Jakub Ignacy Waga (26 July 1800 – 23 February 1872) was a Polish botanist, educator, and Piarist. Along with his brother

Antoni Waga Antoni Stanisław Florian Waga (8 May 1799 – 23 November 1890) was a Polish zoologist, traveller, writer, literary critic and Piarist. He was also a collector of rare books on natural history. Along with Taczanowski and under the patronage of K ...

he published an early list of the plants of Poland.

Life and work

Waga was born at Grabow near

Łomża Łomża () is a city in north-eastern Poland, approximately to the north-east of Warsaw and west of Białystok. It is situated alongside the Narew river as part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Łomża County and has been the se ...

to landowner Bernard and Agata née Gutowska. Educated at Piarist schools in

Szczuczyn Szczuczyn (; ) is a town in Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. As of 2004, it has a population of 3,602. History The town is located in the north-eastern outskirts of Mazovia, which has been part of Poland since the establishment of ...

, Łomża, and

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, he became interested in plants through his teacher E. Andraszek. He then studied at the Royal University of Warsaw (1821–24) and received a master's degree in zoology under Feliks Paweł Jarocki. He also worked with Michał Szubert at the botanical garden. Waga then became a teacher at Piarist schools in Warsaw and

Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...

from 1825 and continued until his retirement to Łomża in 1862. While teaching in various places, he explored the plants of the regions and in 1829 took part in an expedition along with Szubert and Jastrzębowskiet which resulted in a large herbarium collection. He suffered from tuberculosis and began to work on a two volume work on the flora of Poland ''Flora Polska'' in collaboration with his brother Antoni. He married Kornelia Romanówna in 1833 and they had a daughter who died in infancy and a son who died in 1865. In 1851 he became an inspector at the Łomża gymnasium. He suffered from poor health and died at his home in Łomża. A statue of Waga was installed in the Botanical Garden in Warsaw which was destroyed in World War II and reconstructed in 1964.

Life and work

References

External links