Simon Schwendener

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Swiss botanist

title: "Simon Schwendener" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1829-births", "1919-deaths", "people-from-buchs,-st.-gallen", "swiss-calvinist-and-reformed-christians", "19th-century-swiss-botanists", "20th-century-swiss-botanists", "academic-staff-of-the-university-of-basel", "academic-staff-of-the-university-of-tübingen", "academic-staff-of-the-ludwig-maximilian-university-of-munich", "academic-staff-of-the-humboldt-university-of-berlin", "foreign-members-of-the-royal-society", "members-of-the-göttingen-academy-of-sciences-and-humanities", "members-of-the-royal-society-of-sciences-in-uppsala", "recipients-of-the-pour-le-mérite-(civil-class)"] description: "Swiss botanist" topic_path: "people/1820s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Schwendener" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Swiss botanist ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/PSM_V50_D329_Simon_Schwendemer_professor_of_botany_berlin.jpg" caption="Simon Schwendener}}"] ::

Simon Schwendener (10 February 1829 – 27 May 1919) was a Swiss botanist who was a native of Buchs in the Canton of St. Gallen.

In 1856 he received his doctorate at the University of Zurich, where afterwards he was an assistant to Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli (1817–1891). In 1860 he became a professor of botany at the University of Munich, and in 1867 a professor of botany and director of the Botanical Gardens in Basel. In 1877 he succeeded Wilhelm Hofmeister (1824–1877) as professor of botany at the University of Tübingen, and from 1878 until his retirement in 1910, Schwendener was a professor at the University of Berlin.

Simon Schwendener is remembered for his investigations of plant anatomy and physiology, being interested in the inter-relationship between a plant's construction and its functionality. He took a mechanistic approach to his botanical studies, believing that a plant's anatomical structure conformed to principles of mechanics. He conducted extensive research on the mechanics of sap ascent, the construction of a leaf's pulvinus, the positioning of a plants' leaves, and the inner-workings between stomata and its guard cells. He also used disk stacking to create a model for phyllotaxis in plants, and established the discipline of plant biomechanics.

In 1867 Schwendener announced to the scientific world his hypothesis that lichen was formed by two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. At the time his theory was largely rejected, but it was afterwards proven to be factual. During his long career he had several renowned students and assistants, including Carl Correns, Gottlieb Haberlandt, Eduard Jahn, Richard Kolkwitz, Emil Heinricher, Max Westermaier, Georg Volkens and Otto Heinrich Warburg.

Honors

He was elected on the 1st of May 1884 a Foreign Member of the Linnean Society of London. The plant genus Schwendenera K.Schum. in the family Rubiaceae is named in his honor.

Selected writings

  • Das mechanische Princip im anatomischen Bau der Monocotylen (1874) – The mechanistic principle on the anatomical structure of monocots.
  • Mechanische Theorie der Blattstellungen (1878) – The mechanistic theory of leaf positioning.
  • Über Bau und Mechanik der Spaltöffnungen (1881) – On the structure and mechanics of the stomata.
  • Gesammelte Botanische Mittheilungen (1898) – Collected botanical treatises.

References

References

  1. Douady, Stéphane. (2024). "Do plants know math? unwinding the story of plant spirals, from Leonardo da Vinci to now". Princeton University Press.
  2. (1867). "(Ueber die wahre Natur der Flechten)". Verhandlungen der Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Rheinfelden Am 9., 10., und 11. September 1867 (Proceedings of the Swiss Scientific Society in Rheinfelden on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of September 1867).
  3. (Summer 2000). "Simon Schwendener (1829-1919) and the dual hypothesis of lichens". The Bryologist.
  4. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcwLsWgbCE8C&pg=PA91 Plant Desiccation Tolerance] edited by Matthew A. Jenks, Andrew J. Wood
  5. (1880). "Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Session 1883–1884)".
  6. Lotte Burkhardt: ''Verzeichnis eponymischer Pflanzennamen – Erweiterte Edition.'' Parts I & II. [[Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem]], [[Freie Universität Berlin]], Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 [[doi:10.3372/epolist2018]].

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1829-births1919-deathspeople-from-buchs,-st.-gallenswiss-calvinist-and-reformed-christians19th-century-swiss-botanists20th-century-swiss-botanistsacademic-staff-of-the-university-of-baselacademic-staff-of-the-university-of-tübingenacademic-staff-of-the-ludwig-maximilian-university-of-munichacademic-staff-of-the-humboldt-university-of-berlinforeign-members-of-the-royal-societymembers-of-the-göttingen-academy-of-sciences-and-humanitiesmembers-of-the-royal-society-of-sciences-in-uppsalarecipients-of-the-pour-le-mérite-(civil-class)