Johannes Paulus Lotsy or Jan Paulus Lotsy (11 April 1867 – 17 November 1931) was a Dutch

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

, specializing in

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

and

heredity Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...

. He promoted the idea of evolution being driven by hybridization.

Career

Lotsy was born into a wealthy family in

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

and went to study at the Wageningen Agricultural College where his teachers included Martinus Beijerinck and then at the

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The orig ...

(1886-1890) where he studied lichens for his doctorate. He then went to

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

(1891–1895) as a lecturer and also served as director of the

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

. From 1896 to 1900 he was sent to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

to work on cinchona research. He returned after suffering from malaria and then taught at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

(1904-1909), as a lecturer in Systematic Botany. He became director of the State Herbarium ( Rijksherbarium) 1906–1909, then Secretary of the Hollandsche Maatschappij van Wetenschappen. Lotsy founded the Association internationale des Botanistes and was editor of the ''Botanisches Centralblatt'' and the ''Progressus rei botanicae''. He proposed a system of plant classification, based on phylogenetics. Lotsy argued for a major role of

hybridization Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...

in evolution including claims for human evolution. Lotsy died at

Voorburg Voorburg is a town and former municipality in the west part of the province of South Holland, Netherlands. Together with Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it makes up the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. It has a population of about 39,000 people ...

following a surgery.

Travels

India (1895–1900), the United States (1922), Australia and New Zealand (1925), South Africa (1926–27), and Egypt (1930). He also studied the flora of Italy and Switzerland.

Publications

* 1928. ''Voyages of exploration to judge of the bearing of hybridization upon evolution (Genetica : nederlandsch tijdschrift voor erfelijheids- en afstammingsleer)''. Ed. M. Nijhoff * 1922a. ''Van den Atlantischen Oceaan naar de Stille Zuidzee'' * 1922b. ''A popular account of evolution''. The Cawthron institute, Nelson, Nueva Zelanda. Cawthron lecture. Ed. R.W. Stiles & Co. 22 pp. * 1915. ''Het Tegenwoordige Standpunt der Evolutie-leer * 1911. ''Série IIIA. Sciences exactes. 1–4. Rédigées par J. P. Lotsy * 1906a. ''Résultats scientifiques du Congrès international de botanique, Vienne, 1905. Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse des Internationalen botanischen Kongresses, Wien, 1905 ... Redigiert von J. P. Lotsy ... Mit ... 1 Karte, etc * 1906b. ''Vorlesungen über Deszendenztheorien, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der botanischen Seite der Frage, gehalten an der Reichsuniversität zu Leiden, etc. * 1899. ''Rhopalocnemis Phalloides Jungh: A morphological-systematical study''. Ed. E.J. Brill * 1898. ''Contributions to the life-history of the genus Gnetum''. Ed. E.J. Brill * 1894. ''A contribution to the investigation of the assimilation of free atmospheric nitrogen by white and black mustard''. Bulletin / U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations. G.P.O. 19 pp.

Books

* 2008. ''Evolution By Means Of Hybridization''. Reeditado Maudsley Press. 176 pp. * 1928. ''A Popular Account of Evolution '' * 1925. ''Evolution considered in the light of Hybridization''. Ed. Canterbury College by Andrews, Baty & Co. 66 pp. * 1916
''Evolution by Means of Hybridization''
The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 166 pp. * 1907–1911. ''Vorträge über botanische Stammesgeschichte gehalten an der Reichsuniversität zu Leiden. Ein Lehrbuch der Pflanzensystematik. In drei Bände''. Jena, Verlag von Gustav Fischer. With illustrations. ** I
Algen und Pilze
(Thallophyta) Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1907. ** II

** III.

System

Lotsy argued that the monocotyledons were

diphyletic In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In c ...

, with the Spadiciflorae being derived from the dicotyledons (specifically Piperales) and the remainder from a hypothetical ancestor, the Proranales. Hutchinson, who argued for a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

origin, considered this improbable.

Synopsis

''Vorträge über botanische Stammesgeschichte'' * Volume 3: Cormophyta Siphonogamia Part 1 ** Monocotyledons vol 3(1) p. 514–564, 625–864 *** Spadiciflorae p. 514–564 **** Araceae ****

Lemnaceae Lemnoideae is a subfamily of flowering aquatic plants, known as duckweeds, water lentils, or water lenses. They float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands. Also known as bayroot, they arose fr ...

**** Cyclanthaceae **** Palmaceae ****

Pandanaceae Pandanaceae is a family of flowering plants native to the tropics and subtropics of the Old World, from West Africa through the Pacific. It contains 982 known species in five genera, of which the type genus, ''Pandanus'', is the most important, wi ...

****

Sparganiaceae Sparganiaceae is a family of flowering plants. Such a family was previously recognized by most taxonomists. The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, 1998), also recognizes this family, and assigns it to the order Poales in the c ...

**** Typhaceae **** Alismataceae **** Butomaceae **** Hydrocharitaceae ****

Scheuchzeriaceae ''Scheuchzeria palustris'' (Rannoch-rush, or pod grass), is a flowering plant in the family Scheuchzeriaceae, in which there is only one species and ''Scheuchzeria'' is the only genus. In the APG II system it is placed in the order Alismatales of ...

