Rudolf Jakob Camerarius or Camerer (12 February 1665 – 11 September 1721) 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 physician.

Life

Camerarius was born at Tübingen, and became professor of medicine and director of the botanical gardens at Tübingen in 1687. He is chiefly known for his investigations on the

reproductive organs of plants Plant reproductive morphology is the study of the physical form and structure (the morphology) of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction. Among all living organisms, flowers, which are the reproductive ...

(''De sexu plantarum epistola'' (1694)). While other botanists, such as

John Ray John Ray FRS (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was a Christian English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after ...

and Nehemiah Grew, had observed that plants seemed to have sex in some form, and guessed that

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

was the male fertilizing agent, it was Camerarius who did experimental work. In studying the

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...

, he determined that female plants not near to male (staminate) plants produced fruit but with no seeds. '' Mercurialis'' and

spinach Spinach (''Spinacia oleracea'') is a leafy green flowering plant native to central and western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. Its leaves are a common edible vegetable consumed either f ...

plants fared likewise. With the castor oil plant (''Ricinus'') and with maize he cut off the staminate flowers (the "tassels" of maize), and likewise observed that no seeds formed. His results were reported in the form of a letter (the ''epistola''), and attracted immediate attention, subsequent workers extending his results from the

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

plants he had studied to

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

ones as well.

Works

* *

Notes

References

* * Duane Isely, ''One hundred and one botanists'' (Iowa State University Press, 1994), pp. 74–76

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Camerarius, Rudolf Jakob 1665 births 1721 deaths Scientists from Tübingen 17th-century German botanists German entomologists 17th-century German physicians 18th-century German physicians Pre-Linnaean botanists 18th-century German botanists