Paul Preuss (botanist)

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Paul Rudolph Preuss (born November 12, 1861 in Thorn ; † December 19, 1926 ) was a German botanist and explorer. He earned great merit through plant collections in Central and South America and South Asia, as well as through his botanical work in the former German colony of Cameroon . From 1905 he was the director of the New Guinea company . He was also a board member of the Colonial Economic Committee for more than two decades . Its botanical author's abbreviation is " P. Preuss ".

Life

Origin and education

He was born in 1861 in the city of Thorn , which was then in the Prussian province of West Prussia and had about 13,500 inhabitants. First he attended the secondary school there . He then enrolled at the Albertus University in Königsberg and studied chemistry and descriptive natural sciences between 1880 and 1884 with a focus on botany . In 1885 he was at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin with the dissertation The relations between the anatomical structure and the physiological function of the petioles and pulvinus doctorate .

As a result, he did his compulsory military service until 1886 .

Professional career

During his studies, Preuss worked for the Prussian Botanical Association for two years and traveled to some districts of East and West Prussia to research the flora .

In November 1886 he went on a study trip to the British colony of Sierra Leone , the main purpose of which was to put together botanical and entomological collections. In 1888 he traveled on to the German colony of Cameroon . There he met Eugen Zintgraff , joined his expedition to Kumba and settled in the Barombi station . After spending almost three years in West Africa, he returned to Germany in 1889.

However, the Foreign Office approached him immediately and granted him a permanent position for scientific research in Cameroon. Therefore, he traveled there again in 1890 and was appointed administrator of the Barombi station - as Zintgraff's vacation replacement. He was responsible for the botanical development of the northern hinterland, meteorological observations and the continuation of zoological collections. After Zintgraff's return, Preuss independently researched botany on the Cameroon Mountain for ten months . This activity ended abruptly when Karl von Gravenreuth fell during a military expedition against the town of Buea in November 1891 and his deputy was seriously wounded. Preuss lived in Buea and had come to terms with the locals during the previous months. It was now up to him to lead the troop safely back to the coast.

As a result, in 1891 he was entrusted with the task of expanding the small botanical garden laid out by Governor Julius von Soden in Victoria into a test plant. By planting all crops and crops of the old and the new world , the fertility of the Cameroonian soil should be tested and the profitability of any plantations examined. In addition, Preuss was appointed deputy district administrator at the same time - a position he was to hold until 1895. After going on vacation to Germany in mid-1892, he returned to Victoria in 1893 as the official director of the botanical garden. At the end of the same year he took part in the suppression of the Dahomey uprising and in December 1894 he took part in the campaign of the police force under Hans Dominik against Buea . Finally, from January 1896, Preuss stayed in Victoria again and from now on devoted himself exclusively to the scientific maintenance of the botanical garden as well as the research and measurement of the promising areas on the Cameroonberg from an agricultural point of view. Between June 1899 and July 1900 he went on an extensive study trip to Central and South America - with the permission of the Foreign Office and financed by the Colonial Economic Committee . He visited Mexico , Nicaragua , El Salvador , Guatemala , Cuba , Jamaica , Ecuador and Venezuela, among others . The result of the trip was an extensive collection of fruits, seeds and plants that were believed to have future economic potential.

In 1902 Preuss resigned from his post as director of the botanical garden of Victoria and resigned from the Reich service. A little later he got a job with the New Guinea Company , and between 1903 and 1904 another botanical research trip took him to the British colony of Ceylon , the Dutch colony of Java and German New Guinea . With effect from June 1, 1905, he was appointed to succeed Karl Lauterbach as one of the two directors of the New Guinea Company. He was primarily responsible for the agricultural and scientific management, while Carl von Beck was the commercial director. Subsequently, Preuss made trips to German New Guinea and the surrounding islands every two years to inspect the company's plantations. He was largely responsible for the introduction of sisal and cocoa cultivation in the colony. He held his post as director at least until the end of the First World War . Even after that, "he then worked tirelessly for the new planting ventures of this company to flourish in various overseas regions."

Awards

In the 1880s, Preuss received several grants from the Coppernicus Association for Science and Art in Thorn :

  • 1880: Scholarship "based on a treatise on the winds, their origin and nature"
  • 1881: Grant for his treatise "The morphology of the buds of our deciduous trees in winter"
  • 1883: Scholarship "for his collection of interesting plants in the Thorn and Kulm districts "
  • 1884: Scholarship "with a treatise on the leaf stalks of dicotyledon hardwoods"
  • 1885: Grant for his dissertation

From 1892 onwards, colleagues named numerous organisms after Paul Preuss, mainly found in West Africa - ten plant species, six bird species , three mammalian species , including the Preuss colobus monkey ( Piliocolobus preussi ), and one amphibian , one reptile and one plant genus .

