JOSEPH GOTTLIEB KOLREUTER 203 
SUPPLEMENT TO THE INTRODUCTION. 
1. Joseph Gottlieb Kolreuter. 
I am here able to supplement and correct the brief account of Kélreuter that 
I quoted at the beginning of the Introduction (p. 1) from Sachs’s ‘ History of 
Botany’ (Eng. Ed. p. 406, note), for Dr. J. Behrens of Karlsruhe has kindly 
placed at my disposal his own copy of his work ‘Joseph Gottlieb Kélreuter, ein 
Karlsruher Botaniker’ (Karlsruhe, 1894). Kélreuter was born on April 27, 1733, 
and was the eldest son of Johann Konrad Kélreuter, an apothecary at Sulz on the 
Neckar. Though nothing is known with regard to his early years it may be assumed 
that—encouraged by his father—he acquired a knowledge of the flora and fauna 
of his own neighbourhood when he was still a boy. In 1748 he went to the 
University of Tiibingen, and in 1753 to Strassburg, returning in 1754 to Tubingen, 
where in the following year he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine, the title of 
his thesis being—‘Dissertatio inauguralis medica de insectis coleopteris necnon de 
plantis quibusdam rarioribus (cum icone),’ 
Soon after he graduated (1756) Kélreuter went as an assistant in Natural 
History to the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, where he made his 
first (fruitless) experiments on hybridization (1759), employing Hibiscus trionum 
and Pentapetes phoenicea, Hibiscus trionum and Gossypium herbaceum, Atropa 
physaloides and Physalis Alkekengi. While he was in St. Petersburg his ‘ Vor- 
laufige Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen 
und Beobachtungen’ (i.e. Preliminary Communication on some Researches and Ex- 
periments regarding the Sex of Plants) appeared, and he also published a number 
of zoological memoirs. 
In the summer of 1761 K6lreuter returned to his home. In the course of the 
return journey he visited Berlin in the month of August, and there became acquainted 
with Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch, who had succeeded some ten years before in effecting 
the artificial fertilization of Chamaerops humilis. From Berlin Kélreuter went for 
a few weeks to Leipzig, and coming into contact with the botanists there, especially 
Christian Gottlieb Ludwig, received a new stimulus to research, and after his return 
to Sulz continued his experiments. In 1762 Kélreuter settled at Calw in Wiirtem- 
berg, where he still carried on investigations on the sexual relations of plants. 
While the preface to his ‘ Vorlaufige Nachricht’ was written in Leipzig, and 
published by Gleditsch in Leipzig at the instigation of his friends there, the 
‘Fortsetzung’ (i.e. Supplement), and also the ‘Zweite Fortsetzung’ (i.e. Second 
Supplement) are essentially the fruit of his labours in Sulz and Calw. 
In 1763 Kélreuter was called to Karlsruhe by the margrave Karl Friedrich of 
Baden-Durlach, as overseer and director of the Royal Gardens, and Professor of 
Natural History. In the beginning of 1764 he assumed these offices, and the ‘ Dritte 
Fortsetzung der vorlaufigen Nachricht’ (i.e. Third Supplement to the Preliminary 
Communication) appeared as the result of his first two years’ work in Karlsruhe. 
