Christian Ernst Stahl (21 June 1848 – 3 December 1919) was a German botanist who was a native of

Schiltigheim Schiltigheim (, , and sometimes by non-local speakers of French; Alsatian: ''Schelige'' ; ) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. The inhabitants are called ''Schilikois'' in French and ''Scheligemer'' ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

Academic career

He studied botany at the

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

with Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet (1838-1902), and at the

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university in ...

under

Anton de Bary Heinrich Anton de Bary (26 January 183119 January 1888) was a German surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist (fungal systematics and physiology). He is considered a founding father of plant pathology (phytopathology) as well as the fou ...

(1831-1888). He earned his doctorate in 1874, and later became an assistant to

Julius von Sachs Julius von Sachs (; 2 October 1832 – 29 May 1897) was a German botanist from Breslau, Prussian Silesia. He is considered the founder of experimental plant physiology and co-founder of modern water culture. Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Kno ...

(1832-1897) at the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...

. He was appointed an associate professor at the

, and after just one year, he attained the chair of botany at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

in 1881. Here, he also served as director of the

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

. During the winter of 1889-1890, he took a scientific expedition to Ceylon and

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, and in 1894 travelled to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Two of his better-known students were

Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (28 October 1867 – 17 April 1941) was a German biologist and philosopher from Bad Kreuznach. He is most noted for his early experimental work in embryology and for his neo-vitalist philosophy of entelechy. He has als ...

(1867-1941) and Hans Kniep (1881-1930).

Botanical research

Stahl is remembered for his pioneer experiments in the field of

ecophysiology Ecophysiology (from Greek , ''oikos'', "house(hold)"; , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , '' -logia''), environmental physiology or physiological ecology is a biological discipline that studies the response of an organism's physiology to enviro ...

, as well as research involving the developmental history of lichens. He was able to induce the synthesis of the lichen '' Endocarpon pusillum'' from spores and algal material, including formation of

apothecia An ascocarp, or ascoma (), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. Ascocarps are mos ...

, and thus he made a strong experimental case for the hypothesis by Simon Schwendener (1829-1919) that lichens are twin

fungal A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...

algal Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mi ...

organisms.Schlechtendalia
Lichenology in Germany: past, present and future Other contributions by Stahl included studies concerning the influence of light on plants — he described the anatomy of sun and shade leaves; the effects of moisture and dryness on the formation of leaves, and the role of stomata in

xerophytes A xerophyte (from Greek ξηρός ''xeros'' 'dry' + φυτόν ''phuton'' 'plant') is a species of plant that has adaptations to survive in an environment with little liquid water, such as a desert such as the Sahara or places in the Alps or the ...

and

mesophyte Mesophytes are terrestrial plants which are neither adapted to particularly dry nor particularly wet environments. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow, which might contain goldenrod, clover, oxeye daisy, and ''Rosa ...

s. He conducted important research on the symbiotic relationship between

mycorrhizal fungi A mycorrhiza (from Greek μύκης ', "fungus", and ῥίζα ', "root"; pl. mycorrhizae, mycorrhiza or mycorrhizas) is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant. The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the pla ...

and

tree root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

s, and also worked on plant defense against

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

and slug

herbivory A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...

and a plethora of other

botanical 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

ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

questions.

Selected scientific works

* ''Entwickelung und Anatomie der Lenticellen''. (Evolution and anatomy of lenticel);

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

1873. * ''Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Flechten''. (Contributions to the evolutionary history of lichens); Leipzig 1877. * ''Über den Einfluß von Richtung und Stärke der Beleuchtung auf einige Bewegungserscheinungen im Pflanzenreich''. - (On the influence of direction and intensity of illumination involving movement phenomena in the plant kingdom); Leipzig 1880. * ''Über sogenannte Kompaßpflanzen''. (treatise on compass plants); Jena 1883. * ''Über den Einfluß des sonnigen oder schattigen Standortes auf die Ausbildung der Laubblätter''. (Concerning sun and shade on the formation of leaves on

deciduous trees In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, afte ...

); Jena 1883. * ''Einfluß des Lichtes auf den Geotropismus einiger Pflanzenorgane''. (Influence of light in regards to

geotropism Gravitropism (also known as geotropism) is a coordinated process of differential growth by a plant in response to gravity pulling on it. It also occurs in fungi. Gravity can be either "artificial gravity" or natural gravity. It is a general featu ...

of plants); Berlin 1884. * ''Zur Biologie der Myxomyceten'' (The biology of

slime mold Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mul ...

). Leipzig 1884. * ''Pflanzen und Schnecken. Eine biologische Studie über die Schutzmittel der Pflanzen gegen Schneckenfraß''. (Plants and

s, a biological study regarding protection of plants against slugs); Jena 1888.

References

* Mägdefrau, Karl (1992) Geschichte der Botanik: Leben und Leistung grosser Forscher. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stahl, Ernst 19th-century German botanists 1848 births 1919 deaths People from Schiltigheim University of Strasbourg faculty University of Jena faculty 20th-century German botanists Chemical ecologists Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala