Erich Werdermann

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Erich Werdermann (born March 2, 1892 in Berlin , † April 20, 1959 in Hamburg ) was a German botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Werderm. "

Live and act

Erich Werdermann was the son of the landowner Carl Werdermann. After graduating from the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in Charlottenburg in 1910 , he began studying natural sciences. He initially studied in Jena but then moved to the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . During his studies in 1910 he became a member of the Arminia fraternity in the castle cellar . In 1914, shortly before completing his studies, Werdermann was called up. In 1915 he was promoted to officer. After recovering from a serious injury suffered in 1918, he was able to continue his studies. In the following year Werdermann did his doctorate with a work on plant physiology with Gottlieb Haberlandt . From 1919 to 1920 he then worked at the Biological Reichsanstalt in Berlin, where Peter Claussen (1877–1959) aroused his interest in mushrooms . From 1920 to 1921 Werdermann was a scientific assistant at the Reich Health Office under Ernst Friedrich Gilg , who introduced him to pharmacognosy and who recommended him to the Botanical Museum in Berlin-Dahlem. In 1921 he became a scheduled assistant there as the successor to Rudolf Schlechter . His job was to look after the mushrooms in the museum's herbarium .

In 1923 Werdermann began a four-year collecting and research stay in Chile and the neighboring countries. After his return, he succeeded Friedrich Vaupel as custodian of the botanical garden and was responsible for looking after the cacti and other succulents in the herbarium as well as for the scientific revision of the stocks in the greenhouses of the botanical garden. In 1927 he was elected President of the German Cactus Society , an office he held until 1934. His plans to return to Chile in 1929 to take up a chair in biology came to nothing. Instead, he traveled to Madrid to view the collections of Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez . In 1929 he married Hildegard Hauser.

In 1930 Werdermann began to publish the work Blooming Cacti and Other Succulent Plants , which appeared in 42 deliveries by 1939 and contained numerous color photographs he had made himself. His book Brazil and its columnar cacti was the result of a trip through northeastern Brazil in 1932 . In 1933 he accepted an invitation from the Huntington Botanical Gardens near Los Angeles to revise the local succulent plants. Before his stay there, he toured Mexico , Texas and Arizona from March to May and returned to Mexico after completing his studies in Los Angeles at the end of October. In November 1933 Werdermann was given the official title of “curator and professor”. The work Meine Kakteen , written together with Hugo Sočnik, appeared in 1937 .

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Werdermann volunteered for military support despite his handicap, during which he gave numerous slide shows about his travels. The destruction of the Botanical Garden on March 1, 1943 also affected his study with its scientific library and its collections. After the war ended, Werdermann devoted himself to rebuilding the botanical garden and the greenhouses. From 1948 he held lectures and internships on pharmacognosy at the newly founded Free University of Berlin . In 1950 he was one of the participants in the 7th International Botanical Congress in Stockholm . In 1951 Werdermann was initially acting head and in 1955 finally director of the Botanical Garden. He retired on April 1, 1958. In August 1958 he traveled to South Africa to study the local succulent flora. The result of this trip was an extensive collection of herbarium material, numerous living plants and 500 color photographs. Werdermann died shortly after arriving in Germany. He was buried in the Botanical Garden next to Adolf Engler and Ludwig Diels .

Gravestone of Erich Werdermann in the Botanical Garden Berlin

Erich Werdermann was the first to describe four new genera, the cactus genus Blossfeldia , Pheliandra (today a synonym for Solanum ) and the mushroom genera Haplodothella and Corollospora . He described four new species of mushrooms and 156 new species of cacti and other succulents.

Taxa named after Werdermann

In 1928 Otto Eugen Schulz named the genus Werdermannia from the cruciferous plant family in his honor and Alberto Vojtěch Frič in 1930 named the genus Neowerdermannia from the cactus plant family . Furthermore, eleven species bear his name.

Fonts (selection)

Erich Werdermann published 130 articles and books, 96 of them about cacti and other succulents.

  • Can transversal phototropic foliage leaves perceive the direction of light after their upper epidermis has been destroyed? In: Contributions to general botany . Volume 2, Number 3, 1922, pp. 248-275.
  • Brazil and its columnar cacti . J. Neumann, Neudamm 1933.
  • My cacti. Species, care and cultivation . Trowitzsch, Frankfurt a. O. / Berlin 1937. (with Hugo Sočnik)
  • Overview of the species of the genus Ceropegia originating from the Belgian Congo . In: Bulletin du Jardin botanique de l'État à Bruxelles . Volume 15, 1938/1939, pp. 222-240.
  • Flowering cacti and other succulent plants . 42 deliveries, Neumann-Neudamm / Berlin 1930–1939.
  • Fungi . In: A. Engler: Syllabus of the plant families . 12th edition. Volume 1, 1954, pp. 138-204.
  • Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden. Guide through the field . Gebr. Borntraeger, Berlin 1954.

proof

literature

  • Fritz Mattick: Erich Werdermann 1892–1959 . In: Willdenowia . Volume 3, Number 1, 1962, pp. 1-19, JSTOR 3995288 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Nolte (Ed.): Burschenschafter Stammrolle. List of the members of the German Burschenschaft according to the status of the summer semester 1934. Berlin 1934. P. 537.
  2. ↑ Kaktusář . Volume 1, p. 85, Brno 1930.
  3. ↑ 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

Commons : Erich Werdermann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Become a man, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1959
Place of death Hamburg