Johann August Carl Sievers

Johann August Carl Sievers , also Johann August Karl Sievers and Johann Erasmus Sievers , (* 1762 in Peine ; † April 6, 1795 in St. Petersburg ) was a German botanist who worked in Asia . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is “ Siev. "

Life

Sievers came from Peine and emigrated to Saint Petersburg in 1785 at the age of twenty-two . In 1789 he was commissioned to research medicinal rhubarb in Siberia . The dried root served as an indispensable laxative. The so-called medicinal rhubarb, introduced by the Arabs to Western Europe in the 6th century, was one of the most sought-after and most expensive herbal drugs. In order to become independent of Chinese imports, the Russian Medical College endeavored to find places where the original rhubarb was found on their territory or to develop suitable rhubarb from the Siberian rheum raponticum by cultivating it in order to be able to sell it.

Sievers was destined for the position of the Krons pharmacist. However, his search was in vain because he could not find the real rhubarb, also due to the fact that he was not allowed to enter China . The real Chinese rhubarb was not identified as Rheum palmatum L. (medicinal rhubarb) until the 1870s, after cultivated seeds that the Russian geographer and explorer of Central Asia, Nikolai Mikhailovich Prschewalski , brought from China to St. Petersburg in the 1870s.

Sievers wrote detailed reports on his search expeditions from 1790 to 1795, which took him from the Urals to Dauria , to the Kyrgyz and Soongor steppes and Mongolia . Peter Simon Pallas published it in the Latest Nordic Contributions under the title Sievers Letters . Sievers put together an extensive range of plants that could be produced during the search trips . Building on this, Pallas prepared a publication in 1795 with the title Plantae novae ex herbario et schedis defuncti botanici Johannis Sievers descriptae for the Nova acta of the St. Petersburg Academy.

Honors

After Sievers are named:

• the Asiatic wild apple ( Malus sieversii ); According to the latest research, the stem form of the cultivated apple (named by Carl Friedrich von Ledebour )
• the genus Sieversia (by Carl Ludwig Willdenow ), today Geum ( Geum ) from the family of the rose family (Rosaceae)
• the Sievers mugwort Artemisia sieversiana (by Carl Ludwig Willdenow)
• The tragacanth species Astragalus sieversianus (by Peter Simon Pallas )
• The genus Novosieversia (by Friedrich Franz August Albrecht Bolle ) from the rose family (Rosaceae)

Works

• Letters from Siberia to his teacher, the royal. British court pharmacist Mr. Brande, the royal. British botanist, Mr. Erhardt, and the mining commissioner and council pharmacist, Mr. Westrum. Logan, St. Petersburg 1796. Digitized and full text in the German text archive
• Portrait of the captain Daikokuya Kodayu , Studbook of Johann August Karl Sievers, 1782–1795.

literature

• Plantae novae ex herbario et schedis defuncti Botanici Ioanni Sievers, Hannoverani, descriptae , Peter Simon Pallas, Nova acta Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae, Petropoli (St Petersburg) 1797
• Russia and the “Göttingische Seele” , Elmar Mittler and Silke Glits, Göttingen 2003

Web links

• Author entry and list of the plant names described for Johann August Carl Sievers at the IPNI

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Erhardt among others: The great pikeperch. Encyclopedia of Plant Names . Volume 2, page 2049. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008. ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7
2. ↑ ^{a b} Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic 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 .