Carl Bernhard von Trinius (6 March 1778,

Eisleben Eisleben is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is famous as both the hometown of the influential theologian Martin Luther and the place where he died; hence, its official name is Lutherstadt Eisleben. First mentioned in the late 10th century, ...

– 12 March 1844, St. Petersburg) was a German-born botanist and physician. He studied medicine at several universities, earning his medical doctorate at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...

in 1802. In 1808, after time spent as a physician in Hasenpoth, he served as a personal physician to Antoinette, Duchess of Württemberg (née Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) for the next 16 years. During this time period, he traveled extensively throughout Germany and Russia. In St. Petersburg, he became good friends to author Ernst Moritz Arndt. After the death of the duchess in 1824, he remained in St. Petersburg as an imperial physician, and along with a medical practice, he dealt with botanical concerns at the

Academy of Sciences An academy of sciences is a type of learned society or academy (as special scientific institution) dedicated to sciences that may or may not be state funded. Some state funded academies are tuned into national or royal (in case of the Unit ...

.biography
@ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie From 1829 to 1833, he taught classes in natural sciences to the future Russian monarch,

Czar Alexander II Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finlan ...

. In 1836–1838, he took an extended scientific journey to

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hall ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, a trip in which he studied various botanical collections.Drw.saw Leipzig-de
(biography) As a physician, he is known for his

homeopathic Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...

approach to medicine (especially after 1830). As a botanist, Trinius was a specialist in

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

and described many species in his career, including '' Agrostis pallens'', '' Cenchrus agrimonioides'' and '' Festuca subulata''. The genus '' Trinia'' and species '' Trinia glauca'' are named after him. The so-called "Herbarium Trinii" (a collection of roughly 4000-5000 plants) was bequeathed to the botanical museum in St. Petersburg. He was the author of numerous papers in the field of botany. Among his better known publications was "Species graminum, iconibus et descriptionibus illustr." (Vol. I, 1828; Vol. II, 1829; Vol. III, 1836). After his death, a collection of Trinius'

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

was published as ''Gedichte'' ("Poems", Berlin 1848).

References

Karl Antonovich (Carl Bernhard) von Trinius on the Russian Academy of Sciences site.

External links

WorldCat Identities
Publications by Trinius. 19th-century German botanists Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences 1778 births 1844 deaths University of Göttingen alumni People from Eisleben {{Germany-botanist-stub