Talk:Christian Konrad Sprengel

message: 131.220.106.98 11:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

message: Christian Konrad Sprengel (* 22. September 1750, Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany; † 7. April 1816, Berlin, Germany) was a german theologist, teacher and, most important, a naturalist. He discovered sexuality in the plant kingdom.
Sprengel studied theology in Halle, Germany. In 1774 he became teacher in Berlin. Since about 1787, Sprengel did considerable research on the pollination of plants and the interaction between flowers and their insect visitors. With his work "Das entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen" (Berlin 1793), he was one of the founders of pollination ecology as a scientific discipline. Together with one of his predecessors, Köhlreuter, he is still the most classic author in this field.
During his lifetime, his work was neglected, not only becuse it seemed to a lot of his contemporaries as obscene that flowers had something to do with sexual functions, but also because the immanent importance of his findings on the aspects of of selection and evolution was not recognised. Until Charles Darwins book "On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing." (London 1862), floral ecology was not considered a 'proper science'.
Important successors like Paul Knuth, Fritz Knoll and Hans Kugler were inspired by Sprengel and brought great advance to the field of pollination ecology. After the second World War, their work was continued by and Stefan Vogel, Knut Faegri, Leendert van der Pijl, Amos Dafni, G. Ledyard Stebbins as well as Herbert and Irene Baker.
The ideas and terms inherited out of Sprengel's fundamental work last forth.
Sprengel is buried at the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, Germany. A small monument designed after the frontispice of his fundamental work can be seen in Berlin Botanical Gardens.
Sources
VOGEL, S. (1996): Christian Konrad Sprengel's Theory of the Flower: The Cradle of Floral Ecology. In: LLOYD, D. G. & BARRET, S. C. H. (Eds.). Floral Biology: Studies on Floral Evolution in animal-Pollinated Plants. Chapman & Hall, New York.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Konrad_Sprengel
Zepernick, B. & Meretz, W. 2001: Christian Konrad Sprengel’s life in relation to his family and his time. On the occasion of his 250th birthday. – Willdenowia 31: 141-152.
http://www.bgbm.org/bgbm/pr/zurzeit/papers/sprengel.htm
81.173.238.222 11:59, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
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