|
Wilhelm Friedrich Benedikt Hofmeister (18 May 1824 – 12 January 1877) was a German biologist and botanist. He "stands as one of the true giants in the history of biology and belongs in the same pantheon as Darwin and Mendel." He was largely self-taught. ==Biography== Hofmeister was the son of a book and music publisher and seller in Leipzig. He left school at the age of 15 and was apprenticed in a bookshop in Hamburg by an acquaintance of his father. He did most of his research in his free-time, largely from four to six in the morning before going to work.〔Goebel, K. von (1905) Wilhelm Hofmeister. The Plant World 8: 291-298.〕 Nevertheless, he was only 27 when he published his ground-breaking monograph on the alternation of generations in plants. Not until 1863, he was employed as a professor. That was at the University of Heidelberg. In 1872, he moved to the University of Tübingen.〔 *〕〔(Haberlandt, G. (1877) Wilhelm Hofmeister. Plant Systematics and Evolution 27 (4): 113-117. )〕 Hofmeister is widely credited with discovery of alternation of generations as a general principle in plant life. His proposal that alternation between a spore-bearing generation (sporophyte) and a gamete-bearing generation (gametophyte) constituted a unifying theory of plant evolution that was published in 1851, eight years before Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species.''〔Box 9.1 in Keddy, P.A. (2007) Plants and Vegetation: Origins, Processes, Consequences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 680 p. ISBN 978-0-521-86480-0 ()〕 Hofmeister was an early student of the genetics in plants. He is cited for the first studies of plant embryology. According to C. D. Darlington, Hofmeister had observed what would later be called chromosomes in a dividing cell nucleus as early as 1848. He left detailed sketches which are reproduced in Darlington's ''The Facts of Life'', though he was not the first to observe them. In 1869, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hofmeister's contribution to biology is still far from widely acknowledged.〔 This may partly be attributed to the fact that only one of his works were translated from German to English. However, Kaplan & Cooke〔 conclude that "his reputation became eclipsed because he was so far ahead of his contemporaries that no one could understand or appreciate his work". Study of Hofmeister's work is also limited because it is published in German, though translations for some papers have been made.〔Witty M (2015). "Untersuchungen des Vorgangs bei der Befruchtung der Oenothereen"; a translation of Wilhelm Hofmeister's (1824-1877) 1847 paper on Fertilization in the Onagraceae (Evening Primrose family). Huntia 15(1):47-58.〕〔Witty M (2015a). Pollen development, membranes and features of the nucleus in Tradescantia and related genera; a translation of Wilhelm Hofmeister's 1848a paper "Ueber die Entwicklung des pollens". Huntia 15(2):75-86.〕〔Witty M (2015b). Comparing Pollen Development in the Commelinaceae with those of the Passifloraceae; a translation of Wilhelm Hofmeister's 1848b paper "Ueber die Entwicklung des pollens". Huntia 15(2):105-113.〕〔Witty M (2015c). Development of Pollen in the Pinaceae and conclusions; a translation of Wilhelm Hofmeister's 1848c paper "Ueber die Entwicklung des pollens". Huntia 15(2):215-221.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wilhelm Hofmeister」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|