**** Zosteraceae **** Posidoniaceae **** Aponogetonaceae ****

Potamogetonaceae The Potamogetonaceae, commonly referred to as the pondweed family, is an aquatic family of monocotyledonous flowering plants. The roughly 110 known species are divided over six genera. The largest genus in the family by far is ''Potamogeton'', w ...

**** Najadaceae **** Altheniaceae **** Cymodoceaceae **** Triuridaceae *** Enantioblastae p. 693-714 **** Commelinaceae **** Mayacaceae **** Xyridaceae **** Eriocaulaceae **** Centrolepidaceae **** Restionaceae **** Pontederiaceae *** Liliifloren p. 715–766, 792–834 **** Liliaceae 714 **** Melanthiaceae 717 **** Asphodelaceae 722 ****

Aloinaceae Asphodeloideae is a subfamily of the monocot family Asphodelaceae in the order Asparagales. It has previously been treated as a separate family, Asphodelaceae ''sensu stricto''. The family Asphodelaceae has now been proposed to be a nomen con ...

725 ****

Eriospermaceae Nolinoideae is a monocot subfamily of the family Asparagaceae in the APG III system of 2009. It used to be treated as a separate family, Ruscaceae s.l. The family name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, ''Nolina''. The subfami ...

730 **** Johnsoniaceae 731 ****

Agapanthaceae Agapanthoideae is a monotypic subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, order Asparagales. It is one of three subfamilies of Amaryllidaceae. It was formerly treated as a separate family, Agapanthaceae. The subfamily ...

732 **** Alliaceae ****

Gilliesiaceae Gilliesieae is a tribe of herbaceous geophyte plants belonging to the subfamily Allioideae of the Amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceae). Described in 1826, it contains fifteen genera and about eighty species. It has been variously treated as a subfa ...

734 ****

Tulipaceae The Tulipeae ( syn. Tulipoideae) Duby is a tribe of monocotyledon perennial, herbaceous mainly bulbous flowering plants in the Liliaceae (lily) family. As originally conceived by Duby (1828), "Tulipaceae" was a tribe within Liliaceae, consisting ...

735 **** Scillaceae 741 ****

Asparagaceae Asparagaceae, known as the asparagus family, is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, ''Asparagus officinalis''. Those who live in the temperate c ...

743 **** Dracaenaceae 749 ****

Smilaceae Smilacaceae, the greenbriers, is a family of flowering plants. While they were often assigned to a more broadly defined family Liliaceae, most recent botanists have accepted the two as distinct families, diverging around 55 million years ago d ...

759 ****

Luzuriagaceae Luzuriagaceae is a family of flowering plants that was recognized in the 1998 APG system and the 2003 APG II system. The 2009 APG III system merged this small family into the Alstroemeriaceae in the order Liliales, in the clade monocots Monoco ...

760 **** Ophiopogonaceae ****

Lomandraceae Lomandroideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales, according to the APG III system of 2009. The subfamily name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, ''Lomandra''. The group ...

761 **** Dasypogonaceae 763 **** Calectasiaceae 764 **** Juncaceae **** Flagellariaceae 765 ****

Stemonaceae The Stemonaceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants placed in the order Pandanales. The family consists of four genera with ca 37 known species distributed in areas with seasonal climate across Southeast Asia and tropical Australia. ...

(Roxburghiaceae) 792 ****

Cyanastraceae Tecophilaeaceae is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. It consists of nine genera with a total of 27 species. The family has only recently been recognized by taxonomists. The APG IV system of 2016 (un ...

793 **** Iridaceae 794 *****

Crocoideae Crocoideae is one of the major subfamilies in the family Iridaceae. It contains plants which are widely distributed in the Old World, mainly in Africa, but there are species like some members of the genera ''Romulea'' and ''Gladiolus'' which are n ...

***** Iridoideae 796 *****

Ixioideae Crocoideae is one of the major subfamilies in the family Iridaceae. It contains plants which are widely distributed in the Old World, mainly in Africa, but there are species like some members of the genera ''Romulea'' and ''Gladiolus'' which are n ...

799 **** Haemodoraceae 800 ****

Amaryllidaceae The Amaryllidaceae are a family of herbaceous, mainly perennial and bulbous (rarely rhizomatous) flowering plants in the monocot order Asparagales. The family takes its name from the genus ''Amaryllis'' and is commonly known as the amaryllis fa ...

801, 811 **** Hypoxidaceae **** Vellosiaceae 802 **** Agavaceae 806 ****

Bromeliaceae The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain o ...

814 **** Dioscoreaceae 823 ****

Taccaceae The genus ''Tacca'', which includes the batflowers and arrowroot, consists of flowering plants in the order Dioscoreales, native to tropical regions of South America, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, and various oceanic islands. In older text ...

826 **** Burmanniaceen 829 *** Glumifloren p. 767–791 ****

Cyperaceae The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' w ...

**** Graminaceae *** Scitamineae p. 835–864 ****

Musaceae Musaceae is a family of flowering plants composed of three genera with about 91 known species, placed in the order Zingiberales. The family is native to the tropics of Africa and Asia. The plants have a large herbaceous growth habit with leaves ...

**** Cannaceae **** Zingiberaceae **** Marantaceae **** Orchidaceae ** Index p. 952

References

Bibliography

*
Volume 2
at Internet Archive *
''Nature'' obituary

External links

1867 births 1931 deaths Scientists from Dordrecht Dutch botanists {{netherlands-botanist-stub