Frits Warmolt Went

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Frits Warmolt Went (born May 18, 1903 in Utrecht , † May 2, 1990 in Reno , Nevada ) was a Dutch-American botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " FWWent ".

Life

Went was the son of the botanist Frits Went . He studied at the University of Utrecht and received his doctorate there in 1927 on the plant hormone auxin (dissertation: Growth substance and growth ). After that, he was plant pathologist at the Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg in Indonesia. There he dealt with orchids as epiphytes . From 1933 he conducted research at Caltech on plant hormones and their role in plant growth and their synthesis.

In experiments in the 1920s, he demonstrated the presence of auxin as a growth hormone in plants. In addition, he developed, independently of the Soviet scientist Nikolai Cholodny, a model named after both (Cholodny-Went model), according to which auxin is released by sensors for weight and light in the coleoptile , which controls plant growth accordingly.

In 1949, under his leadership, a complex of climate-controlled greenhouses was built at Caltech ( Phytotron , Earhardt Plant Research Laboratory), in which Went studied plant growth under controlled conditions and carried out, among other things, fundamental studies of the influence of air pollution on plant growth.

In 1958 he became director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and professor of botany at Washington University in St. Louis. There, under his direction, a greenhouse was built under a geodesic dome (Climatron). Due to conflicts with the board of directors of the Botanical Garden, he resigned from management in 1963. In 1965 he became director of the Desert Research Institute at the University of Nevada, Reno , in Reno and studied desert plants.

In 1940 he became a US citizen.

He was a passionate mountaineer and took part in expeditions to the Amazon basin, Tierra del Fuego and Alaska, among others.

He died on May 2, 1990 while visiting the Desert Research Institute, Reno, in a small valley where he had taken measurements 20 years earlier.

Honors and Membership

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (since 1947), the Royal Belgian and Dutch Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Sciences . He has received several honorary doctorates (including Sorbonne, McGill University, Uppsala).

In 1948, Went was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1962 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

Fonts

  • Growth substance and growth. JH de Bussy, 1927
  • with Kenneth Vivian Thimann : Phytohormones. 1937, reissued by Literary Licensing, LLC 2012, ISBN 125823632X
    • 植物 ホ ル モ ン.養 賢 堂, 1951
  • Sociology of the epiphytes of a tropical jungle. EJ Brill, 1940
  • with Paul-Emile Pilet: Control of Growth of “Lens Culinaris”. 1956
  • The Plants, Time Life 1963
    • As plantas. J. Olympio, 1969
    • 植物.タ イ ム ラ イ フ イ ン タ ー ナ シ ョ ナ ル, 1969
    • Las plantas. Editado por Offset Multicolor, 1972
    • В мире растений. Мир, 1972
    • The plants. Rowohlt, 1976, ISBN 3499180618
    • Les Plantes. Time-Life international, 1976
  • The Ecology of Desert Plants. Northern Nevada Native Plant Society, 1984
  • The Earhart Plant Research Laboratory. Reissued Literary Licensing, LLC 2013, ISBN 9781258655259
  • The Experimental Control of Plant Growth. reissued Literary Licensing, LLC 2012. In: Chronica Botanica Volume 17, ISBN 9781258248918
  • Black Carbon Means Blue Sky: The Hazes in the Atmosphere.

Web links

  • Arthur W. Galston, Thomas D. Sharkey: Frits Varmolt Went. 1903-1990. In: Memoirs National Academy of Sciences. National Academies Press, Washington DC 1998 (PDF), page 349 ff.
  • HF Linskens: Levens report FW 1991. In: Huygens Institute - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Jaarbook 1991 , pages 186–193 (PDF)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HF Linskens: Levensbericht FW 1991. In: Huygens Institute - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Jaarbook 1991 , p. 193.
  2. ^ Past Members: FW Went (1903–1990). Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  3. ^ List of former members since 1666: Letter W. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 15, 2020 (French).
  4. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved October 11, 2015
  5. ^ Member entry by Frits Warmolt Went at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 22, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Went, Frits Warmolt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch-American botanist
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Utrecht
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1990
Place of death Reno , Nevada