Christiaan Hendrik Persoon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 31 December 1761 (1761-12-31) |
| Died | 16 November 1836 (1836-11-17) (aged 75) Paris, France |
| Known for | Establishing starting points for fungal taxonomy |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mycology,taxonomy |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Pers. |
Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (31 December 1761[1] – 16 November 1836) was a Cape Colonymycologist who is recognized as one of the founders ofmycologicaltaxonomy.
Persoon was born inCape Colony at theCape of Good Hope, the third child of an immigrantPomeranian father, Christiaan Daniel Persoon, andDutch mother, Wilhelmina Elizabeth Groenwald.[2] His mother died soon after he was born. In 1775, at the age of thirteen, he was sent to Europe for his education. His father died a year later in 1776.[3]
Initially a student oftheology atHalle, Persoon switched his studies tomedicine, which he pursued inLeiden and thenGöttingen. He received adoctorate from theDeutsche Akademie der Naturforscher inErlangen 1799.[4]
He moved toParis by 1803, where he spent the rest of his life, renting the upper floor of a house in a poor part of town. He was apparently unemployed, unmarried, poverty-stricken and a recluse, although he corresponded with botanists throughout Europe. Because of his financial difficulties, Persoon agreed to donate his herbarium to theHouse of Orange, in return for an adequate pension for life.[5]
The origin of Persoon's botanical interest is unknown. The earliest of his works wasAbbildungen der Schwämme (Illustrations of the fungi), published in three parts, in 1790, 1791, and 1793. In 1794, Persoon introduced the termlirella for the furrowedascomata of the lichen genusGraphis.[6] From 1805 to 1807, he published two volumes of hisSynopsis plantarum (Archived 20 May 2011 at theWayback Machine), a popular work describing 20,000 species of all types of plants. But his pioneering work was in the fungi, for which he published several works, beginning with theSynopsis methodica fungorum (1801); it is the starting point for nomenclature of theUredinales,Ustilaginales, and theGasteromycetes. Persoon described manypolypore species; most were from his own collections in central Europe, while several other tropical species were sent to him from collections made by French botanistCharles Gaudichaud-Beaupré during his circumglobal expedition. These latter fungi are among the first tropical polypores ever described.[7] In 1815, Persoon was elected a corresponding member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Persoon was a prolific author of new fungal species, havingformally described 2269 in his career.[8]
The genusPersoonia, a variety of small Australian trees and shrubs, was named after him. The titlePersoonia is also given to abiannual scientific journal of molecular phylogeny and evolution of fungi, published jointly by theNational Herbarium of the Netherlands and theCBS Fungal Biodiversity Centre.[9]
