VI 



Carl Friedrich Philtpp von Marti us, Foreign Member of the 

 Royal Society, was born on the 17th of April, 179-1, at Erlangen, where 

 his father, Ernst Wilhelm Martius, was Court Apothecary, and Honorary 

 Professor of Pharmacy in the University. The family is said to have 

 come from Italy, but had for several generations been settled in Germany. 

 After a careful and judicious training at home, for which he was indebted 

 chiefly to an intelligent and accomplished mother, young Martius received 

 his general education in the school and the gymnasium of his native 

 town. From his father he had inherited a taste for Natural History; and 

 under the tuition of Professors Richter and Besenbeck. of the Gymnasium, he 

 acquired a well-grounded knowledge of classical literature ; so that a good 

 foundation was laid for that well-balanced general mental culture of which 

 the fruits are conspicuous in his writings. When not quite sixteen years 

 of age, he entered the University of Erlangen. His main object was the 

 study of medicine, but he also followed his early bent towards Natural 

 History, and especially Botany. The Botanical Professor of that day was 

 Schreber, who had himself studied under Linneeus ; but Martius's attach- 

 ment to the science was greatly fostered and promoted by the friendship of 

 the brothers Nees von Esenbeck, then his fellow students, who afterwards 

 rose to eminence as botanists. From the elder of the brothers Martius 

 also received a tincture of the then prevalent " Natur-Philosophie," which 

 may be perceived to colour his earlier writings ; but its influence seems to 

 have been but transient. 



In March 1814 he was promoted with distinction to the degree of Doctor 

 of Medicine, and published his inaugural dissertation under the title 

 " Plantarum Horti Academici Erlangensis Enumeratio," a critical catalogue 

 of plants arranged according to the Linnean system. 



An. event had happened some time before which decided Martius's 

 future career. The Academy of Sciences of Munich, on the death of 

 Schreber, sent to Erlangen two of its members, Schrank and Spix, to 

 acquire his botanical collections for the Academy ; and these naturalists, 

 having seen the promise of future excellence evinced by the young man, 

 invited Martius to apply for admission into the M Institution of Eleves," 

 then existing in the Academy, in which the pupils had the advantage of 

 following out the higher study of selected branches of science under the 

 auspices of the Academy and the immediate guidance of certain of its mem- 

 bers. Through the prospect thus set before him, the wish which Martius 

 had already entertained of devoting himself entirely to botany, became a 

 settled resolution. After going through the prescribed trials, he was in 

 May 1814 received among the Eleves of the Academy, and appointed, 

 under the direction of Schrank, now advanced in years, to be assistant in 

 the management of the Botanic Garden at Munich, with an annual salary 

 of 500 florins. Two years later he was advanced to the rank of "Adjunct 

 of the Academy," an order which no longer exists, having been abolished, 

 together with the Institute of Eleves, by King Louis in 182/. 



