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José Quer
José Quer | |
|---|---|
 Statue of José Quer y Martínez in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Sculpture by Andrés Rodríguez. | |
| Born | January 26, 1695 |
| Died | March 19, 1764 |
| Occupations | Physician and botanist |
José Quer y Martínez (Perpignan, France, January 26, 1695 – Madrid, Spain, March 19, 1764) was a Spanish physician and botanist.
Biography
Quer studied medicine and surgery in his native city, Perpignan, where he was born in 1695, and took a particular interest in botany.
He became a surgeon and later joined the army. As a military surgeon he traveled extensively through Spain, France, Italy and northern Africa (he took part in the operation to capture Oran). He assembled a large herbarium and collected a multitude of seeds and living plants, with which he established a primitive botanical garden in Madrid.
Ferdinand VI relied on him for the founding of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid in 1755, moving the primitive botanical garden of Aranjuez, founded by Philip II, to a site in the grove of Migas Calientes. He was appointed First Professor of the garden (with Juan Minuart as Second Professor), and there he began the teaching of botany.
In 1762 he began the publication of his Flora española o historia de las plantas que se crían en España (Spanish Flora, or History of the Plants That Grow in Spain), following Tournefortian criteria (which led him into conflict with Carl Linnaeus). He managed to publish only four volumes; the work remained unfinished at his death and was completed by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, one of his successors and the person responsible for moving the Royal Garden from Migas Calientes to its current location next to the Prado Museum in Madrid. He also published two dissertations, one on Uva ursi o Gayuba (bearberry) (1763) and the other on Cicuta (hemlock) (1764).
The standard author abbreviation Quer is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Sources
- Most of the information is taken from the public information sign at the foot of the statue by Andrés Rodríguez in the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid.
Reference links
- Josep Quer i Martínez | Galeria de Metges Catalans In Catalan
- José Quer y Martínez at the International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
External links
- Blanco Fernández de Caleya, Paloma. "José Quer Martínez". Diccionario Biográfico Español (in español). Real Academia de la Historia.
- Biblioteca Virtual de Polígrafos de la Fundación Ignacio Larramendi
