Johann Joseph Peyritsch (20 October 1835 – 14 March 1889) was an Austrian physician and

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 ...

born in

Völkermarkt Völkermarkt (; sl, Velikovec) is a town of about 11,000 inhabitants in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the administrative capital of Völkermarkt District. It is located within the Drava valley east of the Carinthian capital Klagenfurt, north ...

. In 1864 he earned his medical doctorate from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and from 1866 to 1871 was associated with

Vienna General Hospital The Vienna General Hospital (german: Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien), usually abbreviated to AKH, is the general hospital of the city of Vienna, Austria. It is also the city's university hospital, and the site of the Medical Univer ...

. He later served as ''custos'' at the

Naturhistorisches Museum The Natural History Museum Vienna (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide. The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museum ...

in Vienna, and in 1878, succeeded

Anton Kerner von Marilaun Anton Kerner Ritter von Marilaun, or Anton Joseph Kerner, (12 November 1831 – 21 June 1898) was an Austrian botanist and professor at the University of Vienna. Career Kerner was born in Mautern, Lower Austria, and studied medicine in Vienna fo ...

as professor of botany at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

, a position he maintained until his death in 1889.BHL
Taxonomic literature : a selective guide to botanical publications He was editor of

Heinrich Wilhelm Schott Heinrich Wilhelm Schott (7 January 1794 in Brünn (Brno), Moravia – 5 March 1865 at Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna) was an Austrian botanist well known for his extensive work on aroids (Araceae). He studied botany, agriculture and chemistry at ...

's celebrated

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

aroid The Araceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants in which flowers are borne on a type of inflorescence called a spadix. The spadix is usually accompanied by, and sometimes partially enclosed in, a spathe (or leaf-like bract). Also ...

s, ''Aroideae Maximilianae'', and with

Theodor Kotschy Karl Georg Theodor Kotschy pl, Teodor Koczy (15 April 1813 – 11 June 1866) was an Austrian botanist and explorer. On his botanical investigations, Kotschy collected large amount of plants and herbs. He also described forty species of oaks in ...

(1813–1866), was co-author of ''Plantae Tinneanae'', a book describing flora collected on the Tinne expedition to Sudan. As a

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

, he described numerous plants from the botanical families

Celastraceae The Celastraceae (staff-vine or bittersweet) are a family of 97 genera and 1,350 species of herbs, vines, shrubs and small trees, belonging to the order Celastrales. The great majority of the genera are tropical, with only ''Celastrus'' (the staf ...

and

Erythroxylaceae Erythroxylaceae (the coca family) is a family of flowering trees and shrubs consisting of 4 genera and 271 species. The four genera are ''Aneulophus'' Benth., ''Erythroxylum'' P.Browne, ''Nectaropetalum'' Engl., and ''Pinacopodium'' Exell & Mendo ...

. In the field of

mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as ...

, he held a special interest in the fungal order

Laboulbeniales The Laboulbeniales is an order of Fungi within the class Laboulbeniomycetes. They are also known by the colloquial name beetle hangers or labouls. The order includes around 2,325 species of obligate insect ectoparasites that produce cellular ...

. The plant genus ''

Peyritschia ''Peyritschia'' is a genus of Latin American plants in the grass family. ; Species * ''Peyritschia conferta'' (Pilg.) Finot - Venezuela, Ecuador * ''Peyritschia deyeuxioides'' (Kunth) Finot - Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuado ...

'' from the family

Poaceae Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

was named in his honor by

Eugène Pierre Nicolas Fournier Eugène Pierre Nicolas Fournier (15 February 1834, Paris – 10 June 1884) was a French botanist. He was particularly interested in ferns. He was a member of the Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique. The genus '' Fourniera'' (family Cyathe ...

in 1881. Then in 1890,

Roland Thaxter Roland Thaxter (August 28, 1858 – April 22, 1932) was an American mycologist, plant pathologist, botanist, and entomologist, renowned for his contribution to the insect parasitic fungi—Laboulbeniales. His college education was completed at Har ...

named a fungal genus '' Peyritschiella'' (in the family

Laboulbeniaceae The Laboulbeniaceae are a family of fungi in the order Laboulbeniales. Taxa have a widespread distribution, and are parasitic to various orders of insects Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insect ...

) after him.

References

Other sources

Lexikon deutschsprachiger Bryologen
by Jan-Peter Frahm & Jens Eggers, (biography in German)

International Aroid Society, The Botanical Art of Schott's Aroideae Maximilianae 1835 births 1889 deaths People from Völkermarkt 19th-century Austrian botanists Academic staff of the University of Innsbruck Austrian mycologists Phycologists Bryologists Pteridologists {{austria-botanist-stub