Klaus Kubitzki (born 1933) is 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 ...

. He is an Emeritus professor in the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (german: link=no, Universität Hamburg, also referred to as UHH) is a public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('' Allgemeines Vor ...

, at the Herbarium Hamburgense. He is known for his work on the

systematics Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...

and

biogeography Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

of the

angiosperms 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 ...

, particularly those of the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...

, and also the floristic record of the

Tertiary era Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

. His plant systematic work is referred to as the

Kubitzki system The Kubitzki system is a system of plant taxonomy devised by Klaus Kubitzki, and is the product of an ongoing survey of vascular plants, entitled ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'', and extending to 15 volumes in 2018. The survey, in th ...

. He is a member of the

American Society of Plant Taxonomists The American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT) is a botanical organization formed in 1935 to "foster, encourage, and promote education and research in the field of plant taxonomy, to include those areas and fields of study that contribute to and b ...

Career

Born in Niesky, Oberlausitz, he undertook studies in biology and geology at the universities of Innsbruck, Goettingen and Kiel. His doctoral work at

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...

was in

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

studies (1960). He then became associate professor at the

Universidad Austral de Chile Austral University of Chile ( es, Universidad Austral de Chile or UACh) is a Chilean research university based primarily in Valdivia, with a satellite campus in Puerto Montt. Founded on September 7, 1954, it is one of the eight original Chilean Tr ...

Valdivia Valdivia (; Mapuche: Ainil) is a city and commune in southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Valdivia. The city is named after its founder Pedro de Valdivia and is located at the confluence of the Calle-Calle, Valdivia, and Cau-Cau R ...

, southern Chile (1961–1963). He pursued further studies at

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over ...

(1968), from where he proceeded to a position as lecturer at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

till 1973, and then as professor of systematic botany at the

(1973 to 1998).

Work

Kubitzky's contributions have included

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. ...

, plant geography and geoecology. He made a special study of the Guayana Highland. His taxonomic work is contained in ''The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants'' (1990-).

Selected publications

* . 1982a. ''Lorenthaceae''. Volumes 2 & 4 of Flora de Venezuela. Inst. Botanico * . 1982b. ''Lauraceae I (Aniba & Aiouea)''. No. 31 of Flora neotropica monograph. Volume 1 de Lauraceae. New York Botanical Garden, 125 pp. *

The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants (Springer-Verlag, Berlin)

* 1. * 2. * 3. * 4. * 5. * 6. * 7. * 8. * 9. * 10. * 11. * 12. * 13. * 14.

Eponyms

;

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 ...

: * (

Lauraceae Lauraceae, or the laurels, is a plant family that includes the true laurel and its closest relatives. This family comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide (Christenhusz & Byng 2016 ). They are dicotyledons, and occur ma ...

) '' Kubitzkia'' van der Werff ;

Species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

: * (

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

) ''

Mikania ''Mikania'' is a genus of about 450 species of plants in the tribe Eupatorieae within the family Asteraceae. The name honors the Czech botanist Johann Christian Mikan, 1743–1814. Members of the genus are stem twiners and lianas and are common ...

kubitzkii'' R.M.King & H.Rob. * (

Dilleniaceae Dilleniaceae is a family of flowering plants with 11 genera and about 430 known species. Such a family has been universally recognized by taxonomists. It is known to gardeners for the genus ''Hibbertia'', which contains many commercially valuabl ...

) '' Davilla kubitzkii'' Brittonia 50(1): 51 1998 (IK)

References

Citations

Sources

* Simpson, DP. 1979. ''Cassell's Latin Dictionary''. 5, London: Cassell Ltd., 883. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Kubitzki, Klaus German taxonomists 1933 births Living people 20th-century German botanists 21st-century German botanists 20th-century German scientists 21st-century German scientists