Richard Wettstein (30 June 1863 in Vienna – 10 August 1931 in Trins) was an Austrian botanist. His taxonomic system, the Wettstein system, was one of the earliest based on phyletic principles.

Richard Wettstein
Richard Wettstein on a 1927 photo
Born
Anna Weinberg

(1863-07-30)30 July 1863
Died10 August 1931(1931-08-10) (aged 68)
NationalityAustrian
Alma materUniversity of Vienna
Scientific career
FieldsBotany

Wettstein studied in Vienna, where he was a disciple of Anton Kerner von Marilaun (1831-1898) and married his daughter Adele.[1] During his time at the University of Vienna, he founded the student-led Natural Science Association with his friend Karl Eggerth in 1882.[2] He was a professor at the University of Prague from 1892, and at the University of Vienna from 1899. He newly laid out the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna.[3]

In 1901 he became president of the Vienna Zoological-Botanical Society (Zoologisch-Botanische Gesellschaft), and during the same year took part in a scientific expedition to Brazil. In 1919 he was appointed vice-president of the Vienna Academy of Sciences. During his later years (1929–30), he traveled with his son, Friedrich, to eastern and southern Africa.[4]

The mycological genus Wettsteinina is named in his honor and also Wettsteiniola, which is a genus of flowering plants from Brazil, belonging to the family Podostemaceae, also honor's Richard Wettstein.[5]

In 1905, he was co-president of the International Botanical Congress, held in Vienna.[6]

In 1913 Wettstein edited and distributed the last fascicles (specimens no. 3601-4000) of the famous exsiccata work Flora exsiccata Austro-Hungarica, a museo botanico universitatis vindobonensis edita.[7]

Selected publications

edit
  • Nolanaceae, Solanaceae, Scrophulariaceae in (Engler & Prantl 1895, pp. 1–107).
  • Grundzüge der geographisch-morphologischen Methode der Pflanzensystematik, 1898 - Basics of geographical-morphological methods of plant systematics.
  • Botanik Und Zoologie In Österreich in den Jahren 1850 Bis 1900, 1901 - Botany and zoology in Austria in the years 1850 to 1900.
  • Der Neo-Lamarckismus und seine Beziehungen zum Darwinismus, 1903 - Neo-Lamarckism and its relationship to Darwinism.
  • Wettstein, Richard (1924). Handbuch der Systematischen Botanik 2 vols (3rd ed.). Vienna: Deuticke. Retrieved 15 April 2015.

See also

edit

Notes

edit

References

edit

Bibliography

edit