A. Bresinsky – Strasburgers Plant Sciences

Автор: A. Bresinsky
Название книги: Strasburgers Plant Sciences
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Биологические науки
Страницы: 1309
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This famous book on botany was published for the first time in 1894 by Eduard Strasburger and his co-workers. The present edition is based on a translation of the 36th edition of the German “Strasburger” and contains additional contributions by renowned experts in the field. The “Strasburger” comprises a highly appealing and holistic approach to the structure, the systematics and evolution, the functioning, and ecology of plants. The book covers 14 chapters bundled into four main sections: (i) Molecular and morphological structure of plants and cells (ii) Physiology and metabolism (iii) Evolution and systematics of plants (iv) Ecology

The last English translation of Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik fu¨r Hochschulen (Textbook of Botany for Universities)
was published in 1976 (30th Ed.). Since then, six new German editions have been published and were partially translated
into Italian, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, and Russian. Considering that plant sciences have developed and
expanded considerably since 1976, and that six more German editions have tried to keep pace with these changes,
a new English translation was long overdue. The present edition represents a balanced and comprehensive work on the
plant sciences, the book’s trademark and particular strength. The inclusion of bacteria, archaea, and the various lineages
referred to as fungi may not be justified from a phylogenetic perspective when dealing with plants, but is necessary
considering the important evolutionary and ecological interactions between plants and these organisms.
Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik fu¨r Hochschulen has been available for almost 120 years now. Starting with its first
edition in 1894, the book has greatly influenced university teaching in Germany and neighboring countries, and its 36
editions also mirror the dynamic history of the plant sciences.The book was first founded by Eduard Strasburger and is
still published under his name. From the beginning, it was a multi-author effort, and Strasburger himself invited his
colleagues at the Botanical Institute of Bonn University as contributors to the first edition. Since that time more than 20
authors from a number of universities in three different countries contributed to the content. Although clearly all authors
of the first and of later editions shaped the book, Strasburger as its founder deserves special recognition. In his honor,
a New Caledonian tree, which is shown on page II, was named Strasburgeria.
Eduard Strasburger studied the natural sciences in Paris, Bonn, and Jena, receiving his doctorate in Jena before
completing his postdoctoral degree (‘‘Habilitation’’) in Warsaw in 1867. He was appointed professor of botany at the
University of Jena in 1869, at the age of 25, andmoved to BonnUniversity in 1881.Under his direction, the Botanical Institute
at Poppelsdorf Palace established itself as an international center of botany. In 1894, together with his colleagues F. Noll, H.
Schenck, and A.F.W. Schimper, he founded the Lehrbuch der Botanik fu¨r Hochschulen, in the past often simply referred to as
the Bonner Lehrbuch. The Kleine Botanische Praktikum fu¨r Anfa¨nger (Short Botanical Practical for Beginners), which also
appeared in multiple editions, and the somewhat more extensive Das Botanische Praktikum (Botanical Practical) have
dominated microscopical laboratory work at universities for a long time. Strasburger’s research interests were primarily
in plant ontogeny and cytology. He discovered that the central processes underlying nuclear division (formation,
division, and movement of chromosomes) are the same in all eukaryotic organisms (1875), and he was the first to
observe that fertilization in flowering plants requires the fusion of the male sperm nucleus with the female egg nucleus.
From this he concluded that the cell nucleus must be the most important carrier of hereditary factors (1884).