Johan Martin Christian Lange (20 March 1818 – 3 April 1898) was a prominent Danish

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 ...

. He held the post of Librarian at the Botanical library of the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

from 1851 to 1858. He was Director of the Botanical Garden there from 1856 to 1876, the Reader of botany at the Danish Technical University from 1857 to 1862, and Reader of Botany at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University from 1858 to 1893, achieving full professor standing in 1892. He began editing the Flora Danica in 1858, and was its last editor. Together with Japetus Steenstrup, Johan Lange was the publisher of Flora Danica fasc. 44 (1858). Thereafter, he edited alone fasc. 45-51 (1861–83) and Supplement vols 2-3 (1865–74), in total 600 plates. After having finished the publication of Flora Danica, he issued ''Nomenclator Floræ Danicæ'' in 1887 - a volume indexing all planches in Flora Danica alphabetically, systematically and chronologically. Lange edited the

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

''Plantae Europae australis 1851-52''. He travelled throughout Europe, completing extensive studies on the flora of

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and other European countries, especially

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. (Willkomm & Lange, Prodromus Florae Hispanicae, 1861–80). He expanded on the classification developed by

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, writing ''Plantenavne og navngivningsregler (Plant-names and rules for name-giving)'' which was influential in developing the Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the system in use today.

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

borrowed a book written by Lange, which he failed to return in a timely manner as mentioned by Darwin in his correspondence

He is honoured in the naming of a fungi, fungal genus in 1891, '' Willkommlangea'' (jointly with Heinrich Moritz Willkomm (1821-1895), who was a German academic and

Partial list of publications

* *Icones plantarum sponte nascentium in regnis Daniae et Norvegiae, in ducatibus Slesvici et Holsatiae et in comitatibus Oldenburgi et Delmenhorstiae: (Pictures of the plants growing wild in the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, in the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, and in the principalities of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst) * * *Conspectus florae groenlandicae: Grønlands mosser (Muscineae) (Overview of the mosses of Greenland) *Conspectus florae groenlandicae: 1. Fanerogamer og karsporeplanter (Overview of the vascular plants of Greenland) *Conspectus florae groenlandicae: Tillæg til fanerogamerne og karsporeplanterne (Overview of the plants of Greenland, Supplement to vascular plants) * * ''Flora Danica'' * * * * *

References

Johan Lange, Selected PublicationsDarwin Correspondence Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lange, Johan Martin Christian 1818 births 1898 deaths 19th-century Danish botanists Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala