Simon Schwendener

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Simon Schwendener (born February 10, 1829 in Buchs , Canton St. Gallen / Switzerland , † May 27, 1919 in Berlin ) was a Swiss botanist and university professor. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is “ Schwend. "

Simon Schwendener (1829–1919) botanist
Simon Schwendener

Live and act

Schwendener grew up on a farm and was supposed to take it over. In accordance with his inclinations, he first attended the teachers' college in St. Gallen , passed his exams there in 1847 and then became a teacher at the secondary school in Wädenswil . He then studied from 1849 to 1850 natural sciences and mathematics at the academy in Geneva .

A small inheritance enabled him to study at the University of Zurich , where he in 1856 summa cum laude to the Dr. phil.

From 1857 he worked first as an assistant to Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli , then from 1860 as a private lecturer in botany at the University of Munich . In 1867 he became full professor of botany at the University of Basel and director of the local botanical garden . After a year as full professor of botany and successor to Wilhelm Hofmeister at the University of Tübingen, Schwendener worked from 1878 until his retirement in 1910 as a full professor of botany at the University of Berlin .

In 1879 he became a full member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . In 1880 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina and a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1892 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1897 he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art and in 1898 the Pour le Mérite . In 1900 he became a corresponding member and in 1912 a foreign member ( associé étranger ) of the Académie des sciences . Since 1913 he was an external member of the Royal Society .

On his 70th birthday in 1899, Hans Conrad Schellenberg wrote a birthday pamphlet for Schwendener.

He was buried in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin. His grave has been dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honor grave since 1978 .

research

After completing his doctorate, he began investigating the structure of the lichen thallus under the direction of Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli . He was able to show that lichens are double organisms consisting of fungus and algae . With this realization he met fierce opposition from the lichenologists of the time. The Finnish botanist William Nylander spoke of a "stultitia Schwendeneriana" (a "Schwenderian stupidity"). However, further investigations by important botanists were able to prove Schwendener's view of symbiosis.

Old St. Matthew Cemetery Berlin , Simon Schwendener's grave of honor

Schwendener also investigated the mechanical laws in the construction and development of higher plants, in particular the arrangement of the plant tissue. Schwendener assumed that the structure and function of the plant's strengthening tissue are related, i.e. that ultimately the structure of the tissue must follow the principles of mechanics . He writes: "... what I have in mind is an ... anatomical-physiological consideration of all tissue systems ... which the stately, but in itself dead body of anatomy by clarifying the relationships between structure and function to supplement and revitalize. ”With this view, too, he encountered a complete lack of understanding on the part of some of his fellow guild colleagues.

In his investigations he mainly dealt with topics such as the structure of the leaf joints, the rise in sap in the plant and the position of the leaves. He was also able to show how the characteristic wall thickenings of the guard cells are closely related to the function of the stomata. Schwendener's research results on the mechanism of movement of the stomata (amaryllid, gramineae type) can still be found today in botany school and textbooks.

As a university teacher, Schwendener had numerous students and assistants who later achieved fame themselves in scientific botany, including: Hermann Ambronn , Carl Correns , Gottlieb Haberlandt (his successor to the Berlin chair), Emil Heinricher , Richard Kolkwitz , Ernst Küster , Kurt Noack , Wilhelm Ruhland , Heinrich Schenck , Alexander Tschirch , Alfred Ursprung , Georg Volkens , Otto Warburg and Max Westermaier (first holder of the botany chair at the University of Freiburg, Switzerland ).

Honors

The plant genus Schwendenera K. Schum is named after him . from the red family (Rubiaceae).

Fonts (selection)

  • (1856): On the periodic phenomena of nature, especially of the plant world: according to the observations made by the general Swiss society for the entire natural sciences.
  • (1860): About the alleged protothallus of the crusty lichen.
  • (1867): The microscope : theory and application of the same. with Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli
  • (1869): The algae types of the lichens gonids.
  • (1872): From the history of cultivated plants.
  • (1874): The mechanical principle in the anatomical structure of the monocotyledons.
  • (1878): Mechanical theory of leaf positions.
  • (1881): About spiral positions in floral ideas .
  • (1881): About the displacement of the smallest particles in trajectory curves caused by growth.
  • (1882): About the construction and mechanics of the stomata.
  • (1882): About the winding of plants.
  • (1882): About the apex growth of the phanerogam roots.
  • (1883): The protective sheaths and their reinforcements.
  • (1883): On the theory of leaf positions.
  • (1885): Some observations on milk juice vessels.
  • (1885): About apex growth and leaf positions.
  • (1886): Studies on the rising of juice.
  • (1889): The stomata of the Gramineae and Cyperaceae .
  • (1892): Investigations into the orientation torsions of the leaves and flowers.
  • (1892): Critique of the latest research on rising juice. Session reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, Volume 2, pp. 911–946.
  • (1896): The water tissue in the joint pads of the Marantaceae .
  • (1899): About the opening mechanism of the anthers .

literature

Web links

Commons : Simon Schwendener  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members of the previous academies. Simon Schwendener. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed April 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Member entry by Simon Schwendener at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 26, 2016.
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 220.
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter S. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 28, 2020 (French).
  5. ^ Entry on Schwendener, Simon (1829–1919) in the archive of the Royal Society , London
  6. ↑ Birthday font for Schwendener
  7. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous 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 .
personal data
SURNAME Schwendener, Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss botanist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Buchs , Canton of St. Gallen , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1919
Place of death Berlin