The Professor Josef Ludwig Holub (5 February 1930 in

Mladá Boleslav Mladá Boleslav (; german: Jungbunzlau) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 42,000 inhabitants. Mladá Boleslav is the second most populated city in the region and a major centre of the Czech automotive in ...

, (now

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

) – 23 July 1999) was a Czech botanist who described a number of new species, worked on systematic reorganization of botanical groups, and contributed greatly to the study of European flora.

Biography

Josef Holub studied at

Charles University in Prague Charles University ( cs, Univerzita Karlova, UK; la, Universitas Carolina; german: Karls-Universität), also known as Charles University in Prague or historically as the University of Prague ( la, Universitas Pragensis, links=no), is the oldest an ...

, becoming a lecturer in botany in 1953. He co-founded the Czech Institute of Botany where he worked for many years. He also helped create the Department of Biosystematics, and the journal ''Folia'', published by the "Geobotanical and Phytotaxonomic Institute. In 1991 he was named president of the Czech Botanical Society. He participated in many botanical field studies in central

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Work

He worked on

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

. He contributed to

economic botany ''Economic Botany'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that covers all aspects of economic botany. The editor-in-chief is Robert A. Voeks (California State University, Fullerton). The journal was established in 1947 and is published b ...

, especially with his work on the

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

and the

. *Holub, J et al. 1967. "Sobrevista de las unidades de vegetación superior de Checoslovaquia", Rozpr.Čs.Acad. Sci. Praga: 77/3: 1-75 He performed extensive work on the order

Lycopodiales The Lycopodiaceae (class Lycopodiopsida, order Lycopodiales) are an old family of vascular plants, including all of the core clubmosses and firmosses, comprising 16 accepted genera and about 400 known species. This family originated about 380 mil ...

and the systematics of the

Equisetaceae Equisetaceae, sometimes called the horsetail family, is the only extant family of the order Equisetales, with one surviving genus, ''Equisetum'', which comprises about twenty species. Evolution and systematics Equisetaceae is the only survivin ...

. He also made substantial contributions to the studies of the fern genera ''

Dryopteris :''The moth genus ''Dryopteris'' is now considered a junior synonym of '' Oreta. ''Dryopteris'' , commonly called the wood ferns, male ferns (referring in particular to ''Dryopteris filix-mas''), or buckler ferns, is a fern genus in the family D ...

, Lastraea, and

Thelypteris ''Thelypteris'' (maiden ferns) is a genus of ferns in the subfamily Thelypteridoideae, family Thelypteridaceae, order Polypodiales. Two radically different circumscriptions of the genus are in use . In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classific ...

''. Other plant genera he worked on included ''

Helictotrichon ''Helictotrichon'', or alpine oatgrass, is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the grass family. The genus name comes from the Greek ''heliktos'' meaning twisted, and ''trichos'' meaning hair, referring to the shape of the awn. Most of the ...

Avenula ''Avenula'' is a genus of Eurasian flowering plants in the grass family. Over 100 names have been proposed for species, subspecies, varieties, and other infraspecific taxa within ''Avenula'', but only one species is accepted. The others names are ...

Rubus ''Rubus'' is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, with over 1,350 species. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these ...

'' and '' Crataegus''. He was a principal author of ''Flora of the Czech Republic'' and the Flora of Slovakia. Holub contributed to the lists of threatened species for several regions, contributing the Redbook of Endangered Species.

References

* 1995. Lumbreras, EL. ''"In memoriam"'', Professor Josef Holub * Flora Montiberica: 13: 4-5. ISSN 1138-5952

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Holub, Josef Ludwig 1930 births 1999 deaths Pteridologists Economic botanists Charles University alumni Charles University faculty Czechoslovak botanists