Illustrated flora of Central Europe

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Hegi Rosaceaereceptacles.png

The Illustrierte Flora von Mittel-Europa , with the full title Illustrierte Flora von Mittel-Europa with special consideration of Germany, Austria and Switzerland for use in schools and for self-teaching , is a flora of German language founded by Gustav Hegi , which the entire stock seeks to depict the Central European flora. It is an important standard work to the present day .

The work was only completed in the first edition, a subsequent second edition remained unfinished, in particular due to several changes of publisher, although individual volumes have already been reissued for a third time. The "Hegi" - often called after its founder - has been updated to this day, currently by the Jenaer Weissdorn-Verlag .

Edition history

Hegi had already written the successful “ Alpenflora ” in 1905 , which aroused the desire of his publisher, Julius Friedrich Lehmann , for a comparable work for the German flora. In 1906, Hegi took over the commission. The scope of the processed region was based on a far-reaching understanding of the German-speaking area and included Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, northwestern Yugoslavia, northern Italy and eastern France.

In 1908 Hegi presented the first volume of the work, in 1931 the last. After completion, the work comprised 13 volumes with around 7,000 pages. Around two thirds of the entire text came from Hegi, important co-authors were Helmut Gams (Vol. 4, Part 3 and Vol. 5, Part 1 and 4), Albert Thellung (Vol. 4, Part 1), but also Heinrich Marzell , who looked after the common names in all volumes. Towards the end of work, Hegi fell seriously ill and died shortly after the publication of the last volume in 1932.

As early as 1935, edited by Karl Suessenguth , the first volume of a second, slightly revised edition appeared with an updated volume 1, another (the first sub-volume of volume 2) followed in 1939. During the Second World War, work on the Flora was suspended, the next Volume 3, edited by Karl Heinz Rechinger , was not published until 1958. A third edition appeared in 1966. In 1975 the Paul Parey Verlag took over the project, with its bankruptcy it was taken over by Blackwell Verlag in 1995 , and later again by Weissdorn Verlag in Jena, which is currently running the project. The change was published more or less continuously, regardless of further volumes, but often in individual deliveries. The edition is currently very heterogeneous: while individual volumes are already in the third edition, other volumes have not been revised since the first edition.

As an accompanying work, Ulrich Hamann and Gerhard Wagenitz published a "Bibliography on the Flora of Central Europe" in 1970 and in the second edition in 1977 .

meaning

There is currently no comparable work for the region, here it is still the standard work. The "Illustrated Flora of Central Europe" was extremely influential, it was one of the five flora works that formed the basis of the Flora Europaea .

In 1987, in a review of a new volume, Rudolf Schmid summed up that the flora was “… remarkable because of its beautiful illustrations, extensive bibliographies and detailed descriptions of the morphology, anatomy, taxonomy, ecology and floristry of the taxa treated. The work has significance far beyond the boundaries of the treated area because of its treatment of cultivated and widespread plants as well as its detailed and current representation of the knowledge in the aforementioned areas. "

The enormous scope of the "Hegi", which - in addition to the usual, however very detailed description and taxonomic information - even took into account aspects such as ethnobotany, folk names, palynology, paleobotany, phytochemistry, etc., raised questions as to whether this was still the the actual function of a flora.

Digitized editions of the first edition

The University and State Library of Düsseldorf and the Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes (Poland) have published the following volumes as digitized editions:

Expenses (selection)

  • Gustav Hegi: Illustrated flora of Central Europe. 2nd edition, from Volume 7 (1975) ed. by Hans J. Conert u. a.

proof

  1. ↑ a b c Anonymus: Background - On the history and future of the HEGI , website of the publisher, online
  2. ↑ a b Rudolf Schmid: Review Gustav Hegi's Illustrated Flora of Central Europe, Vol. 1, Pteridophyta, Spermatophyta, 3rd ed., Part 1, Pteridophyta by HJ Conert; U. Hamann; W. Schultze Motel; G. Wagenitz; KU Kramer; J. Dostál; T. Reichstein; CR Fraser-Jenkins; Gustav Hegi In: Taxon. Tape. 36, No. 4, 1987, p. 777, DOI: 10.2307 / 1221140 .
  3. ^ A b D. G. Frodin: Guide to standard floras of the world. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-521-79077-8 , pp. 572-574.