Announcement: 11.07.2023 Guest lecture Staffan Müller-Wille: Pflanzen-Verwandtschaften: Eine Hamburger Geschichte

20 June 2023

As part of the special exhibition »Das Ganze der Natur – Kräfte, Ordnungen, Grenzen« organized in cooperation with the Museum der Natur Hamburg/ Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels (LIB) Prof. Dr. Staffan Müller-Wille will hold a lecture on the topic »Pflanzen-Verwandtschaften: Eine Hamburger Geschichte«.

In 1792, the Hamburg teacher and librarian Paul Dietrich Gieseke published a volume on the 'natural orders' of plants, based on lectures he and his Kiel colleague Johann Christian Fabricius had heard of the famous Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné. Enclosed to the volume was a large-format plate entitled 'genealogico-geographische Tafel der Verwandtschaften der Pflanzen' (Tabula genealogico-geographica affinitatum plantarum). It is one of the first efforts to show the diversity of plant species in a diagram, and the reference to relationships was quite literal. The lecture will discuss Giseke's revolutionary chart in the context of contemporary ideas of affinities, and in particular the question of why it came about in Hamburg, of all places.

Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2023, 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Museum der Natur Hamburg/ Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels (LIB), Bundesstraße 52, 20146 Hamburg

Please visit the website of the Museum der Natur Hamburg/ Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels (LIB) for the constantly updated programme accompanying the exhibition »Das Ganze der Natur – Kräfte, Ordnungen, Grenzen«.