he acted as President of the Berlin Workers' Congress and was elected as a member of the Prussian National Assembly. There he belonged to the left parliamentary group , whose politics he helped shape.

Nees also had his share in the workers' fraternization . Because of this activity, he was expelled from Berlin in January 1849 "whether there were dangerous social aspirations". In Breslau he was constantly monitored by the police and because of his "socio-political" lectures, which he held in the spring of 1849, he was suspended with effect from January 31, 1851, and his salary was reduced by 50%. On March 13, 1852, disciplinary proceedings ended with his dismissal and complete cancellation of his pension.

His economic situation deteriorated and he was forced to sell his private library and herbaria . He also pledged some of the Leopoldina's library. His political attitude did not damage his reputation; he remained a highly respected scientist well after his death.

Honors

The plant species were named in his honor

named.

The Nees Institute for Biodiversity at the Plant University of Bonn also bears his name.

Works (selection)

  • The algae of the sweet water are shown according to their stages of development (1814)
  • The system of mushrooms and sponges. One try. 2 volumes (Würzburg 1816–1817)
  • My first audience on May 4th, 1818. (Printed as handwriting) Würzburg 1818
  • Elenchus Plantarum Horti Botanici Bonnensis (together with TFL Nees von Esenbeck ) (1820) [1]
  • Lectures on the evolutionary history of magnetic sleep and dream (Bonn 1820)
  • Handbook of Botany . Schrag, Nuremberg 1820/1821 (Volumes 1–2) Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • De Cinnamomo disputatio (with TFL Nees von Esenbeck, 1823)
  • Plantarum, in Horto medico Bonnensi nutritarum, Icones selectae . Bonnae 1824 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Bryologia germanica (with Hornschuch and Sturm, 1823–1831, 2 volumes with 43 plates)
  • The German blackberry bushes (with consecration ) Schönian, Elberfeld 1827 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Agrostologia brasiliensis (1829)
  • Genera et species Asterearum (1833)
  • Natural history of the European liverworts with memories from the Giant Mountains (Berlin 1833–1838, 4 volumes)
  • Hymenopterorum Ichneumonibus affinium monographiae, genera Europaea et species illustrantes (1834, 2 volumes)
  • Systema Laurinarum (1836)
  • Florae Africae australioris illustrationes monographicae. I. Gramineae (1841)
  • with Karl Moritz Gottsche , Johann Bernhard Wilhelm Lindenberg Synopsis Hepaticarum , Hamburg, 5 parts, 1844–1847
  • The System of Speculative Philosophy, Volume 1: Natural Philosophy (Glogau 1841)
  • Synopsis Hepaticarum (with Carl Moritz Gottsche and Johann Lindenberg, 1844)
  • The general theory of forms of nature as a preschool for natural history (1852)
  • Life in Religion (Rastenburg 1853).

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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 .

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Nees von Esenbeck, Christian Gottfried Daniel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nees von Esenbeck, Christian Gottfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist and natural philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Reichenberg Castle near Erbach
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1858
Place of death Wroclaw