Günther Ritter Beck von Mannagetta und Lerchenau (25 August 1856 in Pressburg, modern

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

– 23 June 1931 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) was a prominent

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

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 ...

Life

Ritter Beck-Mannagetta, son of a state prosecutor, studied at the University of Vienna, where he graduated as Dr. phil. in 1878. After a period working as a volunteer at the ''Botanisches Hofkabinett'', (later the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

), he became head of the Botanical Department there from 1885 to 1899. In 1894 he became assistant professor, and in 1895 associate professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

. From 1899 to 1921 he was professor of systematic botany at the German

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

in Prague and head of the Botanical Garden there. His main interests were plant geography and the flora of the Alps and the Balkans. Beck also revised the

pitcher plant Pitcher plants are several different carnivorous plants which have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered to be "true" pitcher p ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Nepenthes ''Nepenthes'' () is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus includes about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are mos ...

'' in his 1895 monograph, " Die Gattung ''Nepenthes''". Beck, G. 1895. Die Gattung ''Nepenthes''. ''Wiener Illustrirte Garten-Zeitung'' 20(3–6): 96–107, 141–150, 182–192, 217–229. In 1933, botanist Harry Sm. published a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s from Siberia and China, belonging to the family

Orobanchaceae Orobanchaceae, the broomrapes, is a family of mostly parasitic plants of the order Lamiales, with about 90 genera and more than 2000 species. Many of these genera (e.g., ''Pedicularis'', ''Rhinanthus'', ''Striga'') were formerly included in the ...

, as '' Mannagettaea'' in his honour.

Some publications

* ''Flora von Niederösterreich'' (1890–1893) * ''Die Vegetationsverhältnisse der illyrischen Länder begreifend Südkroatien, die Quarnero-Inseln, Dalmatien, Bosnien und die Hercegovina, Montenegro, Nordalbanien, den Sandzak Novipazar und Serbien'' (1901) * ''Hilfsbuch für Pflanzensammler'' (1902) * ''Flora Bosne, Hercegovine i Novipazarskog Sandzaka'' (three volumes, 1903–1927) * ''Grundriß der Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches'', (1908) * He also contributed to Engler and Prantl's ''Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien: Orobanchaceae''.

Notes

:a.

Ritter Ritter (German for "knight") is a designation used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas. Traditionally it denotes the second-lowest rank within the nobility, standing above "Edler" and below "Freiherr" (Baron). As with most titles an ...

is a title, best translated as ''knight'', in the British sense of an hereditary knighthood, not a first or middle name.

References

External links

* Biography with photo in: Jan-Peter Frahm & Jens Eggers
''Lexikon deutschsprachiger Bryologen''
Books on Demand Gmbh 2001. , {{DEFAULTSORT:Beck, Guenther Von Mannagetta Und Lerchenau 19th-century Austrian botanists Charles University faculty Austrian knights Hungarian-German people Scientists from Bratislava 1856 births 1931 deaths 20th-century Austrian botanists