Antoine Frédéric Spring (8 April 1814 in

Gerolsbach Gerolsbach is a municipality in the district of Pfaffenhofen in Bavaria in Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, ...

, Bavaria – 17 January 1872) was a German-born, Belgian physician and

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 ...

. He studied botany and medicine at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

, obtaining his PhD in 1835 and his medical doctorate during the following year. From 1839 to 1872 he was a professor at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

, initially in the fields of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

and

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

, later teaching classes in

pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

and internal medicine. As a botanist he specialized in research of

Lycopodiaceae The Lycopodiaceae (class Lycopodiopsida, order Lycopodiales) are an old family of vascular plants, including all of the core clubmosses and firmosses, comprising 16 accepted genera and about 400 known species. This family originated about 380 mil ...

(clubmosses) and

Selaginellaceae ''Selaginella'' is the sole genus of vascular plants in the family Selaginellaceae, the spikemosses or lesser clubmosses. This family is distinguished from Lycopodiaceae The Lycopodiaceae (class Lycopodiopsida, order Lycopodiales) are an o ...

(spikemosses), and was the binomial author of numerous species from both families.IPNI
List of plants described and co-described by Spring His personal

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 ...

is now kept in the herbarium at the University of Liège. His son

Walthère Victor Spring Walthère Victor Spring (6 March 1848 – 17 July 1911) was a Belgian experimental chemist and a professor at the University of Liège who contributed to ideas on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the Greenhouse Effect. As a physical chemist he ...

became a chemist who contributed to ideas on the Greenhouse Effect, as well as to physical and organic chemistry.

References

Les Botanistes liégeois et l'Emulation
(translated biography) 1814 births 1872 deaths People from Pfaffenhofen (district) 19th-century Belgian botanists University of Liège faculty {{Belgium-botanist-stub