Abstract
THE news of the death of Hermann Müller of Lippstadt will come with a sense of personal loss to many of our readers, who have looked with interest for his frequent contributions to the columns of NATURE on the branch of natural history which he has made specially his own—the mutual relations to one another of insects and flowers in promoting cross-fertilisation. Much as we owe on this subject to some of our own naturalists, especially Darwin and Lubbock, the chief authority in it is, and probably always will be, Hermann Müller. Any future inquirer will necessarily turn, for the main part of his information, to his two great works, “Die Befruchtung der Blumen durch Insekten,” published in 1873, and “Alpenblumen, ihre Befruchtung durch Insekten,” published in 1881. The mass of information contained in these volumes is simply marvellous. In the first place the author has worked out with the greatest care the structure of those classes of insects which play the greatest part in the fertilisation of flowers with regard to their capacity for collecting nectar or pollen, and for carrying pollen from flower to flower. A very large proportion, including all the commoner ones, of the species which make up the phanerogamic flora of Central Europe are then taken up seriatim, the structure of the male and female organs described, illustrated often with very careful drawings, and always with reference to any special contrivances connected with the mode in which insects obtain the honey; and then a list is given of all the insects which he has observed visiting the flower. No one who has worked in the same field will fail to recognise the unfailing trustworthiness and accuracy of his observations. The “Befruchtung der Blumen” has only during the present year been presented to English readers in Mr. D'Arcy Thompson's translation, with an appreciative preface by the late Mr. C. Darwin, a notice of which will shortly appear in our columns. But these two works by no means exhaust Prof. Müller's, labours in his favourite subject, as his numerous contributions to our columns show. He was also a frequent contributor to the German periodical Kosmos, discussing, with great wealth of knowledge and acute reasoning, the origin of species, the genesis of the colours of flowers, the laws of variation, and other similar subjects. Dr. Müller's contribution, “Blumen und Insekten,” to Schenk's “Handbuch der Botanik,” which forms a part of the “Encyklopædie der Naturwissenschaften,” now in course of publication, is an admirable résumé” of the whole subject.
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B., A. Hermann Müller. Nature 28, 462–463 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028462e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028462e0