Jean Jules Linden

Jean Jules Linden ( born February 3, 1817 in Luxembourg (city), † January 12, 1898 in Brussels ) was a Belgian -Luxembourg botanist. He is regarded as one of the " fathers" of the orchid research.

Life and work

Jean Linden studied in Brussels and in 1835, sent at age 19, by the Belgian Government on an expedition on which he traveled to countries in Central and South America. At times he traveled along with the famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt. During the three trips, along about 10 years, he sent a number of so far unknown plants to Europe.

After the end of its travel ( 1845), he returns back first to Luxembourg. 1851,, he moves back to Brussels, where he founded the company L' Horticole Coloniale. In Ghent and in Brussels he built greenhouses to cultivate and breed the most sensitive tropical species can. His so -scale, collection of orchids became world famous. He sold orchids throughout Europe, up to the Russian tsar. An orchid places bears his name: Lindensis. He was, along with his son Lucien, the author of a richly illustrated book on the orchids, which was long a standard work. Among other things, he put the well-known collection of Jean -Pierre Pescatore on the Castle of La Celle Saint- Cloud. From 1851 to 1861 he was director of the zoological and botanical gardens of Parc Léopold Brussels, where today still remembers a monument to him.

The Promenade des Anglais in Nice was created with palm trees from his breeding. A while Jean Linden was also Consul General of Luxembourg in the USA.

Jean Linden died at the age of 80 years in Brussels.

Ehrentaxon

He was the genus Lindenia Benth honor. the plant family of Rubiaceae ( Rubiaceae ) named.

Publications

• L' Illustration Horticole, Journal spécial des Serres et des Jardins, Gent -Brussels 1854-1884 ( Issued together with Charles Lemaire and Ambroise Verschaffelt reprints from 1868 to 1896; lithographs. Alfred Goosens, P. De Pannemaeker and J. Goffart ).
• Pescatorea - Iconography of Orchidées, 1854-1860, Brussels 1860 ( Reprint: naturalia Publications, Turriers, 1994, 155 pp. )
• Lindenia - Iconography of Orchidées, 17 volumes, Brussels, 1885-1906 ( under the sole direction of Jean Linden from 1885 to 1896, then under the leadership of his son Lucien Linden ).