Martin Martens (8 December 1797 – 8 February 1863) was a Belgian

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 ...

and chemist born in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; ; ; ) is a city and a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital city, capital and largest city of the province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg. Maastricht is loca ...

, Netherlands. He studied medicine in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

, afterwards serving as a physician in Maastricht from 1823 to 1835. From 1835 to 1863 he was a professor of

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

at the

Catholic University of Louvain The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

.Biodiversity Heritage Library
Taxonomic literature : a selective guide to botanical publications With Henri Guillaume Galeotti (1814-1858), he was the binomial author of many botanical species. In 1842, with Galeotti, he published an important treatise on

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

titled ''Memoire sur les Fougères du Mexique, et considérations sur la géographie botanique de cette contrée''. With Galeotti, he was also co-author of works on the botanical families

Gesneriaceae Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family (biology), family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Ges ...

and

Solanaceae Solanaceae (), commonly known as the nightshades, is a family of flowering plants in the order Solanales. It contains approximately 2,700 species, several of which are used as agricultural crops, medicinal plants, and ornamental plants. Many me ...

. The

mycological Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and ...

genera ''Martensiomyces'' and ''Martensella'' are named in his honor, the latter genus being circumscribed by Henri Eugène Lucien Gaëtan Coemans (1825–1871). In 2011, botanists Borhidi & Lozada-Pérez published a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s from Mexico, belonging to the family

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 ( ...

as '' Martensianthus'' in his honour.

References

Further reading