Johann Jacob Dillen Dillenius (1684 – 2 April 1747) 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 ...
. He is known for his ''Hortus Elthamensis'' ("Eltham Garden") on the rare plants around Eltham, London, and for his ''Historia muscorum'' ("History of Mosses"), a natural history of lower plants including
moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
hornwort
Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes (land plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta (). The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, hornworts have a ...
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 ...
,
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.fungi.
Biography
Dillenius was born at
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...
and was educated at the University of Giessen, earlier the family name had been changed from Dillen to Dillenius. In 1721, at the instance of the botanist William Sherard (1659–1728), he moved to England. In 1734 Dillenius was appointed Sherardian professor of botany at Oxford, in accordance with the will of Sherard, who at his death in 1728 left the university £3000 for the endowment of the chair, as well as his library and
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 ...
, all on the condition that Dillenius should be appointed the first professor.
Dillenius died at Oxford, of apoplexy. His manuscripts, books and collections of dried plants, with many drawings, were bought by his successor at Oxford, Dr. Humphry Sibthorp (1713–1797), and ultimately passed into the possession of Oxford University. For an account of his collections preserved at Oxford, see ''The Dillenian Herbaria'', by G. Claridge Druce (Oxford, 1907).
Work
At Giessen Dillenius wrote botanical papers for the ''Ephemerides naturae curiosorum''. He printed, in 1719, his '' flora'' of the university's surroundings, a ''Catalogus plantarum sponte circa Gissam nascentium'', illustrated with figures he had personally drawn and engraved, with descriptions of several new species.
In 1724 Dillenius published the third edition of
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 ...
's ''Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum''. It incorporated plant species discovered by Samuel Brewer, and work on mosses by
Adam Buddle
Adam Buddle (1662–1715) was an English cleric and botanist.
Born at Deeping St James, a small village near Peterborough, Buddle was educated at Woodbridge School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he gained a BA in 1681, and an M ...
. It remained a standard reference for British botanists until the appearance of Carl Linnaeus's ''
Species Plantarum
' (Latin for "The Species of Plants") is a book by Carl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists every species of plant known at the time, classified into genera. It is the first work to consistently apply binomial names and was the ...
'' in 1761.
''Hortus Elthamensis''
In 1732 he published ''Hortus Elthamensis'', a substantial catalogue in two volumes of some 400 plants growing at Eltham, London, in the collection of Sherard's younger brother,
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
(1666—1738), who, after making a fortune as an apothecary, devoted himself to gardening and music. For this work Dillenius himself drew and engraved 324 plates, containing 417 figures of the plants. The title called the plants "rare", but the botanist Will Tjaden comments that they were "often only uncommon and not always of very recent introduction." The book was described by Linnaeus, who spent a month with him at Oxford in 1736, and afterwards dedicated his ''
Critica Botanica
''Critica Botanica'' ("Critique of botany", Leiden, July 1737) was written by Swedish botanist, physician, zoologist and naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778). The book was published in Germany when Linnaeus was 29 with a discursus by the botan ...
'' to him, as ''opus botanicum quo absolutius mundus non vidit'', "a botanical work of which the world has not seen one more authoritative". Linnaeus later named a genus of tropical tree '' Dillenia'' in his honour.
File:Hortus Elthamensis titlepage.jpg, thumb , Title page of ''Hortus Elthamensis'', 1732
File:P inquinans Dillenius.jpg, ''
Pelargonium inquinans
''Pelargonium inquinans'', the scarlet geranium, is a species of plant in the genus ''Pelargonium'' (family Geraniaceae), that is indigenous to the south-western Cape of South Africa. It is one of the ancestors of the hybrid line of horticultural ...
''
''Historia muscorum''
Dillenius wrote ''Historia muscorum'' (1741), a natural history of lower plants including
moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
hornwort
Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes (land plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta (). The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, hornworts have a ...
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 ...
,
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.fungi. He acknowledged the help of
George Charles Deering
George Charles Deering, originally Georg Karl Dering (c.1695–1749) was a German botanist and medical practitioner, resident in Great Britain for the last 30 years of his life.
Life
Deering was born in Saxony, educated at Hamburg and Leyden, and ...
. They had met at John Martyn's club for botanists, and had studied fungi together.
Historia muscorum 0 title page.jpg, Title page, 1768 edition
Historia muscorum plate 6 Conserva.jpg, 6 Conserva
Historia muscorum plate 8 Tremella.jpg, 8 Tremella
Historia muscorum plate 11 Usnea.jpg, 11
Usnea
''Usnea'' is a genus of mostly pale grayish-green fruticose lichens that grow like leafless mini-shrubs or tassels anchored on bark or twigs.Field Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, Yale University Press, 2014, The genus is in the f ...
(beard lichens)
Historia muscorum plate 14 Coralloides.jpg, 14 Coralloides ( cup lichens)
Historia muscorum plate 18 Lichenoides.jpg, 18 Lichenoides ( crustose lichens)
Historia muscorum plate 32 Sphagnum.jpg, 32 Sphagnum (bog moss)
Historia muscorum plate 38 Hypnum.jpg, 38
Hypnum
''Hypnum'' is a genus of mosses belonging to the family Hypnaceae.
The genus has cosmopolitan distribution. A common name sometimes used for ''Hypnum'' moss is "carpet moss".
Distribution
''Hypnum'' species are found on all continents exce ...
Historia muscorum plate 46 Bryum.jpg, 46 Bryum
Historia muscorum plate 56 Selago.jpg, 56 Selago
Historia muscorum plate 59 Lycopodium.jpg, 59 Lycopodium
Historia muscorum plate 76 Lichen (liverworts).jpg, 76 Lichen (
liverworts
The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ge ...
Subularia
''Subularia'' is a genus of plants in the family Brassicaceae. ''Subularia'' species are annual herbs that grow in moist or even flooded soils. There are only two species of the genus: ''Subularia aquatica'', which is widespread in North America ...
Honours
In 1753, Carl Linnaeus in his ''Species Plantarum'' published '' Dillenia'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Dilleniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of southern Asia, Australasia, and the Indian Ocean islands, both genus and family named in Dillenius's honour.
In 1997, the Spanish botanist
Gerardo Antonio Aymard Corredor
Gerardo may refer to:
People Given name
Gerardo is the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian form of the male given name Gerard.
* Gerardo Amarilla (born 1969), Uruguayan politician
* Gerardo Bonilla (born 1975), Puerto Rican-born professional race car ...
Ray Society
The Ray Society is a scientific text publication society that publishes works devoted principally to British flora and fauna. As of 2019, it had published 181 volumes. Its publications are predominantly academic works of interest to naturalists, zo ...