Biography

Swedish botanist in Lund. While studying at Lund University Svante Murbeck undertook a successful field trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina before receiving his PhD in botany in 1891. That same year he was made a lecturer at the university. Moving briefly to Stockholm he took up a position as curator of the Riksmuseum (1982-1983) and from 1897 until 1902 he worked for Alnarps Agricultural College. Following this Murbeck returned to Lund to become professor of botany and he remained there for 22 years. As a researcher he worked on several Scandinavian phanerogamic genera, primarily Cerastium L., Rubus L. and Agrostis L., although the majority of his work focused on the flowering plant flora of northern Africa. On four trips to the region he visited Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco and amassed an extensive collection of specimens. Covering both taxonomy and physiology, he published widely on certain desert plants and produced two important monographs, the Celsia L. (1925) and Verbascum L. (1933, 1936). Another area of interest for Murbeck was the flower morphology of members of the Papaveraceae and Rosaceae. Particularly studying the Rosaceae species Alchemilla vulgaris L. and the development of its seeds, he discovered parthenogenesis in this genus.

Sources:
R.E. Fries, 1950, A Short History of Botany in Sweden
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).