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

Pressburg Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

, modern

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

– 23 June 1931 in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

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 scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

), he became head of the Botanical Department there from 1885 to 1899. Together with Alexander Zahlbruckner as co-editor he published 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 are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

series ''Kryptogamae exsiccatae editae a Museo Palatino Vindobonensi'' from 1896 until 1898. In 1894 he became assistant professor, and in 1895 associate professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

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

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

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 carnivorous plants known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of pitcher plant are considered to be "true" pitcher plants and are formed by specialized ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

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 m ...

'' 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 (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s from Siberia and China, belonging to the family

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

, 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 "" (Baron). As with most titles and desig ...

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 Academic staff of Charles University Hungarian-German people Scientists from Bratislava 1856 births 1931 deaths 20th-century Austrian botanists Botanists from Austria-Hungary