Johann Gottlob von Kurr

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Johann Gottlob Kurr , from 1853 by Kurr , (born January 15, 1798 in Sulzbach an der Murr , † May 9, 1870 in Stuttgart ) was a German scientist. Its official botanical abbreviation is " Kurr ".

Live and act

He was born as Johann Gottlob Kurr (not Gottlieb, as often even stated by IPNI, for example) as the son of the baker Johann Michael Kurr (1763–1828). The grandfather was a farmer in Obersteinach (formerly Oberamt Gerabronn, now part of the city of Ilshofen). The mother of Johann Gottlob Kurr was Friederica Luise Kurr geb. Dihm (1766-1800); she was the daughter of the forester and administrator Christoph Dihm from Sulzbach an der Murr, who was in the service of the Princely House of Löwenstein-Wertheim. Johann Gottlob Kurr was not yet three years old when his mother died. His father then married Maria Epting (1777–1811), daughter of the oil mill owner Epting from Besigheim. Maria Epting's mother was a cousin of the poet Friedrich Schiller .

In 1810 Kurr entered the Latin school in Besigheim, but two years later he became an apprentice pharmacist with his uncle Johann Immanuel Epting in Calw. His interest in the natural sciences emerged early on; in his youth he was already collecting plants, snails and stones. In Calw he also met the botanist Karl Friedrich Gärtner (1772-1850).

In the years 1825-1832 Kurr made numerous trips. On these trips he visited many naturalists and later kept in touch with them. In between he also managed a pharmacy in Esslingen, where he met Franz Fleischer (1801-1878). From then on they had a lifelong friendship. Fleischer and later also Kurr led a. a. Collective trips for the Esslinger Reiseverein (Unio itineraria, also Württembergischer Naturhistorischer Reiseverein ). Kurr was z. B. in Norway and collected a lot of lichens and mosses for the travel club. In the course of time he himself owned large collections. Only smaller parts of these collections have survived today, most of them in the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart .

It was not until he was 31 years old that Kurr began studying medicine and natural sciences at the University of Tübingen . Here he met his friend Franz Fleischer (1801–1878) again. Together they hiked through various mountains in southern Germany and collected petrefacts, among other things. After three years, he successfully completed his studies and presented the medical faculty with his processing of the prize assignment set in 1831: Investigations into the significance of the nectaries in flowers . So he became a doctor of medicine and surgery. On November 2, 1832, he got a job as a secondary teacher at the trade school in Stuttgart.

At this later polytechnic school in Stuttgart, Kurr taught zoology, botany, mineralogy, geognosy and petrefactology, most recently as a professor. His students were future Real, Oberreal and trade school teachers. He also carried out numerous excursions with them. Today, Kurr is regarded as the "scientific ancestor" of the Geosciences and Biosciences department of the University of Stuttgart, because the later technical college emerged from the Polytechnic School, today the University of Stuttgart .

On July 2, 1839, Kurr married Amalie Charlotte Becher (1819–1861), daughter of the Stuttgart court notary Carl Becher. They had seven children, of whom the three daughters died early.

In his professional years, Kurr was active in many different ways; he wrote numerous essays or gave lectures on various subjects from botany, zoology, mineralogy and geology. He also translated important works on mineralogy and botany. He was also active in associations, especially in the Association for Patriotic Natural History in Württemberg , of which he was one of the founding members. In the annual journals of this association (now the Society for Natural History in Württemberg, seat: Stuttgart), the first 25 volumes usually contain some work by Kurr, be it a note on a lecture or an obituary. He also participated in the drafting of the then newly written Oberamts Descriptions.

Throughout his life, Kurr had to deal with illnesses that slowed his zeal, especially when traveling. After suffering from smallpox in 1870, he was so weakened that he died on May 9, 1870. He was buried next to his wife in the Hoppenlaufriedhof in Stuttgart.

Works

Honors

In 1853 Kurr received the Knight's Cross of the Württemberg Crown Order , which was associated with the personal title of nobility and was now called Johann Gottlob von Kurr.

According to Kurr, the plant genus Kurria is Hochst. & Steud. from the family of the redness plants named (Rubiaceae).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
personal data
SURNAME Kurr, Johann Gottlob from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kurr, Johann Gottlob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German natural scientist
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Sulzbach an der Murr
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1870
Place of death Stuttgart