Christian Luerssen

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Christian Luerssen (born May 6, 1843 in Bremen , † June 28, 1916 in Charlottenburg ) was a German botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Luerss. "

biography

Youth and education

Luerssen was born the son of a cigar manufacturer in Bremen. With the desire to become a teacher, he entered the newly founded Bremen teacher training college in 1858, after graduating from the better elementary school , led by the reform pedagogue and textbook author August Lüben . After graduating, he worked as a teacher in Bremen before he was able to study natural sciences in Jena with the support of the Bremen Senate , where, in addition to zoology and botany, he also studied physics with Ernst Abbe . In 1868 he received his doctorate here with a botanical thesis and returned to Bremen.

Curator and Author

In 1869 he received an assistant position in Leipzig with August Schenk , who later gave him the position of curator of the university herbarium . In 1872 Luerssen completed his habilitation here with a thesis on the history of the development of fern sporangia . Together with Schenk, he gave Luerssen the communications from the entire field of botany (Leipz., 1871-75), while his own research during this time dealt mainly with the ferns of Australia and Oceania. In order to support his family, Luerssen, who had been married since he started working in Leipzig, was forced to take up a sideline as a writer. In addition to reviews for scientific journals, he wrote textbooks and manuals. His main features of botany and his medical-pharmaceutical botany were characterized by the clear methodical processing and achieved the status of standard works. Contemporary botanists valued Luerssen as "one of the first botanical writers living now, his textbooks and handbooks are the best that exist today".

Professor in Eberswalde

In 1884 he was appointed as a forest botanist at the Royal Forest Academy in Eberswalde . Here the cryptogams remained his research focus. As an author he appeared with the forest science part in Tuisko Lorey's Handbuch der Forstwissenschaft and with the revision of the fern plant volume of Ludwig Rabenhorst's cryptogam flora .

Botanist in Koenigsberg

In 1888 Luerssen was appointed to the University of Königsberg , where he was director of the Botanical Institute and the Botanical Garden until 1910 . During this time and until his death he was editor of the Bibliotheca Botanica , a series of botanical research papers that still exist today. His own scientific work was limited almost exclusively to the field of systematic botany , while his real strength lay in teaching and in the development of methodically thought-out teaching materials. In 1910 Luerssen retired for health reasons, which he spent in Danzig and Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Luerssen was buried in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf , where his grave has been preserved to this day.

Honors

According to Luerssen they are plant genera Luerssenia Kuhn ex Luerss. from the family of the worm fern family (Dryopteridaceae) and Luerssenidendron Domin from the family of the diamond family (Rutaceae).

Fonts (selection)

  • About the influence of the red and blue light on the flow of the protoplasm in the stinging hairs of Urtica and the filamentous hairs of Tradescantia virginica. Dissertation, Jena 1868.
  • Contributions to the history of the development of the fern sporangia. Habilitation. In: August Schenk , Christian Luerssen: Mittheilungen from the total area of ​​botany. Vol. 1, pp. 313-344, Vol. 2, pp. 1-42, Leipzig, 1872/1874, ZDB -ID 842581-4 .
  • The plant group of the ferns (= collection of common scientific lectures. Series IX, Issue 197). Lüderitz, Berlin 1874.
  • Basics of botany. Repetition for students of the natural sciences and medicine and textbook for polytechnic agricultural and forestry schools. Hermann Haessel , Leipzig 1877 (5th revised and partially revised edition, ibid. 1893).
  • Handbook of systematic botany with special consideration of medicinal plants. = Medicinisch-pharmaceutische Botany, also as a manual of systematic botany for botanists, doctors and pharmacists. 2 volumes. Haessel, Leipzig 1879–1882 Volume I (digitized version) Volume II (digitized version)
  • The plants of the Pharmacopoea Germanica. Haessel, Leipzig 1883.
  • The introduction of Japanese forest trees in German forests. In: Journal for forest and hunting. 18. Vol., ZDB -ID 395073-6 , 1886, pp. 121-143, 251-273, 313-336, 442-448, 545-580.
  • Forest botany - outline of the special morphology of German trees and shrubs, the most important types of forest floor flora and tree-spoiling fungi. In: Tuisko Lorey (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Forstwissenschaft. Vol. 1, 1: Forest Production Studies I. Laupp, Tübingen 1888, pp. 321-514.
  • The fern plants or vascular bundle cryptogams (Pteridophyta) (= Dr. Ludwig Rabenhorst's cryptogam flora of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Vol. 3). 2nd Edition. Kummer, Leipzig 1889.
  • Contributions to the knowledge of the flora of West and East Prussia. Communications from the Royal Botanical Institute of the University of Königsberg i. Pr. I - III (= Bibliotheca Botanica. Vol. 6, Issue 28, ISSN  0067-7892 ). Nägele, Stuttgart 1894, online .

literature

  • Thomas Marin (ed.): Resting place in the green. Plant life, garden design and naturalists in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-6716-3 , pp. 88-114 (bibliography pp. 125-132).
  • Frans A. Stafleu, Richard S. Cowan: Taxonomic literature. A selective Guide to botanical Publications and Collections with Dates, Commentaries and Types (= Regnum Vegetabile 105). 2nd edition. Volume 3: Lh - O. Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema et al., Utrecht 1981, ISBN 90-313-0444-1 , pp. 186-189.
  • Old Prussian biography. Volume 1: Abegg - Malten. Gräfe & Unzer, Königsberg (Pr.) 1941, p. 411f.
  • Toepffer: Christian Luerssen (obituary). In: Reports of the Bavarian Botanical Society. Volume 16, ISSN  0373-7640 , 1917, pp. 12f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oscar Brefeld 1884, cf. Thomas Marin: Christian Luerssen (1843-1916). Fern researcher and botany professor in Eberswalde and Königsberg i. Pr. In: Thomas Marin (Ed.): Resting place in the green. Plant life, garden design and naturalists in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-6716-3 , p. 92.
  2. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Luerssen, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1916
Place of death Berlin-Charlottenburg