Franz Thonner (11 March 1863 – 21 April 1928) was an Austrian taxonomist and botanist from

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

. In the spring of 1896, he made his first trip to the African interior to explore the botany and people in the northern part of the

Congo Basin The Congo Basin (french: Bassin du Congo) is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It c ...

. Besides his comprehensive collection of plants, he embarked on a thorough ethnographic study of the region. He was a scientist of independent means who explored

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

and in 1891, at age 28, privately published a key to the families of flowering plants of the world. Despite the work's having been translated into English in 1895, it was largely ignored in that country. A second edition of his key appeared in 1917 and was based on Engler &

Prantl Prantl is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Florian Prantl, Austrian luger * Heribert Prantl (born 1953), German journalist and jurist * Karl Prantl (1923–2010), Austrian sculptor * Karl Anton Eugen Prantl (1849&n ...

's ''

Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien ''Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien'' (1887–1915) by Adolf Engler (1844–1930) and Karl Anton Prantl is a complete revision of plant families down to generic level and often even further. As such it forms part of the Engler system of plant ta ...

'' and ''

Das Pflanzenreich Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (25 March 1844 – 10 October 1930) was a German botanist. He is notable for his work on plant taxonomy and phytogeography, such as ''Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien'' (''The Natural Plant Families''), edited with ...

''. Thonner's German plant key of 1891 was translated into English for the second time in 1981, and became more accessible to English-speaking botanists, rivalling that of John Hutchinson and ''Families of Angiosperms'' by Bertel Hansen & Knud Rahn (1969). The key covers

gymnosperms The gymnosperms ( lit. revealed seeds) are a group of seed-producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, '' Ginkgo'', and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae. The term ''gymnosperm'' comes from the composite word in el, γυμν� ...

and

angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of br ...

and was designed for field use. Thonner also used back-up features ensuring correct choice of the family even when there is uncertainty about classifying botanical structures. Geographical distribution is used to assist in identification.

Books

*''Im afrikanischen Urwald. Meine Reise nach dem Kongo und der Mongalla im Jahre 1896'' (Berlin, D. Reimer 1898) mit 20 Textabb., 87 Lichtdruck-Tafeln, Karten, illustr. Olwd. *''Exkursionsflora von Europa. Anleitung zum Bestimmen der Gattungen der europäischen Blütenpflanzen'' (Berlin, 1901) *''Die Blütenpflanzen Afrikas - Eine Anleitung zum Bestimmen der Gattungen der afrikanischen Siphonogamen'' (Berlin, R. Friedländer) 1908 * ''The flowering plants of Africa; an analytical key to the genera of African phanerogams'', London,Dulau & Co., Ltd.,1915 *''Anleitung zum Bestimmen der Familien der Blütenpflanzen (Phanerogamen)'' (1917, Second edition) *''Thonner's analytical key to the families of flowering plants'' edited by R. Geesink, A. J. M. Leeuwenberg, C. E. Ridsdale, J . F. Veldkamp (Leiden Botanical Series, Volume 5, The Netherlands and Leiden University Press 1981) ranslated into English and revised from ''Anleitung'' (1917)

References

External links

Useful Plant Databases
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thonner, Franz 19th-century Austrian botanists Austrian taxonomists 1863 births 1928 deaths Scientists from Vienna 20th-century Austrian botanists Botanists from Austria-Hungary