Publications (selection)

Monographs

  • Paul Preuss: Expedition to Central and South America 1899/1900 . Publishing house of the Colonial Economic Committee, Berlin , 1901.
  • Paul Preuss: The plantings and the botanical garden in Victoria (Cameroon) in 1900/01 . ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin , 1902.
  • Paul Preuss: About cocoa farming and other plantation crops on Samoa . Publishing house of the Colonial Economic Committee, Berlin , 1907.
  • Paul Preuss: The coconut palm and its culture . Dietrich Reimer Verlag , Berlin , 1911.


Technical articles

  • Paul Preuss: About rubber plants and Kickxia africana in Victoria (Cameroon) . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 2, № 7, 1898, pages 201-209.
  • Paul Preuss: About the exploitation and cultivation of rubber plants in Cameroon . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 3, № 1, 1899, pages 15-20.
  • Paul Preuss: The culture of the useful plants originating from the botanical Centralstelle in Berlin in the botanical garden of Viktoria-Cameroon . In: Notes of the Royal Botanical Garden and Museum in Berlin. Volume 29, 1902, pages 198-213.
  • Paul Preuss: The economic importance of the oil palm . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 6, 1902, pages 450-476.
  • Paul Preuss: About plant pests in Cameroon . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 7, № 8, 1903, pages 345-361.
  • Paul Preuss: About rubber and gutta-percha culture in German colonies . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 9, № 6, 1905, pages 297-307.
  • Paul Preuss: The vegetable export products of New Guinea . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 13, № 7, 1909, pages 327-331.
  • Paul Preuss: About pests of the coconut palm . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 15, 1911, pages 59-91.
  • Paul Preuss: Bird of Paradise Hunting in New Guinea . In: Deutsche Kolonial-Zeitung. 1912, pp. 793-194 & 808-809.
  • Paul Preuss: Economic values ​​in the German South Sea colonies . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 19, 1916, pages 441-456 & 491-514 & 539-561.
  • Paul Preuss: The coconut palm in the Dutch East Indies . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 22, № 6, 1919, pages 169-187.
  • Paul Preuss: About mechanical devices in coconut palm plantations . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 25, 1922, pages 1-16.
  • Paul Preuß: On "Maturation" and drying of cocoa . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 27, 1924, pages 11-20.
  • Paul Preuss: On the biology of the coconut palm . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 27, 1924, pages 128-132.
  • Paul Preuss: On the character image of the coconut palm . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 28, 1925, pages 111-128 & 160-169.
  • Paul Preuss: About the future of coconut culture and coconut fiber preparation . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 29, 1926, pages 211-222.
  • Paul Preuss: The processing of cocoa . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 29, 1926, pages 343-350.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary for Dr. Paul Preuss . In: Der Tropenpflanzer - magazine for tropical agriculture. Volume 30, 1927, page 1.
  2. ^ A b Rudolf Vierhaus ( Ed. ): German Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 8: Poethen - Schlueter . 2nd edition, KG Saur Verlag , Munich , 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-094025-1 , page 73.
  3. ↑ a b c d German review for geography and statistics. Volume 23, 1901, page 229.
  4. ↑ Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson ( Eds. ): The eponym dictionary of amphibians . Pelagic Publishing, Exeter , 2013, ISBN 978-1-907807-41-1 , page 172.
  5. ^ Heinrich Dade ( ed. ): The German agriculture under Kaiser Wilhelm II. Volume 2: Kingdom of Bavaria, the other federal states, the colonies, overall development . Carl Marhold Verlag, Halle an der Saale , 1913, page 543.
  6. ↑ a b c Peter G. Sack, Dymphna Clark ( ed. ): Governor in New Guinea . Australian National University Press, Canberra , 1980, ISBN 978-0708118207 , 113.
  7. ^ History of the Coppernicus Society for Science a. Art to Thorn in the first half century of its existence, commemorative publication to celebrate its 50th anniversary on February 19, 1904 . Commissioned by E. Lambeck, 1904, Thorn , page 94.
  8. ^ History of the Coppernicus Society for Science a. Art to Thorn in the first half century of its existence, commemorative publication to celebrate its 50th anniversary on February 19, 1904 . Commissioned by E. Lambeck, 1904, Thorn , page 96.
  9. ^ History of the Coppernicus Society for Science a. Art to Thorn in the first half century of its existence, commemorative publication to celebrate its 50th anniversary on February 19, 1904 . Commissioned by E. Lambeck, 1904, Thorn , page 103.
  10. ^ History of the Coppernicus Society for Science a. Art to Thorn in the first half century of its existence, commemorative publication to celebrate its 50th anniversary on February 19, 1904 . Commissioned by E. Lambeck, 1904, Thorn , page 106.
  11. ^ History of the Coppernicus Society for Science a. Art to Thorn in the first half century of its existence, commemorative publication to celebrate its 50th anniversary on February 19, 1904 . Commissioned by E. Lambeck, 1904, Thorn , page 108.

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personal data
SURNAME Preuss, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Preuss, Paul Rudolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Thorn
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1926