200 let vědecké paleobotaniky
| Pages | 227-234 |
|---|---|
| DOI | 10.37520/jnmpnhs.2020.015 |
| Citation | KVAČEK, Jiří. 200 let vědecké paleobotaniky. Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series. Prague: National Museum, 2020, 189(1), 227-234. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/jnmpnhs.2020.015. ISSN 1802-6842 (print), 1802-6850 (electronic). Also available from: https://publikace.nm.cz/en/periodicals/jotnmpnhs/189-1/200-let-vedecke-paleobotaniky |
In the year 2020, we celebrate 200 years of scientific palaeobotany, and 200 years since the issue of the first part of the Sternberg Flora der Vorwelt. Kašpar Sternberg (1761–1838) is considered to be the principal founder of scientific palaeobotany besides Adolf Brongniart and Fridricha A. Schlotheim. His seminal work Versuch einer geognostisch-botanischen Darstellung der Flora der Vorwelt (abbreviated usually as Flora der Vorwelt) is well known through the palaeobotanical community as the starting point of palaeobotanical nomenclature. Sternberg, being equipped with a botanical background, took a significantly different approach to fossil plants than the majority of his contemporaries. He used the Linnaean system of taxa in palaeobotany, ordered in natural hierarchies. Each taxon below the level of genus he designated with a distinct Latin diagnosis and an illustration or reference to earlier published fossils. In that way, each taxon was associated with its type. In his approach, he did not consider fossils as „Petrefacta“ but as fossils of real plants, which lived once in nature. In the Czech Republic, we also celebrate Kašpar M. Sternberg as a founder of the National Museum (established in 1818), an organizer of various industrial activities, an enthusiastic supporter of national enlightenment, and a generous patron of Czech science and culture.
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