Joseph Gaertner (12 March 1732 – 14 July 1791) was a German botanist , best known for his work on seeds, De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum (1788-1792).
7-487: 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 in four parts, in 1790, 1791, 1791, and 1792 respectively. A third volume was published after Gaertner's death by his son Karl Friedrich von Gaertner from 1805 to 1807; this final volume
14-404: Is also known as ' Supplementum Carpologicae' , abbreviated as Suppl. Carp. . Most of the illustrations for the work were done by Johann Georg Sturm (1742-1793). De Fructibus was based on specimens of over a thousand genera , including Australian and Pacific specimens from the collection of Sir Joseph Banks , and South African specimens from the collection of Carl Peter Thunberg . It
21-578: The flower was thus placed upon a better basis.... Gärtner's theory of the seed is one of his most valuable contributions to the science.... [H]is views far surpass in clearness and consistency all that had hitherto been taught on the subject." Joseph Gaertner He was born in Calw , and studied in Göttingen under Albrecht von Haller . He was primarily a naturalist, but also worked at physics and zoology . He travelled extensively to visit other naturalists. He
28-454: Was at once an inexhaustible mine of single well-ascertained facts, and a guide to the morphology of the organs of fructification and to its application to systematic botany." 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 . The work's minutely accurate descriptions, comprising
35-429: Was essentially a study of fruits and seeds, but the resultant classification was outstanding for its time. Julius von Sachs claimed that the work "forms an epoch in the history of botany", writing "[Gaertner]'s great work was at once an inexhaustible mine of single well-ascertained facts, and a guide to the morphology of the organs of fructification and to its application to systematic botany.... [T]he whole theory of
42-715: Was professor of anatomy in Tübingen in 1760, and was appointed professor of botany at St Petersburg 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
49-441: Was unable to give possible explanation for observed data but which was brilliantly done by Mendel Julius Sachs writes "[H]e gives us the impression of a modern man of science more than any other botanist of the 18th century, with the exception of Koelreuter . He knew how to communicate with clearness of language and perspicuity of arrangement whatever he gathered of general importance from each investigation.... [H]is great work
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