Peter Thonning (9 October 1775 – 29 January 1848) was a Danish physician and botanist.

Biography

Peter Thonning was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Denmark. He was the son of Rasmus Andersen Thonning (1740-1817) and Dorothea Spendrup (1755-1835). He became a student in 1794 and studied medicine at the

Metropolitanskolen Metropolitanskolen ("The Metropolitan School") was a school in Copenhagen, Denmark founded in 1209 by the Bishop , and for centuries one of the most prestigious schools in the country. History The school was founded in 1209 next to the Church of ...

. He was sent to

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

by the Danish government mainly to study the conditions of plants, especially indigenous plants. He lived there from 1799 to 1803. Thonning had begun systematizing his botanical collections but his

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 ...

was destroyed during the shelling of Copenhagen by the British in 1807. Only the duplicates and manuscripts in the possession of

Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher (15 November 1757 in Glückstadt, Holstein – 9 December 1830) was a Danish surgeon, botanist and professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen. Schumacher carried out significant research work in m ...

(1757–1830) survived. Today, around 1,050 samples are preserved at the

University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden The University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden ( da, Botanisk have), usually referred to simply as Copenhagen Botanical Garden, is a botanical garden located in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark. It covers an area of 10 hectares and is particularly ...

. Thonning tutored

Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Denmark Frederick Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Denmark ( da, Arveprins Ferdinand) (22 November 1792 – 29 June 1863) was grandson of King Frederick V and heir presumptive to the throne from 1848 until his death. Had he lived five months longer, he wo ...

(1792–1863) from 1804 to 1810. He served as secretary of the General Customs Board (''Generaltoldkammeret'') in 1810 and from 1812 also secretary of the Canal, Port and Lighthouse Directorate (''Kanal, Havne og Fyrdirektionen''). He was a member of this Executive Board in 1815–16. In 1829, he joined the Executive Board of the

Natural History Museum of Denmark The Natural History Museum of Denmark ( da, Statens Naturhistoriske Museum) is a natural history museum located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was created as a 1 January 2004 merger of Copenhagen's Zoological Museum, Geological Museum, Botanical Muse ...

and held this position until his death.

Personal life

Thonning was married in 1810 to Anna Maria Nicolina Kamphøffner (1784-1860). He died in Copenhagen during 1848 and was buried at Assistens Kirkegård.

Authority name

The genus ''

Thonningia ''Thonningia'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Balanophoraceae containing the single species ''Thonningia sanguinea''.Nickrent, DParasitic Plant Classification.The Parasitic Plant Connection. Department of Plant Biology, S ...

'' of parasitic plants was named after him by

Martin Vahl Martin Henrichsen Vahl (10 October 1749 – 24 December 1804) was a Danish-Norwegian botanist, herbalist and zoologist. Biography Martin Vahl was born in Bergen, Norway and attended Bergen Cathedral School. He studied botany at the University ...

. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Thonn. when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the '' International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the ''Intern ...

References

Other sources

*Daniel Hopkins (2012) ''Peter Thonning and Denmark's Guinea Commission: A Study in Nineteenth-Century African Colonial Geography'' (Brill. The Atlantic World, Volume: 24) {{DEFAULTSORT:Thonning, Peter 1775 births 1848 deaths Physicians from Copenhagen 19th-century Danish physicians 19th-century Danish botanists Collection managers Botanists with author abbreviations Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog Burials at Assistens Cemetery (Copenhagen)