Paul Friedrich August Ascherson

Paul Friedrich August Ascherson ( born June 4, 1834 in Berlin, † March 6, 1913 ) was a German botanist, historian, ethnographer and linguist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Asch. "; earlier was also the abbreviation " Asher. " in use.

Life and work

The son of the Secret Health Council Ferdinand Moritz Ascherson studied at the Berlin Friedrich- Wilhelms- University from 1850 onwards medicine, but became increasingly interested in botany and in 1855 received his doctorate with a dissertation on the plant geography of the Mark Brandenburg for Dr. med.

He was from 1860 assistant at Berlin's Botanical Garden, in 1865 also at the local Royal Herbarium, 1863 habilitated for special botany and plant geography and in 1873 was appointed associate professor at the University of Berlin. In 1869 he was a founding member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory. In 1877 he was elected a member of the Scholars Academy Leopoldina.

In 1868, he traveled among others, the Dalmatian coast and botanized in Montenegro. He mounted the first to the highest mountain in Dalmatia, the Orjen. 1873-74 he accompanied Gerhard Rohlfs on the expedition to the Libyan Desert. After 1876 he undertook further expeditions to Africa and published fundamental works on the flora of Africa and other countries. In the 1890s Ascherson botanized among other Jerichower country and Vorharzgebiet together with Karl Otto Robert Peter Paul Graebner ( 1871-1933 ), with whom he also published his seminal work on the Central European flora.

Aschersons meaning is, inter alia, that he summarized existing local floristic works, including his own field observations to systematically re-ordered representations of the flora of a larger territory.

Ascherson was not only botanist but also a historian, ethnographer and linguist. The University of Rostock awarded him an honorary doctorate of philosophy. His final resting he found in the park cemetery lights field.

Works

When his work is considered the main botanical 1859-1864 published flora of the province of Brandenburg. The Work The natural plant families of Adolf Engler and Prantl Carl he contributed the description of Potamogetonaceae for Volume 2 Number 1 (1889 ). At the 1876-1892 published Dictionnaire de botanique by Henri Ernest Baillon he worked with. Here is a selection of his works:

Named after Ascherson taxa

The Aschersonia, a tropical genus imperfect fungi ( Coelomycetes ), has been named in his honor. Species of this genus are specific pathogens of scale insects and whiteflies and are used for the purposes of biological control against this.

The plant genus Aschersoniodoxa Gilg et Muschl. from the family of cruciferous plants ( Brassicaceae) has been named after him.