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PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
GOTTLIEB HABERLANDT1854
PLATE III
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GOTTLIEB HABERLANDT1854
(WITH PLATE III AND ONE FIGURE)
On November 28th of this year a great German botanist of the oldergeneration will be eighty years old. The writer of this short biographicalsketch was his student and it is with a feeling of sincere admiration that hethinks of the life and work of his great teacher.
GOTTLIEB HABERLANDT was born under the Austro-Hungarian monarchyat Ungarisch-Altenburg, where his father taught classes in natural sciencesat the government agricultural school. The father's interest in biology aswell as his talent for drawing and music were inherited by his son.
In 1873 HABERLANDT entered the University of Vienna and was muchattracted by JULIUS WIESNER'S lectures on the anatomy and physiology ofplants. In 1874 his first botanical paper, about cellulose in cork tissues,appeared in the ''Oesterreichisch botanische Zeitschrift."
HABERLANDT was not very much influenced by JULIUS WVIESNER but headmired him and appreciated his teacher's friendly interest. While a stu-dent in Vienna it was the reading of the works of C. NXGri, W. HOFMEIS-TER, HUGO VON MOHL, and FRANZ UNGER, but especially of JULIUS SACHS,through which HABERLANDT trained himself. As a student he publishedseveral papers, among which are an investigation of lenticels and a study ofthe winter coloring in perennial leaves. The last named paper was alsoaccepted as a thesis for the Ph.D. degree which he obtained in 1876. In theautumn of 1877 he went to SIMON SCHWENDENER in Tiibingen. HABERLANDThad already conceived the idea of a physiologic interpretation of plant anat-omy which SCHWENDENER had suggested in "Das mechanische Prinzip imanatomischen Bau der Monokotylen." In Tiubingen HABERLANDT under-took his first independent investigation, "Die Entwicklungsgeschichte desmechanischen Gewebesystems."
SCHWENDENER recognized in HABERLANDT his most talented pupil andlater chose him to be his successor in the chair of general botany at Berlin.
HABERLANDT started his research work with a very definite program.He intended to investigate, in the course of years, one system of plant tissuesafter another and to incorporate finally these investigations into a hand-book of physiological plant anatomy. He decided to start with the chloro-phyll bearing photosynthetic system, because it was typical for plants andno danger existed here of his being misled by false analogies with animals.
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PLANNT PHYSIOLOGY
HABERLANDT'S method was to reach conclusions about the relations betweenstructures and functions of tissues on the basis of purely anatomical inves-tigations, and his early deductions were confirmed by later experimentscarried out by A. F. W. SCHIMPER.
During the autumn of 1878 HABERLANTDT was admitted to a docentshipin botany at the University of Vienna. In 1880 he received a call to theTechnische Hochschule in Graz, in Austria. There he was made acting pro-fessor of botany and simultaneously he became privatdocent at the Uni-versity.
HABERLANDT was very happy in the beautiful alpine city of Graz withits lovely surroundings and proximity to the Adriatic Sea. In the year fol-lowing his appointment in Graz, HABERLANDT married CHARLOTTE HAECKERto whom he had become engaged in Tiibingen. In 1884 he became pro-fessor extraordinarius and in 1888, after LEITGEB'S death, ordinarius at theUniversity.
The first investigation which HABERLANDT undertook in Graz was on theapical growth of the phanerogams. He emphasized the function of theapical cell, which he interpreted through the formation of segments, in con-trast to SACHS who defined the apical cell as merely a gap in the construc-tive system of the cell walls of the vegetative point. After havingf studiedthe assimilatory system, HABERLANDT intended to take up the conductivesystem including the vascular bundles. He took up first the vascularbundles in the petioles of ferns and second the latex tubes which he ex-plained as having the function of typical conductors for the assimilationproducts of plants.
Meanwhile SCHWENDENER had been called to Berlin and had foundedhis Botanisches Institut. There his pupils worked out problems in the fieldof physiological plant anatomy. These papers appeared without a verydefinite program and HABERLANDT realized that a fundamental classificationof tissue systems from the viewpoint of physiological plant anatomy wasurgently needed. He decided to write his handbook without waiting untilall the necessary Vorarbeiten should be completed. In 1884 appeared thefirst edition of the "Physiologische Pflanzenanatomie."
The "Physiological Plant Anatomy" saw six editions and is still muchread while contemporary text-books of plant physiology are no longer in use.In his charming memoirs, "Erinnerungen, Bekenntnisse und Betrach-tungen" (Berlin, Julius Springer, 1933), which everv botanist should read,HABERLANDT expressed the hope that some day somebody else might give anindependent treatment of evolutionary physiological anatomy of plants(Entwicklungphysiologische Anatomie) as a counterpart of the function-ally physiological anatomy which he formulated in his handbook.
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HABERLANDT'S "Physiologische Pflanzenanatomie" found many readersthroughout central, n-orthern, and eastern Europe and in Japan. It wastranslated into English but never became very popular in France.
It was in the winter semester, 1893-94, that the author of this biograph-ical sketch first attended HABERLANDT'S, lectures on physiological plant anat-omy at the University of Graz. I have a very vivid recollection of myteacher. His lectures were extremely inspiring and beautifully organized.A natural talent for drawing, as well as the magnificent anatomical andflower models prepared by his technician, H. GASSER, added to their instruc-tiveness. In the microscope room he visited every advanced student severaltimes a day, giving advice, suggesting new viewpoints, explaining newideas. He had eminently what the Germans call a philosophical mind,never being satisfied with the establishment of mere facts, but always at-tempting a theoretical interpretation.
