Franz Meyen

Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen ( born June 28, 1804 in Tilsit, † September 2, 1840 in Berlin) was a German physician, botanist and university professor. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Meyen ".

Life

After a pharmacist teaching in Memel (Lithuania ) Meyen 1821 came to Berlin, where he made the final examination and studied from 1823 to 1826 medicine at the University of Berlin. In 1826 he received his doctorate there for Dr. med. Then Meyen worked as a military doctor in Berlin, Cologne, Bonn and Potsdam.

In addition to his professional activities, he dealt extensively with botany, especially with the histology of the plants. On the recommendation of Alexander von Humboldt, he took from 1830 to 1832 as a ship's doctor on a Erdumsegelung part which led him back to Brazil, Chile, Peru, Polynesia, China, and from here with a short stay at St. Helena to Europe.

From his trip Meyen brought with extensive collections whose results were not published until after his death. They gave him a versatile knowledge of the vegetation of the earth from his own experience, which was an essential foundation for his 1836 book, published outline of plant geography. In the first section of this work he treats the dependence of vegetation on climate, in the second, the effects of soil on vegetation. The third section discusses the Meyen physiognomic types based on Alexander von Humboldt and describes the vegetation of the different zones and regions ( including vegetation statistics). The last section is finally devoted to crops, their origin, distribution, their cultivation and their use.

In 1834 he was appointed associate professor of botany at the University of Berlin. During this time he continued his studies of plants and histological among others published a three -volume work on the plant physiology. In his textbook Phytotomie he described a cell theory before Schleiden and Theodor Schwann. He distinguished the plant organs Merenchym, parenchyma, and prosenchyma pleurenchyma according to the different shape of its cells and was also convinced that the growth of plants is solely due to cell division.

In Berlin -Lichtenberg, a street is named after Julius Meyen.

Taxonomic ceremony

To him, the genus Meyenia Nees of the plant family Acanthaceae the ( Acanthaceae ) was named in honor.

Works

  • Anatomical and physiological studies on the contents of the plant cells, Berlin 1828
  • Phytotomie, Berlin 1830
  • About the latest advances in anatomy and physiology of plants. A winning of the Teylerschen society at Haarlem in 1835 treatise. Haarlem 1836
  • Floor plan of the geography of plants with detailed studies of the country, the cultivation and use of the principal cultivated plants which constitute the wealth of nations. Berlin, Haude and Spenersche bookstore. 478 pp. (1836 )
  • New system of Plant Physiology, 3 vols, Berlin 1837-1839
  • Around the World running on the Royal Prussian Princess Louise Seehandlungs ships, commanded by Captain W. Wendt, in the years 1830, 1831 and 1832, (probably in several volumes ) Sander'schen bookstore, Berlin, 1834
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