Biography

Dutch botanist whose father was the promoter for Carl Linnaeus in Harderwijk. David de Gorter published several regional floras which were faithful to the Linnaean system, and lived for a while in Russia. He obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Gelderland in Harderwijk, at the age of 16 (1734). His father, Johannes de Gorter, was professor at the university, and when Linnaeus visited the following year he was particularly impressed by David. Accompanying the youngster on a few collecting trips, some of the specimens they gathered are now at the Rijksherbarium in Leiden.

In 1737 David de Gorter received a doctorate in philosophy and was appointed lecturer in 1742. After assisting his father for a year, he was named professor idem in 1743 and remained in this position for over a decade. While there de Gorter published the first of his floras, the Flora Gelro-Zutphanica, in 1745. Following this David and Johannes were both offered positions as personal physicians to Queen Elizabeth of Russia and the pair moved to St. Petersburg in 1754. While in Russia David de Gorten collected local plants and, apart from his brief return to Holland in 1761 because of an illness, he remained there until 1764. During this period he produced a Flora Ingrica (1761) and his Flora Belgica (1767), the latter of which was the first Dutch flora to use the binomial system for naming plants. His specimens from Russia are housed in the Linnaean herbarium (LINN).

Most of the rest of his life was spent in Wijk bij Duurstede (near Utrecht) where he settled down to the life of a local physician. The final years of de Gorter's life were spent in Zutphen. Other important publications of his include another Dutch flora in 1781 (Flora VII Provinciarum Belgii Foederati indigena) which is important for its coverage of the cryptogamic plants, and, the following year, an extensive description of the Linnaean doctrine and its 'natural orders'. This was written in Dutch and entitled Leer der plantkunde. His collection of 2,000 specimen was given to the Harderwijk university in 1788, and 1,346 of these ended up at the national herbarium in Leiden. Unfortunately, the rest were lost. He has been honoured by both a genus (described by Linnaeus), and a journal, both named Gorteria.

Sources:
F.A. Stafleu, 1971, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).