Alexander von Bunge

Alexander Georg von Bunge (Russian: Aleksandr Andreevich von Bunge, Алекса́ндр Андре́евич Бу́нге; 6 October [O.S. 24 September] 1803 – 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1890) was a Russian botanist. He is best remembered for scientific expeditions into Asia and especially Siberia.

Alexander von Bunge
Lithograph by Eduard Hau
Born6 October 1803
Kiev
Died18 July 1890 (1890-07-19) (aged 86)
CitizenshipRussian
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
InstitutionsUniversity of Dorpat

Biography

Bunge was born as son of a family that belonged to the German minority in Tsarist Russia. His father Andreas Theodor was the son of Georg Friedrich Bunge, a pharmacist who had emigrated from East Prussia to Russia in the 18th century. He studied medicine at the University of Dorpat, later serving as a professor of botany in Kazan. In 1835, he returned to Dorpat, where he taught classes in botany until 1867. Here, he kept in contact with Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal, a botanist at the University of Halle, through correspondence, via articles published in the journal "Linnaea" and through the exchange of herbarium specimens.[1] He remained in Dorpat until 1881, spending his later years there conducting investigations of Estonian flora.[2]

In 1826 with Carl Friedrich von Ledebour and Carl Anton von Meyer, he embarked on an important scientific expedition to the Kirghiz Steppe and Altai Mountains.[3][4] In 1830–31, he traveled to Beijing by way of Siberia, through which he conducted extensive research of Mongolian flora.[1] Following his investigations in China, he returned to the Altai Mountains, where he conducted studies of the eastern part of the region (1832). In 1857–58 he took part in a scientific expedition to Khorasan and Afghanistan.[4]

He was the father of physiologist Gustav von Bunge (1844–1920) [1] and of Alexander von Bunge (1851–1930), an explorer and zoologist.[5] His older brother, Friedrich Georg von Bunge (1802–1897), was a legal historian.

Commemoration
Taxa
Places

Bunge Land in the New Siberian Islands and a crater on Mars were named after him.

Selected writings
  • Flora Altaica; scripsit Carolus Fridericus a Ledebour, adiutoribus Car. Ant. Meyer et Al. a Bunge. (1829–1833)
  • Enumeratio plantarum quas in China boreali collegit Dr. Al. Bunge. Anno 1831. (1832)
  • Plantarum mongolica-chinensium decas fine. (1835)
  • Alexandri Lehmann reliquiae botanicae; sive, Enumeratio plantarum in itinere per deserta Asiae Mediae ab A. Lehmann annis 1839–1842 collectarum. Scripsit Al. Bunge. (1847)
  • Beitrag zur kenntniss der flor Russlands und der steppen Central-Asiens, (1851) – Contribution to the knowledge of flora native to Russia and the steppes of Central Asia.
  • Plantas Abichianas in itineribus per Caucasum regionesque Transcaucasicas collectas, enumeravit A. Bunge. (1858)
  • Generis Astragali species gerontogeae. (1868–1869).[4]
  • Labiatae persicae, (1873).[8]

See also

References
  1. Alexander von Bunge (1803–1890), a prominent researcher of Mongolian flora Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg | Schlechtendalia P-ISSN 1436-2317 E-ISSN 2195-9889
  2. JN Nutrition Biography of Gustav B. von Bunge
  3. CRC world dictionary of plant names. 1. A – C by Umberto Quattrocchi
  4. JSTOR Global Plants Bunge, Alexander Andrejewitsch (Aleksandr Andreevic (Aleksandrovic) von (1803–1890)
  5. Encyclopedia of the Arctic by Mark Nuttall
  6. Encyclopedia of Stanford Trees, Shrubs, and Vines PINACEAE
  7. Manchurian Catalpa Catalpa bungei by Richard T. Olsen and Joseph H. Kirkbride, Jr.
  8. Biodiversity Heritage Library (bibliography)
  9. IPNI.  Bunge.
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