Maarten Houttuyn or Houttuijn (1720 – 2 May 1798) Latinised as Martinus Houttuyn, was a Dutch naturalist. Houttuyn was born in

Hoorn Hoorn () is a city and municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the largest town and the traditional capital of the region of West Friesland. Hoorn is located on the Markermeer, 20 kilometers ...

, studied medicine in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

and moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

in 1753. He published many books on natural history, e.g. ''Natuurlyke Historie of uitvoerige Beschryving der Dieren, Planten en Mineraalen, volgens het Samenstel van den Heer Linnaeus'', in 37 volumes (1761-1773), following Carl Linnaeus' division into the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. His areas of interest encompassed

Pteridophytes A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that disperses spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. Ferns, ...

Bryophyte The Bryophyta s.l. are a proposed taxonomic division containing three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. Bryophyta s.s. consists of the mosses only. They are characteristically limited in s ...

s and

Spermatophyte A spermatophyte (; ), also known as phanerogam (taxon Phanerogamae) or phaenogam (taxon Phaenogamae), is any plant that produces seeds, hence the alternative name seed plant. Spermatophytes are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. They inc ...

s. He died in

. In

botanical nomenclature Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this ...

, the standard author abbreviation ''Houtt.'' is applied to plants described by him. He is commemorated by the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Houttuynia ''Houttuynia'' is a genus of two species in the Saururaceae native to Southeast Asia. One species, '' H. cordata'', is widely cultivated as a culinary herb. The genus was originally described in 1783 by Carl Peter Thunberg when he formally ...

'', a member of the Saururaceae from China and Japan. Martinus Houttuyn was the co-writer of the volumes 2, 3, 4 and 5 of '' Nederlandsche Vogelen''.His name appears on the title pages o
vol 2

an

of ''Nederlandsche Vogelen''. The first author was Cornelius Nozeman.

References

External links

'Houtkunde' – A representation of inland and foreign wood by Martinus Houttuyn, 1773

The International Plant Names Index">ipni.org IPNI, The International Plant Names Index
* M. Boeseman, W. de Ligny, Martinus Houttuyn (1720–1798) and his contributions to the natural sciences, with emphasis on zoology, Zoologische Verhandelingen 349, 2004, p. 1-22
PDF
1720 births 1798 deaths 18th-century Dutch botanists 18th-century Dutch naturalists Dutch entomologists People from Hoorn Leiden University alumni 18th-century Danish zoologists {{Netherlands-botanist-stub