Miquel, Friedrich Anton Wilhelm

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MIQUEL, FRIEDRICH ANTON WILHELM

(b. Neuenhaus, Germany, 24 October 1811; d. Utrecht, Netherlands, 23 January 1871)

botany.

Miquel was the son of a country physician. His university studies and subsequent academic career took place in the Netherlands. Trained as a physician at the University of Groningen, Miquel specialized in botany and was director of the Rotterdam botanic garden (1835–1846), professor of botany at Amsterdam (1846–1859) and at Utrecht (1859–1871), and director of the Rijksherbarium at Leiden (1862–1871). His numerous (296 items in his bibliography) botanical publications deal mainly with the floras of the former Netherlands East Indies, Surinam, and Japan, and with the Cycadaceae, Moraceae, and Piperaceae. He collaborated with C. F. P. von Martius on the Flora brasiliensis; was the first to publish a comprehensive flora of the Netherlands East Indies; and played an important background role in the development of the East Indian quinine industry. Miquel was also the founder of the University of Utrecht herbarium.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. MiqueL′s main writings are Commentarii phytographici, quibus varia rei herbariae capita illustramur (Leiden, 1839); Monographia Cycadearum (Utrecht, 1842); Sertum exoticum contenant des figures et descriptions de plantes nouvelles ou peu connues (Rotterdam, 1843); Systema Piperacearum (Rotterdam, 1843); “Symbolac ad floram surinamensem,” a series of 12 articles in Linnaea, 18–22 (1844–1849); “Illustraiiones Piperacearum,” Nova acta Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino Carolinae germanicae naturae curiosorum, 21 , supp. 1 (1846); Stirpes surinamenses selectae (Leiden, 1850); Plantae junghuhnianae. Enumeratio plantarum, quas in insulis Java et Sumatra detexit Fr. Junghuhn (Leiden, 1851[–1857]); Flora van Nederlandsch Indë, 3 vols. (Amsterdam-Leipzig, 1855–1859); and Annales Musei botanici Lugduno Batavi, 4 vols. (Amsterdam, 1863–1869).

II. Secondary Literature. See F. A. Stafleu, “F. A. W. Miquel, Netherlands Botanist,” in Wentia, 16 (1966), 1–95, a biography with complete bibliography and secondary references to published and unpublished sources; and Taxonomic Literature (Utrecht, 1967), pp. 315–324, for further bibliographical details.

Frans A. Stafleu