As professor ordinarius of botany and director of the botanical instituteand garden, HABERLANDT enjoyed a great deal of independence in adminis-tering his small domain. In matters of budget he dealt directly with a de-partment head in the provincial g,overnor's office who in turn merely repre-sented the imperial and royal secretary of education. HABERLANDT wastwice elected dean of the faculty of philosophy in the University butdeclined election to the office of rector magnificus.
The other professor of botaniy, CONSTANTIN VON ETTINGSHAUSEN, whoseassistant I was, did not always cultivate the best of personal relations withHABERLANDT. My position was therefore a very delicate one but HABER-LANDT always treated me in a very friendly and considerate manner. I amproud to be one of his Schiiler. During his 44 years of active teaching inVienna, Graz, and Berlin, HABERLANDT must have had hundreds of ad-vanced students. Only six of them, including the writer of this paper,reached university positions, and of these six two are dead, EDUARD PALLAand CARL ERICH CORRENS.
At this time fell also a visit to the botanical garden of Buitenzorg inJava (1891-92). Fruits of this trip were studies of the transpiration ofplant leaves and a charming volume "Eine botanische Tropenreise," whichhad three editions and is still a very popular book among botanists, owing toHABERLANDT's broad scientific observations and artistic presentation and tohis masterful pencil sketches which accompany the text.
In 1909 SCHWENDENER retired, at eighty years of age, from the chair ofplant physiology at the University of Berlin and he suggested that HABER-LANDT be his successor. The latter began his lectures in Berlin in theautumn of 1910.
With a heavy heart HABERLANDT left his beautiful Botanisches Institutin Graz and the lovely alpine city with his many congenial friends. He
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PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
had not accepted the call to Berlin until he had been promised a new insti-tute for plant physiology with greenhouses and gardens, but it was threeyears before HABERLANDT could move his institute to Dahlem where he alsohad his official residence.
HABERLANDT worked at that time with cell division hormones, woundhormones, necro-hormones, lepto-hormones, etc. He also started a serialpublication for his own and his students' contributions called "Beitragezur allgemeinen Botanik. " The Beitrage did not continue after the secondvolume owing to the unfavorable financial conditions in Germany. HABER-LANDT gave normally during autumn and winter at Dahlem a course inanatomy and physiology of plants. This was changed later to physiologicalplant anatomy, when the professor extraordinarius of general botany wasgiiving a lecture course on plant physiology.
During the summer semester HABERLANDT gave what he called "Grund-zilge der Botanik. " This was a survey course touching, in the short span ofthree months, four times a week, on cytology, anatomy, organography,physiology, and the taxonomy of thallophytes, bryophytes, pteridophytes,and spermatophytes. This course was held at the University building inthe city of Berlin.
HABERLANDT would have liked to add to his "Physiologische Pflanzen-anatomie" chapters on the anatomy of reproductive organs as well as onthe evolutionary physiology of tissue systems. Another wish was to writea text-book of botany for artists and craftsmen. His own paintings in watercolors and oil had splendidly prepared him for such a task. He was rarelyqualified to do it. But soon after he had organized his new Pflanzen-physiologisches Institut in Dahlem the world war broke out. His four sonsserved in it, two in the German and two in the Austrian army. All returnedunharmed. HABERLANDT'S first wife had died in February of 1910 and hemarried again in August of 1914. He had seven childreni, five by his firstwife and two were born during the war from his second marriage.
During the world war HABERLANDT served on various food boards andafter peace had returned he continued his botanical researches, producingvaluable papers to date. In a recent letter he assured the writer of thisbiography that his eyes are still as serviceable for microscopic work as theywere thirty years ago. May he be spared for a long time, for the benefit ofbotany, and reach the nineties as did his great teacher, SCHWEENDENER.
HABERLANDT is one of a great (group of German botanists. Of the others,NXGELI, SACHS, DE BARY, STRASBURGER, SCHWENDENER, ENIGLER, CORRENS,PFEFFER, WIESNER, KERNER, and WETTSTEIN have all passed away. HABER-LANDT and the 78-year old HANS MOLISCH are the only survivors of thatgroup of brilliant botanists whose race was German and who belonged toGermany, Austria, and Switzerland. His is a good illustration of the best
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type of German university professor; a thorough scientist, an excellentteacher, a man of broad scientific and humanistic interests, upright andindependent in his convictions. The old German universities had many menof this type and it is to be hoped that they also may be found in the newgeneration.
Perhaps it was the humanistic education that created the intellectualleaders among the scientists of HABERLANDT 'S generation. The gradualdisappearance of this background may account for the smaller number ofbrilliant men of scientific thought among the much larger masses of scien-tifically trained men in our time. The greatest change in the history ofcivilization is the disappearance of classical education. It has ruled the in-tellectual life of European mankind from the time of the Renaissance to theworld war. HABERLANDT still belongs to the intellectual aristocracy of theclassical era.-A. C. NoE, University of Chicago.
FIG.1. InstitutefhnAor- planpm SI f Gz
FIG. 1. Institute for plant physiology and anatomy, University of Graz, Austria.
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