Joseph Gaertner (12 March 1732 – 14 July 1791) was a German

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 ...

, best known for his work on seeds, ''

De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum ''De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum'', also known by its standard botanical abbreviation ''Fruct. Sem. Pl.'', is a three-volume botanic treatise by Joseph Gaertner. The first volume was published in December 1788. The second volume was published ...

'' (1788-1792).

Biography

He was born in

Calw Calw (; previously pronounced and sometimes spelled Kalb accordingly; ) is a Landstadt, town in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital and largest town of the Calw (district), district Calw. It is located in the North ...

, and studied in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

under

Albrecht von Haller Albrecht von Haller (also known as Albertus de Haller; 16 October 170812 December 1777) was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist, encyclopedist, bibliographer and poet. A pupil of Herman Boerhaave and Jacob Winslow, he is sometimes r ...

. He was primarily a naturalist, but also worked at

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

. He travelled extensively to visit other naturalists. He was professor of anatomy in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

in 1760, and was appointed professor of botany at

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

in 1768, but returned to Calw in 1770. Gaertner made back cross to convert one species into another. Back cross increases nuclear gene frequency His observations were: 1. Dominance of traits 2. Equal contribution of male and female to the progeny 3. No variation in F1 (first generation of descendants) 4. Large variation in F2 (second generation of descendants) including parental and intermediate types 5. Some of F2 plants had entirely new traits but he was unable to give possible explanation for observed data but which was brilliantly done by Mendel

Julius Sachs Julius Sachs (July 6, 1849 – February 2, 1934) was an American educator, founder of the Sachs Collegiate Institute who belongs to the Goldman–Sachs family of bankers. Sachs was born on July 6, 1849, in Baltimore. After taking his A.B. at ...

writes

''De Fructibus''

By 1770, he had already begun work on his ''De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum'', but thereafter he gave himself up almost entirely to it, becoming nearly blind through his persistent studies, partly with the

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory equipment, laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic ...

. The work's minutely accurate descriptions, comprising a thousand and more species, introduced a new era in plant morphology. The scientific value of the book was much increased by the addition of 180 copper-plate engravings. The genus of plants ''

Gaertnera ''Gaertnera'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. There are at least 85 species distributed across the Old World tropics from Africa to Asia.

'' in

Rubiaceae Rubiaceae () is a family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with Petiole ( ...

was named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaertner, Joseph 1732 births 1791 deaths People from Calw Botanists with author abbreviations 18th-century German botanists German mycologists Fellows of the Royal Society Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences