Organisation(s)
Q (main), QPLS (main), A, AAU, B, BAF, BM, BP, BR, DAO, DPU, E, F, FI, G, GH, H, K, MO, NY, OXF, P, PH, S, SI, US
Biography
Italian botanist based in Ecuador. Born Luigi Sodiro, he studied botany at high school in Ragusa under Kerner von Marilaun and entered the Society of Jesus, becoming a Jesuit priest. On arrival in Quito in 1870 he worked as professor of botany at the Polytechnical college, which later became the Central University of Quito, and became known as Luigi. He began to collect examples of the local flora and was particularly interested in the pteridophytes, Piperaceae and Araceae (especially the genus Anthurium Schott) as well as Tacsonia Juss. and Bomarea Mirb. In 1886 Sodiro was also named botany professor at the Agricultural College and was the founder and director of a botanic garden there. He published extensively on the flora of his adopted country, creating works such as Cryptogamae vasculares quitenses (1890-1893), Compositae aequatorianae (1904) and many monographs for the Contribuciones al conocimiento de la flora Ecuatoriana. The plant Piperaceae sodiroi was named after its him by C. de Candolle.
Sources:
D. H. Nicolson, 1983, "Sodiro's publications on Araceae" Huntia, 5(1): 3-15
F. A. Staflau and R. S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 604; Jackson, B.D., Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew (1901): 61; Renner, S. Smithsonian Contr. Bot. 82 (1993): 28; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. M (1976): 539; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. S (1986): 922;
