Johan Peter Falk

Johan Peter Falck ( born January 20, 1732 in Broddetorp, Västergötland, .. † 31 Märzjul / April 11 1774greg in Kazan ) was a Swedish naturalist.

Life

Falck studied from 1751 at Uppsala University and received his doctorate there in Carl Linnaeus. On June 23, 1762, he defended his thesis with the topic: Planta Alstroemeria.

From 1765 he was professor of medicine and botany in St. Petersburg. In 1768 he was commissioned to accompany the expedition of the German geographer Peter Simon Pallas in Siberia. The Empress Catherine II has financed them. During the expedition, he became ill and depressed. The expedition was already on his way back when he shot himself on November 1, 1774.

Another well-known members of the expedition was also Johann Gottlieb Georgi, who translated many books of Linnaeus into German. He also published Falck notes in contributions in writing for topographical knowledge of the Russian Empire I-III (1785-1786)

Ehrentaxon

His colleague and also a PhD student of Linnaeus, Carl Peter Thunberg, dedicated to him in 1781 the botanical genus Falckia from the plant family of wind plants.