Johann Amman
Encyclopedia
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....
- 14 December 1741 St Petersburg), was a Swiss-Russian botanist, a member of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
and professor of botany at the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
at St Petersburg. He is best known for his "Stirpium Rariorum in Imperio Rutheno Sponte Provenientium Icones et Descriptiones" published in 1739 with descriptions of some 285 plants from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Ruthenia
Ruthenia
Ruthenia is the Latin word used onwards from the 13th century, describing lands of the Ancient Rus in European manuscripts. Its geographic and culturo-ethnic name at that time was applied to the parts of Eastern Europe. Essentially, the word is a false Latin rendering of the ancient place name Rus...
(now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). The plates are unsigned, though an engraving on the dedicatory leaf of the work is signed "Philipp Georg Mattarnovy", a Swiss-Italian engraver, Filippo Giorgio Mattarnovi (1716-1742), who worked at the St. Petersburg Academy.
Amman was a student of Herman Boerhaave
Herman Boerhaave
Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. His main achievement was to demonstrate the relation of symptoms to lesions...
at Leyden from where he graduated as a physician in 1729. He came from Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in 1729 to help Hans Sloane
Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...
curate his natural history collection. Sloane was founder of the Chelsea Physic Garden
Chelsea Physic Garden
The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in London, England in 1673. It is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621.Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants...
and originator of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. Amman went on to St Petersburg at the invitation of Johann Georg Gmelin
Johann Georg Gmelin
Johann Georg Gmelin was a German naturalist, botanist and geographer.- Early life and education :Gmelin was born in Tübingen, the son of an professor at the University of Tübingen. He was a gifted child and begun attending university lectures at the age of 14. In 1727, he graduated with a medical...
(1709-1755) and became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, regularly sending interesting plants, such as Gypsophila paniculata
Gypsophila paniculata
Gypsophila paniculata, commonly known as Baby's-breath, is a cultivated ornamental garden plant in the Caryophyllaceae family, popular in the florist trade to provide a background for more colourful flowers....
, back to Sloane. Linnaeus maintained a lively correspondence with Amman between 1736 and 1740.
Amman founded the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences on Vasilyevsky Island in St Petersburg in 1735. In 1739 he married Elisabetha Schumacher, daughter of Daniel Schumacher, the court librarian in St Petersburg.
Ammania
Ammania
Ammannia is a genus of about 25 to 30 species of plants often referred to as redstems from wet areas in America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe...
of the Lythraceae
Lythraceae
Lythraceae are a family of flowering plants. It includes about 620 species of mostly herbs, with some shrubs and trees, in 31 genera. Major genera include Cuphea , Lagerstroemia , Nesaea , Rotala , and Lythrum...
was named not for Johann Amman, but for Paul Amman (1634-1691), botanist, physiologist and director of the Hortus Medicus at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
and who published work on Materia medica
Materia medica
Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...
in 1675.
Johann Amman is denoted by the author abbreviation Amman when citing
Author citation (botany)
In botanical nomenclature, author citation refers to citing the person who validly published a botanical name, i.e. who first published the name while fulfilling the formal requirements as specified by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature...
a botanical name
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...
.