Kölreuter, Josef Gottlieb

Kölreuter, Josef Gottlieb

(born April 27, 1733, Sulz, Württemberg—died Nov. 12, 1806, Karlsruhe, Baden) German botanist. A pioneer in the study of plant hybrids, he was the first to develop a scientific application of the discovery (made in 1694 by Rudolph Camerarius) of sex in plants. Cultivating plants in order to study their fertilization and development, he performed experiments, particularly with the tobacco plant, that included artificial fertilization and the production of fertile hybrids between plants of different species. His results foreshadowed the work of Gregor Mendel. Kölreuter recognized the importance of insects and wind as agents of pollen transfer. He applied Carolus Linnaeus's sexual system of classification to lower plant forms. His work was not recognized until long after his death.

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Kölreuter, Josef Gottlieb 

Born Apr 27, 1733, in Sulz-am-Neckar; died Nov. 12, 1806, in Karlsruhe. German botanist.

In 1755, Kölreuter graduated from the University of Tübingen. From 1756 to 1761 he worked at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, becoming an honorary member there in 1766. He was the director of the botanical gardens in Karlsruhe from 1763 to 1769. Kölreuter proved experimentally the existence of sex in plants by crossing different varieties of one species of tobacco plant and obtaining the first interspecies hybrid (1760). He introduced the method of reciprocal crossing into selection practices and discovered the phenomena of heterosis and self-sterility. In his study of the biology of the flower, Kölreuter was the first to describe pollination by insects; he also explained the role of nectar and described dichogamy. His works greatly influenced the development of plant embryology and genetics.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Uchenie o pole i gibridizatsii rastenii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1940.

REFERENCES

Baranov, P. A. Istoriia embriologii rastenii. . . . Moscow-Leningrad, 1955. Pages 189–202.
Gaisinovich, A. E. Zarozhdenie genetiki. Moscow, 1967. Pages 26–37.