Paul Wilhelm Magnus (29 February 1844 – 13 March 1914) 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 ...
.
Magnus 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 at the Universities of
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 ...
and
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
. As a student of
Alexander Braun
Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun (10 May 1805 – 29 March 1877) was a German botanist from Regensburg, Bavaria. His research centered on the morphology of plants.
Biography
He studied botany in Heidelberg, Paris and Munich. In 1833 he began teachi ...
at Berlin, he obtained his PhD in 1870 with a thesis on the
aquatic plant
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that ...
genus ''
Najas
''Najas'', the water-nymphs or naiads, is a genus of aquatic plants. It is cosmopolitan in distribution, first described for modern science by Linnaeus in 1753. Until 1997, it was rarely placed in the Hydrocharitaceae,Angiosperm Phylogeny Grou ...
''. In 1875, he became privat-docent at Berlin, where beginning in 1880, he served as an assistant professor of botany.
[NDB/ADB Deutsche Biographie]
/ref>[Biography]
@ Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
.
From 1871 to 1874, as a botanist aboard the vessel ''Pomerania'', he conducted investigations of algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
found in the North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
and Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
s as well as in the Schlei
The Schlei (; da, Slien, also ''Slesvig Fjord''e.g. in: Adolph Frederik Bergsøe: ''Den danske stats statistik'', Kjøbenhavn 1844, p. 156) (more often referred to in English as the Sly Firth) is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-H ...
estuary. In 1893 he was instrumental in the founding of the ''Biologische und Fischereistation Müggelsee'' (presently serving as a measuring station for the Leibniz-Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei). During his career, he analyzed material collected by other botanists, including specimens collected by Joseph Friedrich Nicolaus Bornmüller
Joseph Friedrich Nicolaus Bornmüller (February 6, 1862 – December 19, 1948) was a German botanist born in Hildburghausen, Thuringia.
Biography
He studied horticulture in Potsdam, and in 1886 traveled to the Balkans and Greece on his first bo ...
(Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
), Georg Schweinfurth
Georg August Schweinfurth (29 December 1836 – 19 September 1925) was a Baltic German botanist and ethnologist who explored East Central Africa.
Life and explorations
He was born at Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. He was edu ...
(Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
) and Rudolf Marloth
Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth (28 December 1855 Lübben, Germany – 15 May 1931 Caledon, Cape Province) was a German-born South African botanist, pharmacist and analytical chemist, best known for his ''Flora of South Africa'' which appeared i ...
(South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
).[ He died in Berlin, aged 70.
Nearly half of his more than 600 works concerned mycological topics, and he is remembered for his investigations of the parasitic fungi families ]Ustilaginaceae
The Ustilaginaceae are a family of smut fungi in the order Ustilaginomycetes. Collectively, the family contains 17 genera and 607 species.
Biotechnological relevance
Ustilaginaceae naturally produce a wide range of value-added chemicals (e.g. s ...
and Uredinaceae. He was responsible for "''Die Pilze (Fungi) von Tirol, Vorarlberg und Liechtenstein''", an 810-page monograph on fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
that was Volume 3 of Dalla Torre and Sarnthein's series on the flora of Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
, Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label=Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is ...
and Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarchy ...
.[
]
Selected writings
* ''Erstes Verzeichniss der ihm aus dem Kanton Graubünden bekannt gewordenen Pilze'', 1890.
* ''Unsere Kenntnis unterirdisch lebender streng parasitischer Pilze und die biologische Bedeutung eines solchen unterirdischen Parasitismus'', 1892.
* ''Vierter Beitrag zur Pilzflora von Franken'', 1906.OCLC Classify
publications
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magnus, Paul Wilhelm
1844 births
1914 deaths
Scientists from Berlin
German mycologists
19th-century German botanists
German phycologists
Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin