Anders Dahl

Andreas [ other ] Dahl ( born March 17, 1751 Varnhem, Skaraborg, Västergötland, Sweden, † May 25 1789 in Åbo, today Turku, Finland) was a Swedish botanist and physician. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Dahl ".

Life and work

Andreas Dahl grew up the son of a pastor. He was baptized with the name Andrew ( Andrus? ), Later called himself Anders. The family moved in 1755 by Varnhem in the area of Saleby, where his father was a parish. From 1761 Andreas Dahl went to the school of Skara, where he discovered his love together with friends to the natural sciences. 1769 established Dahl along with Johan Abraham, Leonard Gyllenhaal, Johan Afzelius, Daniel Naezén, Olof Knös and Clas Bjerkander the " Svenska Topographiska Sällskapet i Skara " ( Swedish topographic society Skara ). In the writings of the company work on the plant and animal life, geography and topography to historical monuments as well as the economic life of Västergötland were published. During the years around 1770 Dahl wrote numerous works on various topics, he does not usually published.

1770 Andreas Dahl wrote at Uppsala University as a student. One of his teachers there was Carl Linnaeus. After the death of his father in 1771, he first had to finish his studies, could later discover that complete his medical studies and was hired by the support of Linnaeus as a curator in the private natural history collection of Claes Alströmer. 1786, he received at the University of Kiel honorary doctorate in medicine in 1787 as a professor of medicine and botany at the Academy of Turku (now University of Helsinki) was appointed.

Dahl also brought his herbarium to Turku, where it was destroyed in a fire in 1827 largely. Parts of his herbarium are obtained Giseke at the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh in the herbarium at the Botanical Museum Sahlberg the University of Helsinki as well as in the herbarium.

The botanist Carl Peter Thunberg, a friend of Dahl's, named a species in the family of the witch hazel family ( Hamamelidaceae ) after him Dahlia crinita, this is not published before the year 1792. According to the nomenclature rules now applies the name Dahlia for a plant that the Spaniards Antonio José Cavanilles, the director of the Botanical Garden in Madrid in 1791 for a species of Asteraceae (Dahlia pinnata ) had been awarded. This plant was introduced in 1784 by Mexico to Europe. The valid name for " purple leaf Dahlia" is now called Trichocladus crinitus ( Thunb. ) Pers .. With Adam Afzelius, with the Dahl had been friends since his school days, he worked at the new edition of Linnaeus' Flora Svecica. Above all, he contributed data on plant species and their localities on the Swedish west coast. He also edited some descriptions of species and their systematic position in the Linnaean system.

Writings

  • Horologium Florae. In: Journal Ny uti Hushållningen. 1790
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