Gustav Karl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten (6 November 1817, in

Stralsund Stralsund (; Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neub ...

– 10 July 1908, in Zoppot) was a 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 geologist. Born in

, he followed the example of Alexander von Humboldt and traveled 1844-56 the northern part of South America ( Venezuela, Ecuador and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

). From 1856 to 1868, he was a professor at the agricultural college in Berlin, afterwards serving as a professor of

plant physiology Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology (structure of plants), plant ecology (interactions with the environment), phytochemistry (bi ...

at the University of Vienna (1868–72). In 1881, at the suggestion of David Friedrich Weinland, Karsten became convinced of the correctness of Otto Hahn's organic theory of the chondrites and, as a result, wrote an essay entitled "Die Meteorite und ihre Organismen" in which he declared his support for Hahn's theory. He died 1908 in Berlin- Grunewald. As a taxonomist, he was the binomial author of many botanical species.

Selected bibliography

* ''Florae Columbiae ...'' 1859–1869. (Vol. 1
Digital edition
/ Vol. 2
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of th ...

) * ''Chemismus der Pflanzenzelle'' 1869. * ''Deutsche Flora. Pharmaceutisch-medicinische Botanik'' 1880-1883; second edition 1894–1895. * ''"Hermann Karsten (1851) y

Wilhelm Sievers Friedrich Wilhelm Sievers (3 December 1860 – 11 June 1921) was a German geologist and geographer. He served as professor of geography at the University of Giessen. His field work focussed on South America, and his ''Allgemeine Länderkunde'' was ...

(1888): las primeras descripciones e interpretaciones sobre el órigen de las terrazas aluviales en la Córdillera de Mérida''." C. Schubert. ''Bol. Hist. Geocien. Venez''., 44, pp 15–19 * "Die Meteorite und ihre Organismen", 1881 - The Meteorite and its Organisms.https://archive.org/details/the-meteorite-and-its-organisms archive.org English translation

References

External links

Florae Columbiae :terrarumque adiacentium specimina selecta in peregrinatione duodecim annorum observata: delineavit et descripsit H. Karsten
at the Biodiversity Heritage library {{DEFAULTSORT:Karsten, Hermann 1817 births 1908 deaths People from Stralsund People from Sopot Botanists with author abbreviations 19th-century German botanists Botanists active in South America Phycologists Pteridologists German mycologists 19th-century German geologists People from the Province of Pomerania