Karl Friedrich von Gaertner von Emil Orth

Karl Friedrich von Gaertner (or Carl Friedrich von Gärtner) (1 May 1772 – 1 September 1850) was a well-known German

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 ...

, and the son of Joseph Gaertner. He was a pioneer in the study of hybrids, and he is considered an important influence on Gregor Mendel. Gärtner, who was a protestant, challenged the doctrine of Carl Linnaeus of the "new special creation" which stated that new species of vegetation could arise through hybridization. He defended the stability of species, and argued that although the transmutation of species was evidently possible, the new species would not last because of a ''law of reversion'' which prevented them from spreading freely. As was reported in the words of Mendel: Gärtner is mentioned 17 times in Gregor Mendel's short famous paper '' Experiments on Plant Hybridization'' and 32 times in the first edition of Charles Darwin's '' On the Origin of Species'.'' He also is the most cited by nominal appearances in the sixth edition of the ''Origin''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaertner, Karl Friedrich von 1772 births 1850 deaths People from Calw Botanists with author abbreviations 19th-century German botanists German Christians German Protestants Proto-evolutionary biologists