Hans Walter Lack

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Hans Walter Lack 2019

Hans Walter Lack (born 1949 in Vienna ) is an Austrian botanist and Humboldt researcher, long-time director of the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin and a member of a number of international scientific societies . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Lack ".

Career and research stations

After studying biology at the University of Vienna , Lack also received his doctorate there in 1973 with a thesis on the genus Picris L. From 1973 to 1975 he was a research assistant at the University of Salzburg . Then, at the instigation of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation , Lack moved to the University of Munich and in 1977 took on a curatorial function for the Botanical Garden and the Botanical Museum in Berlin.

Lack completed his habilitation in 1981 with a study on anti-eochoric institutions at disseminules. In 1990 he was appointed director of the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin. From 1991 until his retirement in 2014 he taught and researched as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biology at the Free University of Berlin . His main research interests include the history of biodiversity research , plant taxonomy and botanical illustration, as well as the classification of daisy plants such as asters and daisies .

His research led Lack to numerous institutions at home and abroad and made him teach at other universities, for example in Italy and Greece. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen , the Academy of Non-Profit Sciences in Erfurt , the Zoological-Botanical Society in Vienna, the Pückler Society in Berlin, the International Council of Museums in Paris, the Linnean Society of London and the American Society for Plant Taxonomy in San Francisco .

Lacquer in the library of the Botanical Museum Berlin

In the laudation on the occasion of the award of the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class in February 2016 to Hans Walter Lack, in addition to his merits in the field of scientific botany and the communication of scientific-historical contexts, his commitment to the reconstruction of the library of the Berlin Botanical Garden and Museum was highlighted: " This is one of the reasons why the botanical library is one of the most important German-speaking libraries today and is therefore a central component of the Berlin library system ”.

Awards (selection)

Fonts (selection)

  • The genus Picris L. in the East Mediterranean-West Asian region . Dissertations from the University of Vienna in 1975.
  • Botany and horticulture in magnificent works . With Eva Lack: Hamburg 1985.
  • A garden for eternity: The Liechtenstein Codex . Bern 2003.
  • Jardin de la Malmaison: A garden for Empress Josephine . With Marina Heilmeyer: Munich 2004.
  • Franz Bauer: the painted testimony of nature . Vienna 2008.
  • Alexander von Humboldt and the botanical exploration of America . Munich, London, New York, 2nd updated edition 2018 (original edition 2009)
  • Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius: The book of the palms. Cologne 2010.
  • The Bauers. Joseph, Franz & Ferdinand. Masters of botanical illustration. London 2015.
  • A garden of Eden. Cologne, 3rd edition 2016.

Hans Walter Lack's list of publications has a total of almost 400 titles. (For a detailed list of publications see below: "Publications" )

Web links

Remarks

  1. Honor for Prof. Dr. H. Walter Lack. State Secretary for Science Steffen Krach presents the longstanding director of the Botanical Museum of the Free University with the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .