Carl Bernhard von Trinius (6 March 1778,

Eisleben Eisleben is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is famous as both the hometown of the influential theologian Martin Luther and the place where he died; hence, its official name is Lutherstadt Eisleben. First mentioned in the late 10th century, E ...

– 12 March 1844,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

) was a German-born

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 physician. He studied medicine at several universities, earning his medical doctorate at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in 1802. In 1808, after time spent as a physician in

Hasenpoth Aizpute (german: Hasenpoth) is a town in western Latvia's South Kurzeme Municipality in the valley of the Tebra River, northeast of Liepāja. History The territory of modern Aizpute was inhabited by ancient Curonians since the 9th century. St. ...

, he served as a personal physician to Antoinette, Duchess of Württemberg (née Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) for the next 16 years. During this time period, he traveled extensively throughout Germany and Russia. In St. Petersburg, he became good friends to author

Ernst Moritz Arndt Ernst Moritz Arndt (26 December 1769 – 29 January 1860) was a German nationalist historian, writer and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany. Arndt had to flee to Swe ...

. After the death of the duchess in 1824, he remained in St. Petersburg as an imperial physician, and along with a medical practice, he dealt with botanical concerns at the

Academy of Sciences An academy of sciences is a type of learned society or academy (as special scientific institution) dedicated to sciences that may or may not be state funded. Some state funded academies are tuned into national or royal (in case of the Unit ...

.biography
@

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...

From 1829 to 1833, he taught classes in

natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

s to the future Russian monarch, Czar Alexander II. In 1836–1838, he took an extended scientific journey to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

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 wel ...

, Halle,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

and

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, a trip in which he studied various botanical collections.Drw.saw Leipzig-de
(biography) As a physician, he is known for his

homeopathic Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dise ...

approach to medicine (especially after 1830). As a botanist, Trinius was a specialist in

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

and described many species in his career, including ''

Agrostis pallens ''Agrostis pallens'' is a species of Poaceae, grass known by the common name seashore bentgrass. Distribution It is native to western North America from British Columbia to Montana to California, where it grows in many types of habitat, typicall ...

'', ''

Cenchrus agrimonioides ''Cenchrus agrimonioides'' is a rare species of grass in the family Poaceae that is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Its common names include Kāmanomano and agrimony sandbur. It was formerly distributed throughout the major islands but today i ...

'' and ''

Festuca subulata ''Festuca subulata'' is a species of Poaceae, grass known by the common names bearded fescue and nodding fescue. It is native to the northwestern quarter of North America, from Alaska to South Dakota to northern California, where it is most often ...

''. The genus ''

Trinia ''Trinia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apiaceae, native from Europe to Iran and western Siberia. The genus was first described by Georg Franz Hoffmann in 1814. Species , Plants of the World Online accepted the following species ...

'' and species ''

Trinia glauca ''Trinia glauca'' (honewort) is a low-growing umbellifer found in rocky areas. Description Honewort is a low-growing glabrous plant. Its stems can reach 20 cm, and are surrounded by abundant fibrous remains of petioles at the base. It is mu ...

'' are named after him. The so-called "Herbarium Trinii" (a collection of roughly 4000-5000 plants) was bequeathed to the botanical museum in St. Petersburg. He was the author of numerous papers in the field of botany. Among his better known publications was "Species graminum, iconibus et descriptionibus illustr." (Vol. I, 1828; Vol. II, 1829; Vol. III, 1836). After his death, a collection of Trinius'

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

was published as ''Gedichte'' ("Poems", Berlin 1848).

References

Karl Antonovich (Carl Bernhard) von Trinius on the Russian Academy of Sciences site.

External links

WorldCat Identities
Publications by Trinius. 19th-century German botanists Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences 1778 births 1844 deaths University of Göttingen alumni People from Eisleben {{Germany-botanist-stub