Wenceslas Bojer

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Wenceslas Bojer

Wenceslas Bojer (also Václav or Wenzel Bojer ; born September 23, 1795 in Řesanice , Bohemia , † June 4, 1856 in Port Louis , Mauritius ) was a Bohemian, k. k. Austrian naturalist and botanist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Bojer ".

biography

Wenceslas Bojer was born in Bohemia to Simon Bojer and Barbara Staub. Like his father, he was a gardener at first. During his training with the botanist Kaspar Maria von Sternberg he caught the attention of Franz Wilhelm Sieber , who gave him a position at the Imperial Museum in Vienna. Between 1821 and 1823 Bojer carried out botanical studies in Mauritius together with Sieber and Carl Theodor Hilsenberg . In 1822 he was sent to Madagascar by the Mauritian Governor Robert Townsend Farquhar , where he accompanied Prince Rafaria and James Hastie, the envoy of King Radama I of Madagascar, on their expeditions. Bojer explored the west coast of Madagascar before arriving in Antananarivo .

From 1824 Bojer worked as an interpreter in Africa. He explored several coasts in Africa and was able to amass a large collection of plants and minerals. In 1829, along with Charles Telfair , Jacques Delisse (1773–1856) and Julien Desjardins, he was one of the founders of the Société royale des Arts et des Sciences de l'île Maurice , the first scientific association in Mauritius. In 1842 Bojer became curator at the Desjardins Museum and in 1848 director of the Jardin des Pamplemousses . In 1849 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy .

Bojers last treatise Rapport sur le Taraudeur of cannes (1856) was about the sugarcane borer ( Diatraea saccharalis ), the two-thirds in the 1850s of the sugar cane harvest was destroyed in Mauritius and had suspended the governor then 50,000 francs for an effective remedy for the plague .

Wenceslas Bojer died of plegia in 1856 . His grave in the Western Cemetery in Port Louis is a listed building .

Dedication names

Several plant and animal taxas from Africa , Madagascar , the Seychelles and the Mascarene Islands are named after Bojer , including Bojers Skink ( Gongylomorphus bojerii ), the palm weaver ( Ploceus bojeri ), Dionycha bojerii , Ficus bojeri Baker , Uapaca bojeri Baill. , Streptocarpus thompsonii var. Bojeri , Euphorbia bojeri Hook. , Epilobium bojeri Hausskn. and Wahlenbergia bojeri A.DC.

In 1836 Augustin-Pyrame de Candolle named the Bojeria plant genus from the sunflower family (Asteraceae) in his honor . Today it is a synonym for Inula of the family Asteraceae ( Asteraceae ). In 1836, Constantine S. Rafinesque-Schmaltz named a genus of plants from the milkweed family ( Euphorbiaceae ) with the name Bojeria . However, this homonym is invalid under the rules of the ICBN as it was not published until 1838.

Fonts (selection)

  • Hortus Mauritianus: ou énumération des plantes, exotiques et indigènes, qui croissent a l'Ile Maurice, disposées d'aprés la méthode naturelle , 1837.
  • Espèces nouvelles de plantes à Madagascar et îles Comores , 1841.
  • Planches relative au genre Gærtnera Lam. , 1847.
  • Vahea madagascariensis et Cassia filipendula , 1847.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ National Monuments of Mauritius, Volume 1, Port-Louis District, 1988, pp. 50–51
  2. ↑ a b Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymic plant names. Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Bojer, Wenceslas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bojer, Wenceslaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bohemian-Mauritian botanist and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Řesanice, Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1856
Place of death Port Louis , Mauritius