Gottlieb Wilhelm Bischoff (21 May 1797 – 11 September 1854) was a German botanist and university professor. He was among the first to examine the reproduction of

mosses Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and horn ...

and

liverworts The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ge ...

and is credited with coining the terms

archegonia An archegonium (pl: archegonia), from the ancient Greek ''ἀρχή'' ("beginning") and ''γόνος'' ("offspring"), is a multicellular structure or organ of the gametophyte phase of certain plants, producing and containing the ovum or female ga ...

and antheridia. Bischoff was born in Dürkheim and studied botany under Wilhelm Daniel Koch, the author a major flora of Germany, in

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

. He then went to the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

in 1819 and then studied botany in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

from 1821. He began to teach in Heidelberg from 1824 and received a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1825. He became a professor of botany in 1833 and directed the botanical garden in Heidelberg from 1839. He specialized in the liverworts and mosses coining the terms archegonium and antheridium. Bischoff issued the

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae refer to numbered collections of dried herbarium specimens respectivel ...

''Herbarium normale plantarum officinalium et mercatorium''. The genus ''

Bischofia ''Bischofia'' is a genus of plants in the family Phyllanthaceae first described as a genus in 1827. It is native to southern China, the Indian Subcontinent, Queensland, New Guinea, and various islands of the Pacific. It is the only member of th ...

'' was named after Gottlieb Wilhelm Bischoff by Karl Blume.

References

External links

''Lehrbuch der botanik''
(1834) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bischoff, Gottlieb Wilhelm 19th-century German botanists 1797 births 1854 deaths People from Bad Dürkheim