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India, explorer, plant collector.
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California, USA, Botanist, developer of modern aquarium fertilization, master aquatic horticulturist.
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22 October 1943 – 18 February 2022
Cryptocoryne scientist and author, wrote "The Crypts Pages".
Jan was born in Alkmaar, about 30 km NNW of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. After school and military service, he studied physics, mathematics, and astronomy in Leiden. A free time occupation was fishing in the canals of Leiden, such a passion that on his marriage to Cora Bastmeijer-Sneijders, his friends gave him a fishbowl with fish and plants. You could say this was a starting point of his fascination of aquatic plants, further promoted by a large aquarium given to him later by Cora. Jan would go on to be one of the leading experts on the Araceous genera Cryptocoryne and Lagenandra, on which he over the years published 90 articles and a unique website 「 the Crypts pages」
Jan’s formal training in physics, mathematics and astronomy led him to a job as teacher in the high school and the pedagogical academy in Emmen. He much enjoyed the challenge of teaching physics to children. Later, he came to the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle as teacher coach for physics and later studied computer science at CPIM in Eindhoven. During the years teaching in Zwolle his interest in aquatic plants was nourished by his involvement in the Dutch Aquarium Society, in Werkgroep Aquatische Planten (WAP), which held regular meetings, especially during colder parts of the year.
Besides being intrigued by the many different Cryptocoryne species in circulation, difficulties identifying them, no doubt challenged Jan’s mind set, developed from his education within physics, mathematics, and computer sciences – where everything is logic and possible to describe in logic terms. You need to have a consequent and logic approach if you want to make experiments with electricity or thermodynamics. So, Jan’s approach to Cryptocoryne was to obtain all available data, i.e., literature references and document plants and flowerings with colour pictures. Preserve the flowering plants as herbarium and alcohol specimens of (to be able to see size and shape of spathe and spadix), and of course document the origin.
All live plant accessions received a greenhouse accession number, and Jan had cultivated more than 1.700 Cryptocoryne and Lagenandra accessions over the years. His collection of literature accessions related to Cryptocoryne and Lagenandra and, e.g., related ecological subjects amounted to more than 1.000. His list of Cryptocoryne and Lagenandra specimens (world herbaria) and species/localities from literature and live plants amounted to more than 3.000.
With Jan’s teaching in computer science, it was of course natural for him to apply it to his work with Cryptocoryne, and the introduction of digital photography and development of the internet opened a completely new horizon of communication. Jan’s website ‘the Crypts pages’ quickly became a prime source of information and for communication. Building blocks of the web site are the description of each Cryptocoryne species, with a short introduction, a reasonable number of photographs, captions for the pictures and lastly a list of relevant literature references. This makes it easy for readers to see the basic data backing each species. The website was an up-to-date source of information for aquarists who wanted to identify plants they were growing, but also for plant enthusiasts in SE Asia wanting to know something about plants they found in nature. Any questions or contributions could be handled through e-mail.
The web site and the following contact correspondence with very many people was also a start of an increasing exchange of plants. Jan was of course up to date on the known species of Cryptocoryne, and it was only natural that Jan was involved in most of the identifications of new species cooperating with many people in getting new species published. This would be the early days of networking also leading to what we today would call citizen science. Jan keeping track of everything.
Presently the first dated folders on the website are from 1997, and naturally the most wellknown species followed quickly afterwards. After 2000 a number of species were quickly added, and they were added to as quickly as they were published. Around 2016 a little more than 80 taxa of Cryptocoryne were included in Jan’s list, and seven were waiting to be included. Today, only about six years later 105 named taxa (species, varieties & hybrids) are accepted. - Neils Jacobsen and Suwidji Wongso.
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Most prolific collector of tropical aquarium species in history.
"It is my aim to find the last endangered and most remote freshwater life-forms on this planet until my last day."
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January 29, 1939 - April 23, 2020.
Joseph Bogner passed away peacefully in the presence of his family on April 23, 2020, was born on January 29, 1939 in Gersthofen near Augsburg.
He learned the profession of gardener for flower and ornamental plant growing. His outstanding professional interest soon took him abroad. 1962 - 1963 he worked as a "student gardener" at the University Botanic Garden Cambridge (UK). In 1966 he graduated from the Weihenstephan State Teaching and Research Institute for Horticulture as an engineer for horticulture.
He then worked on the famous Jardin Botanique "Les Cedres" in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (France), where his first intensive work with tropical macaws began. 1967 - 1969 he undertook two extensive study trips to East Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros, the Seychelles and the Mascarenes. The scientific yield led to the first publications, among which the revision of the Arophyteae endemic to Madagascar stands out (1972).
From 1969 to 2002 he was employed at the Munich Botanical Garden, most recently with the title of gardening officer. For many years he was the horticultural manager of the greenhouse system. His scientific interest soon expanded to the entire tropical monocotyledon, but the Aracae always remained a clear focus. In 2004 he was awarded the extremely rare honorary doctorate from the Ludwig Maximilians University. His numerous other awards and prizes will be listed in a detailed assessment in the Taxon magazine.
Over the years, Josef Bogner has traveled to many tropical and subtropical regions, including India, Sri Lanka, southern China, Vietnam, Sumatra, Borneo, Australia, several West African countries and Brazil. His most recent trips have taken him to Colombia (2017) and Brazil (2018). He brought living plants, seeds and herbarium specimens with him from almost every trip, almost always in close collaboration with local botanists, whom he always encouraged - he was far from any delusions.
Josef Bogner was one of the world's foremost connoisseurs of the monocotyledon and especially the Aracae. His profound knowledge of specialist literature, including palaeobotanical works, enabled him to constructively stimulate discussions at international specialist congresses. His publications together with scientists from all continents will be listed in official obituaries. In addition, Josef unselfishly provided material from the collection he had collected.
One of Josef Bogner's main scientific achievements is the book "The Genera of Araceae" (1997), which he wrote together with S. Mayo and P. Boyce, and which received the renowned "Henry Gleason Award" from the New York Botanic Garden in 2000.
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South American Killifan who wrote the "Pearlfishes" book.
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Killish keeper and collector, Los Angeles.
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Malaysia, plant scientist.
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