Oskar Eberhard Ulbrich (17 September 1879 – 4 November 1952) 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
mycologist
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungus, fungi, including their genetics, genetic and biochemistry, biochemical properties, their Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy and ethnomycology, their use to humans, including as a so ...
.
Ulbrich was born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. He studied
natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
at the
University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
, where his instructors included
Adolf Engler
Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (25 March 1844 – 10 October 1930) was a German botanist. He is notable for his work on plant taxonomy and phytogeography, such as ''Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien'' (''The Natural Plant Families''), edited with ...
(1844–1930) and
Simon Schwendener
Simon Schwendener (10 February 1829 – 27 May 1919) was a Swiss botanist who was a native of Buchs in the Canton of St. Gallen.
In 1856 he received his doctorate at the University of Zurich, where afterwards he was an assistant to Carl Wilhelm ...
(1829–1919). In 1926 he became a
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
and professor at the
Botanical Museum in Berlin, where in 1938 he was appointed director of the ''Hauptpilzstelle''.
Known for his intrafamilial investigations of the botanical families
Amaranthaceae
Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...
,
Chenopodiaceae
Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...
and
Caryophyllaceae
Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactacea ...
, in 1934 he subdivided Chenopodiaceae into eight subfamilies;
Salicornioideae
The Salicornioideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Amaranthaceae (''sensu lato'', including the Chenopodiaceae). Important characters are succulent, often articulated stems, strongly reduced leaves, and flowers aggregated in thick, ...
,
Polycnemoideae
The Polycnemoideae are a small subfamily of plants in the family Amaranthaceae, representing a basal evolutionary lineage. The few relictual species are distributed in Eurasia and North Africa, North America, and Australia.
Description
The sub ...
,
Chenopodioideae
The Chenopodioideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Amaranthaceae in the APG III system, which is largely based on molecular phylogeny, but were included - together with other subfamilies - in family Chenopodiaceae in the Cronquist ...
,
Salsoloideae
The Salsoloideae are a subfamily of the Amaranthaceae, formerly in family Chenopodiaceae.
Description
These are herbs, subshrubs, shrubs and some trees. Stems and leaves are often succulent. The ovary contains a spiral embryo. In most genera ...
, et al.
In 1911 he introduced usage of a color scheme to indicate geographical regions on
herbarium
A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.
The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...
specimens and fascicles.
The plant genus ''
Ulbrichia
''Thespesia'' is a genus of 13 flowering shrubs and trees in the ''Hibiscus'' family, Malvaceae, although within the family they are more closely related to cotton plants (''Gossypium''). The genus is distributed from the South Pacific through As ...
'' from the family
Malvaceae
Malvaceae, or the mallows, is a family of flowering plants estimated to contain 244 genera with 4225 known species. Well-known members of economic importance include okra, cotton, cacao and durian. There are also some genera containing familiar ...
was named after him by
Ignatz Urban
Ignatz Urban (7 January 1848 – 7 January 1931) was a German botanist. He is known for his contributions to the flora of the Caribbean and Brazil, and for his work as curator of the Berlin Botanical Garden. Born the son of a brewer, Urban s ...
(1848–1931).
Selected publications
* ''Die höheren Pilze: Basidiomycetes'', third edition 1928 (with
Gustav Lindau
Gustav Lindau (2 May 1866 in Dessau – 10 October 1923 in Berlin), was a German mycologist and botanist.
Biography
Gustav Lindau studied natural history in Heidelberg and Berlin, where he studied under Simon Schwendener (1829–1919). He comple ...
1866-1923) - The higher fungi,
Basidiomycetes
Basidiomycota () is one of two large divisions that, together with the Ascomycota, constitute the subkingdom Dikarya (often referred to as the "higher fungi") within the kingdom Fungi. Members are known as basidiomycetes. More specifically, Basi ...
.
* ''Pflanzenkunde'', 1920.
* ''Chenopodiaceae''. - In: Adolf Engler &
Karl Anton Eugen Prantl
Karl Anton Eugen Prantl (10 September 1849 – 24 February 1893), also known as Carl Anton Eugen Prantl, was a German botanist.
Prantl was born in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, and studied in Munich. In 1870 he graduated with the dissertation ...
: Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, second edition. volume 16c: S.379-585, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1934.
Google Books
Ökologische Forschung im globalen Kontext: Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag ... by Siegmar-Walter Breckle
References
External links
IPNI
(list of taxa described by Ulbrich)
(photo)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulbrich, Oskar Eberhard
1879 births
1952 deaths
German mycologists
20th-century German botanists
Scientists from Berlin