Eduard Adolf Strasburger

Born Feb. 1, 1844, in Warsaw; died May 19, 1912, in Bonn. Polish-born German botanist. Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków (1888).

Strasburger studied in Warsaw, Bonn, and Jena. He was a senior lecturer at the University of Warsaw (1867–69) and a professor at the universities of Jena (1869–80) and Bonn (1880–1911). Strasburger’s research was primarily devoted to plant cytology, anatomy, and embryology. He studied mitosis, described meiosis in higher plants, and explained the biological significance of a reduction in the number of chromosomes.

Strasburger also studied the process of fertilization and the phenomena of parthenogenesis and apogamy. His work was extremely important for the formulation of the chromosome theory of heredity and theories concerning the genetic unity of higher plants. He perfected the methods of cytological research. Strasburger was coauthor of Textbook of Botany (1894; 30th ed., 1971), which has been translated into a number of languages, including Russian.