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Odoardo Beccari
Odoardo Beccari (16 November 1843 – 25 October 1920 ) was an Italian naturalist perhaps best known for discovering the titan arum , the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, in Sumatra in 1878. The standard author abbreviation Becc. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name .
An orphan from Florence , Beccari studied at a school in Lucca and the universities in Pisa and Bologna . After graduating, he spent a few months at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , where he met Charles Darwin , William Hooker and Joseph Hooker , and James Brooke , the first Rajah of Sarawak . The latter connection lead to him spending 3 years from 1865 to 1868 undertaking research in Sarawak, Brunei and other islands off present-day Malaysia and New Guinea . He discovered many new species of palms .
After journeying to Abyssinia , he returned to New Guinea with ornithologist Luigi Maria d'Albertis in 1872.
Beccari founded the New Italian Botanic Journal in 1869, and became director of the botanic garden of Florence . He found the Corpse Plant in 1878, located in Sumatra. In 1882 he married and had 4 sons.
Beccari's botanical collection now forms part of the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze .
Selected works
Malesia, raccolta d’osservazioni lese e papuano (three volumes, 1877-1889).Nelle Foreste di Borneo. Viaggi e ricerche di un naturalista (S. Landi, Florence, 1902).Asiatic Palms (1908).Palme del Madagascar descritte ed illustrate (1912).Nova Guinea, Selebes e Molucche. Diari di viaggio ordonati dal figlio Prof. Dott. Nello Beccari (La Voce, Florence, 1924).
References
^ Brummitt, R. K.; C. E. Powell (1992). Authors of Plant Names . Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . ISBN 1-84246-085-4 .
External links
