Person

Beccari, Odoardo (1843 - 1920)

Born
16 November 1843
Florence, Italy
Died
25 October 1920
Florence, Italy
Occupation
Botanist and Collector

Summary

Odoardo Beccari was a botanist and plant collector who between 1865 and 1878 travelled widely in southeast Asia, spending several years resident in Sarawak, and made significant collections of specimens. His 1872 visit to New Guinea with ornithologist Luigi D'Albertis resulted in considerable ethnographic and zoological collections, especially birds of paradise. In 1878 Beccari visited Australian and New Zealand. During this visit he met Ferdinand von Mueller, the two later collaborating extensively on the flora of New Guinea. Beccari described over 500 new species and 35 new genera of plants, many of them palms, and published major works on the palm floras of Asia, the Pacific, Cuba and Madagascar. Several plant genera were named in his honour including Beccarinda and Beccariophoenix.

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Details

Chronology

1877 - 1878
Life event - Travelled through Australia and New Zealand
1879 - 1880
Career position - Director, Botanic Gardens, Florence, Italy

Related People

Published resources

Book Sections

  • Pichi Sermolli, R. E. G.; and Steenis, C. G. G. J. van, 'Dedication (biography of Odoardo Beccari)' in Flora malesiana series I - Spermatophyta, Steenis, C. G. G. J. van, ed., vol. 9 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), pp. 7-44. Details

Journal Articles

  • Dowe, John Leslie, 'Odoardo Beccari and Enrico D'Albertis in Australia and New Zealand, 1878: botanical and zoological collections', Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 150 (2) (2016), 27-41. Details
  • Moore, Harold E., 'Odoardo Beccari (1843 - 1920)', Principes, 25 (1981), 29-35. Details

Resources

See also

  • Van Steenis-Kruseman, M. J., Malaysian plant collectors and collections: being a cyclopaedia of botanical exploration in Malaysia and a guide to the concerned literature up to the year 1950 (Djakarta: Noordhoff-Kolff NV, 1950), clii, 639 pp. Details

Helen Cohn

Created: 5 December 2017, Last modified: 3 July 2018

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