Friedrich August Ferdinand Christian Went
(June 18, 1863 – July 24, 1935) was a Dutch
botanist
Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...
.
Went was born in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
. He was professor of botany and director of the Botanical Garden at the
University of Utrecht
Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of 39,769 students, a ...
. His eldest son was the Dutch botanist
Frits Warmolt Went
Frits Warmolt Went (May 18, 1903 – May 1, 1990) was a Dutch biologist whose 1928 experiment demonstrated the existence of auxin in plants.
Went's father was the prominent Dutch botanist Friedrich August Ferdinand Christian Went. After graduat ...
, who in 1927 as a graduate student worked on plant hormones, specifically the role of
auxin
Auxins (plural of auxin ) are a class of plant hormones (or plant-growth regulators) with some morphogen-like characteristics. Auxins play a cardinal role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in plant life cycles and are essent ...
in
phototropism
In biology, phototropism is the growth of an organism in response to a light stimulus. Phototropism is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi. The cells on the plant that are farthest from the ligh ...
.
He became member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam.
In addition to various advisory a ...
in 1898.
Went died, aged 72, in
Wassenaar
Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands.
An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...
.
References
1863 births
1935 deaths
19th-century Dutch botanists
20th-century Dutch botanists
Foreign members of the Royal Society
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Scientists from Amsterdam
University of Amsterdam alumni
Academic staff of Utrecht University
{{Netherlands-botanist-stub