Gustav Karl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten (6 November 1817, in

Stralsund Stralsund (; Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, N ...

– 10 July 1908, in Zoppot) 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

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

. Born in

, he followed the example of

Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister ...

and traveled 1844-56 the northern part of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

(

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

). From 1856 to 1868, he was a professor at the agricultural college 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 constitu ...

, afterwards serving as a professor of

plant physiology Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology (structure of plants), plant ecology (interactions with the environment), phytochemistry (b ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...

(1868–72). In 1881, at the suggestion of

David Friedrich Weinland David Friedrich Weinland (30 August 1829 in Grabenstetten – 19 September 1915 in Bad Urach, Hohenwittlingen) was a German zoologist and novelist. The son of a pastor, Weinland attended the Protestant Seminary in Maulbronn from 1843 to 1847 ...

, Karsten became convinced of the correctness of Otto Hahn's organic theory of the

chondrite A chondrite is a stony (non-metallic) meteorite that has not been modified, by either melting or differentiation of the parent body. They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early Solar System accreted to form pr ...

s and, as a result, wrote an essay entitled "Die Meteorite und ihre Organismen" in which he declared his support for Hahn's theory. He died 1908 in

- Grunewald. As a taxonomist, he was the binomial author of many botanical species.

Selected bibliography

* ''Florae Columbiae ...'' 1859–1869. (Vol. 1
Digital edition
/ Vol. 2
Digital edition
by the University and State Library Düsseldorf) * ''Chemismus der Pflanzenzelle'' 1869. * ''Deutsche Flora. Pharmaceutisch-medicinische Botanik'' 1880-1883; second edition 1894–1895. * ''"Hermann Karsten (1851) y

Wilhelm Sievers Friedrich Wilhelm Sievers (3 December 1860 – 11 June 1921) was a German geologist and geographer. He served as professor of geography at the University of Giessen. His field work focussed on South America, and his ''Allgemeine Länderkunde'' ...

(1888): las primeras descripciones e interpretaciones sobre el órigen de las terrazas aluviales en la Córdillera de Mérida''." C. Schubert. ''Bol. Hist. Geocien. Venez''., 44, pp 15–19 * "Die Meteorite und ihre Organismen", 1881 - The Meteorite and its Organisms.https://archive.org/details/the-meteorite-and-its-organisms archive.org English translation

References

External links

Florae Columbiae :terrarumque adiacentium specimina selecta in peregrinatione duodecim annorum observata: delineavit et descripsit H. Karsten
at the Biodiversity Heritage library {{DEFAULTSORT:Karsten, Hermann 1817 births 1908 deaths People from Stralsund People from Sopot Botanists with author abbreviations 19th-century German botanists Botanists active in South America Phycologists Pteridologists German mycologists 19th-century German geologists People from the Province of Pomerania