Everything about Christian Konrad Sprengel totally explained
Christian Konrad Sprengel (
22 September 1750 –
7 April 1816) was a
German theologist,
teacher and, most importantly, a
naturalist. He discovered
sexuality in the
plant kingdom.
Sprengel was born in
Brandenburg an der Havel in the
Margraviate of Brandenburg. He studied
theology in
Halle. In 1774 he became a teacher in
Berlin. After 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,
Josef G. Köhlreuter, he's still the classic author in this field.
During his lifetime, his work was neglected, not only because 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
selection and
evolution wasn't recognized. Until
Charles Darwin's 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 wasn't considered a 'proper science'.
Important successors like
Paul Knuth,
Fritz Knoll and
Hans Kugler were inspired by Sprengel and brought great advances to the field of pollination ecology. After the
second World War, their work was continued by
Stefan Vogel,
Knut Faegri,
Leendert van der Pijl,
Amos Dafni,
G. Ledyard Stebbins as well as
Herbert Baker and
Irene Baker.
The ideas and terms inherited out of Sprengel's fundamental work last forever.
Sprengel is buried at the
Invalidenfriedhof in
Berlin. A small monument designed after the frontpiece 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.
- 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
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