Georg Franz Hoffmann

Georg Franz Hoffmann ( born January 13, 1760 market wide, † March 17, 1826 in Moscow ) was a German botanist, Lichenologe and Bryologe. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Hoffm. ".

Life and work

Hoffmann studied medicine from 1779 onwards, first in Herborn and from 1780 in Erlangen, where he received his doctorate in 1786 for Dr. med.

In 1789 he was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Erlangen. In 1792 he accepted an appointment as a professor of medicine and botany at the University of Göttingen. There Hoffmann was also director of the Botanic Garden, where he visited several times in 1801 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe wrote about these visits: "Very often visited ' I Professor Hoffmann and was the cryptogams, which has always been a province inaccessible for me, better acquainted. "

Johann Flügge, who had doubted his botanical knowledge in previous years, has attacked him violently during his time in Göttingen and Hoffmann was ultimately forced out of his position Göttingen result of the criticism. In 1804 he accepted a professorship of botany at the University of Moscow.

Hoffmann was known among other things for his illustrated works on lichens and fungi. So he has already received a prize from the Academy of Sciences of Lyon with 25 years, with a thesis on the benefits of lichens in medicine and economics. In addition, he has rendered outstanding services in the field of higher plants to the description of the willows ( genus Salix).

Hoffmann has described several new species, the moss Riccia canaliculata, Riccia ciliata and Riccia bifurca and Orthotrichum cululatum. He has also described a number of fungal species for the first time, so among other things, the scorching fungus ( Kretzschmaria deusta ).

The Rubiaceae genus Hoffmannia is named after him.

Memberships and Honors

Writings (selection )

• Mémoires sur l' utilité de Lichens. By Pierre J. Amoreux, Pierre Rémi François de Paul Willemet. Lyon in 1785.
• Historia salicum iconibus illustrata. Lipsia in 1785.
• Historia salicum. Leipzig 1785 ( digitized ).
• Illustrations of sponges. 2 volumes, Berlin, 1790.
• Hortus Gottingensis, quem proponit simulque orationem inchoandae professioni Sacram indicit. Göttingen 1793.
• Compendium Florae Britannicae. Along with James Edward Smith. Erlanga 1801.
• Vegetabilia in hercyniae subterraneis collecta iconibus descriptionibus et observationibus illustrata. Mrs. Wood, Norimbergae 1811.
• Genera plantarum umbelliferarum. Mosqua 1816.