Augustin Pyramus de Candolle – Swiss botanist

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, (born February 4, 1778, Geneva—died September 9, 1841, Geneva), Swiss botanist was one of the pre-eminent botanists of the nineteenth century. He is best remembered for his contributions to plant systematics; however, he is the first scientist to provide a comprehensive account of allelopathy.

At the age of seven, he was stricken with hydrocephalus, but survived seemingly with no ill effects. He became fluent in Latin while at school, and seemed destined for a literary career. His taste for botany was stimulated by attending the lectures of Prof. J. Vaucher (1763–1841), a founder of the Geneva Natural History Society.

In 1796 de Candolle visited Paris for the first time, and at the young age of 18, he met several of the leading French scientists in natural history including Georges Cuvier, Desfontaines and Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck.

He became an assistant to Cuvier at the Collège de France (1802), and prepared revisions of Lamarck’s Flore française (1805, 1815).

He also had begun giving botany lectures at the College de France in 1804. In the same year he completed his dissertation for his degree in medicine, and this was published successfully as Essai sur les Propriétés Médicales des Plantes.

When he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Montpellier (1808), Candolle had already begun a government-commissioned botanical and agricultural survey of France (1806–12), the results of which he published in 1813.

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle – Swiss botanist

Traugott Gerber (1710 – 1743) – German naturalist

Gerbera daisies were discovered in South Africa in 1884. The genus Gerbera is named in honor of German naturalist Traugott Gerber. Traugott Gerber, a prefect of the Moscow Pharmaceutical Garden and its first trained botanist.

Traugott Gerber was baptized on January 16, 1710 in Zodel, Oberlausitz – Lower Silesia where he spent his childhood. On April 29, 1730, he registered for studies of medicine at the University of Leipzig a mere 250 kilometers from Zodel. All accounts indicate that Gerber was an excellent student in medicine as well as botany. On June 26, 1735 he applied to receive a doctorate from the medicine faculty.

Gerbera daisies

Gerber assumed his position in Moscow shortly after he finished his studies. From 1735 to 1742 he was a medical doctor in Russia, director of the oldest botanical garden in Moscow and also taught medicine at the university.

He was commissioned to create a medicinal garden in Moscow and to educate medical students in ‘herbology’. As well as creating an apothecary garden, he worked as a hospital doctor and taught anatomy and surgery at the hospital school.

From 1739-1741 he collected plants on several expeditions in Russia and in Jutland (Danish peninsular). In 1742 he became a doctor in the Russian Army and died early the following year in Finland.
Traugott Gerber (1710 – 1743) – German naturalist