Karel Domin (4 May 1882 – 10 June 1953) was a Czech botanist and politician.

Biography

Domin was 4 May 1882,

Kutná Hora Kutná Hora (; ) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 22,000 inhabitants. The history of Kutná Hora is linked to silver mining, which made it a rich and rapidly developing town. The centre of Kutná Hora, i ...

, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. After gymnasium school studies in Příbram, he studied botany at the

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

in Prague, and graduated in 1906. Between 1911 and 1913 he published several important articles on Australian taxonomy. In 1916 he was named as professor of botany. Domin specialised in

phytogeography Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution ...

, geobotany and

plant taxonomy Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, identifies, describes, classifies, and names plants. It is one of the main branches of taxonomy (the science that finds, describes, classifies, and names living things). Plant taxonomy is closely allied ...

. He became a member at the

Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences The Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Czech: ''Československá akademie věd'', Slovak: ''Česko-slovenská akadémia vied'') was established in 1953 to be the scientific center for Czechoslovakia. It was succeeded by the Czech Academy of Science ...

, published many scientific works and founded a botany institute at the university. The Domin scale, a commonly used means of classifying a standard area by the number of plant species found in that area, is named after him. Domin 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 ...

series ''Flora Čechoslovenica exsiccata'' (1929–1936) together with Vladimír Krajina. In the academic year 1933–34 he was rector of Charles University and was one of the participants of a struggle for ancient academic insignia between the Czech and German universities of Prague (the ''insigniáda'') that resulted in street-fights and looting. From 1935 to 1939, he was a member of parliament; after the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–194 ...

, he co-founded a traditionalist political movement (''Akce národní obrody''). He is considered the man who is the most responsible for the creation of Tatra National Park. He died on 10 June 1953 in Prague.

References

External links

Short biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Domin, Karel 1882 births 1953 deaths People from Kutná Hora People from the Kingdom of Bohemia Czechoslovak National Democracy politicians Party of National Unity (Czechoslovakia) politicians Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia (1935–1939) 20th-century Czech botanists Czech politicians Czechoslovak fascists Academic staff of Charles University Charles University alumni Burials at Vyšehrad Cemetery