Dictionary
of Botany

George Washington Carver
Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman
Philibert Commerçon

Nicholas Culpeper
Dioscorides

Georg Dionysius Ehret
Leonhart Fuchs

George Washington Carver
b. c.1865; Missouri
d. 1-5-1943

African American botanist and educator George Washington Carver developed innovative uses for a variety of agricultural crops such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, and crop-rotation methods for conserving nutrients in soil.

• more George Washington Carver posters
• Technology’s Past poster series

Johnny Appleseed, née Chapman
b. 9-26-1774; Leominster, Massachusetts
d. c 1845-47; Indiana

Johnny Appleseed, a pioneer nurseryman and missionary for the Church of the New Jerusalem, or Swedenborgian Church, introduced apple trees to large parts of frontier Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, today's Midwest.

Born John Chapman just prior to the Revolutionary War, he became a legend in his own time for his kindness and botany skills.

• Johnny Appleseed

Frederic Edward Clements
b. 9-16-1874; Lincoln, NE
d. 7-26-1945

Botanist and professor Frederic Edward Clements developed the ecological theory that vegetation cover does not represent a permanent condition but can be understood as a sequence of stages resembling the development of an individual organism.

Philibert Commerçon
b. 11-18-1727; Châtillon les Dombes, France
d. 3-13-1773; Mauritius

Philibert Commerçon was the naturalist serving the Louis Antoine de Bougainville expedition circumnavigating the globe (1766–1769).

Commerçon brought his housekeeper Jeanne Baré, who boarded the ship disquised as a man named Jean Baret, to act as a valet and assistant, making her the first woman known to circumnavigate the globe. Baré, as it turned out, was an excellent botantist herself, and the French recognized her service.

Commerçon also collected and categorized fish of the Mediterranean on behalf of the museum in Stockholm at the request of Carl Linnaeus.

The Commerson's Dolphin is named after Commerçon.

• The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe

Nicholas Culpeper
b. 10-18-1616; England
d. 1-10-1654; London - tuberculosis

Nicholas Culpeper, a physician whose systematic use of herbals was a key development in the evolution of modern pharmaceuticals, also translated Latin medical and herbal texts into vernacular English.

His halfway house practice in Spitalfields (contraction of ‘hospital fields’ referring to “The New Hospital of St Mary without Bishopgate” founded in 1197), brought health care to the poor. He also used astrology in his practice, perhaps a precursor to modern psychology.

Nicholas Culpeper quotes-
• “Three kinds of people mainly disease the people - priests, physicians and lawyers - priests disease matters belonging to their souls, physicians disease matters belonging to their bodies, and lawyers disease matters belonging to their estate.” Thulesius
• “Many a times I find my patients disturbed by trouble of Conscience or Sorrow, and I have to act the Divine before I can be the Physician. In fact our greatest skill lies in the infusion of Hopes, to induce confidence and peace of
mind.” Thulesius
• “I have written seventeen books of Physick (besides those already published) which will discover to you the whole method of physick, both according to Paracelsus and Galen's practice.” A Physical Directory, or a Trans. of the London Dispensary, 1649

• Culpeper's Complete Herbal
• Heal Thyself: Nicholas Culpeper and the Seventeenth-Century Struggle to Bring Medicine to the People
• Nicholas Culpeper, Herbalist of the People (online bio)

Pedanius Dioscorides, ca. 40-90, ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist from Asia Minor, practiced in ancient Rome at the time of Nero.

Dioscorides searched extensively for medicinal substances and is famous for writing a five volume book De Materia Medica that is a precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, one of the most influential herbal books in history.

• Making Medicines: A Brief History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals

Georg Dionysius Ehret
b. 1-30-1708; Germany
d. 9-9-1770

Botanist and entomologist Georg Dionysius Ehret is best known for his botanical illustrations.

The genus Ehretia, flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae, was named in his honor.

Leonhart Fuchs
b. 1-17-1501; Wemding, Duchy of Bavaria
d. 5-10-1566; Tübingen

Leonhard Fuchs (sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs), Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock (Tragus) are considered the three founding fathers of botany.

Fuch, a physician, was professor of medicine at Tübingen and provided instruction in medicinal plants and founded one of the first German botanical gardens.

FYI - Ever wonder where the word fuchsia comes from? Fuchs name was immortalized by the plant "Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo" first described on the island of Hispaniola c. 1698. The color fuchsia describes the color of the flowers plants.

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