Organisation(s)
A (main), G (main), M (main), AWH, B, BERN, BM, BR, E, FH, H, HAL, HBG, K, L, NMW, NY, PC, S, STR, STU, W, Z
Biography
German pharmacist and botanist interested in hepatics. Joseph Bernard Jack attended the primary school of his native town, Salem, and studied Greek and Latin. In 1833 he became an apothecary's apprentice and five years later he was ready to practise on his own. He did so in Donaueschingen and Lenzburg (Switzerland) over the following years.
Arriving in Geneva in 1840 he became acquainted with G.F. Reuter who aided him in his plant collecting, an activity he was familiar with from his travels in southern Germany and Tirol (Austria). Particularly interested in the liverworts, he continued to gather specimens in Switzerland until 1842 when he left France. Jack visited Paris and Lyon before sitting his physician's exams in Fribourg, which he passed brilliantly. Returning to his home town he set up a practice in the centre of Salem and worked as a physician until his retirement in 1874. From this time onwards he dedicated his time to the study of his hepatic collections, which were extensive by this time, and published a steady stream of papers in various German journals. On the event of his retirement the University of Fribourg awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Jack's plant collection (Phanerogamic herbarium and 'Herbarium Hepatics') was purchased by E. Boissier after his death and is currently at the Conservatoire Botanique in Geneve (G). His cryptogamic herbarium is at M. A number of cryptogamic specimens are at BM, mainly algae, lichens and bryophytes as duplicates or exsiccatae. Some were transferred from K (c. 1961) under the terms of the Morton Agreement. Occasional German specimens give the collector as 'Herrn Apotheker Jack', presumably belonging here. The diatom Achnanthidium jackii Rabenh., based on one of his German collections in the exsiccatae series Die Algen Sachsens of G.L. Rabenhorst (1806-1881), is named in his honour.
Sources:
J. Briquet, 1940, "Biographies des Botanistes a Genève", Bulletin de la Société Botanique Suisse, 50a: 282-284
Herbier Brun, Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques Ville de Genève:
http://www.ville-ge.ch/cjb/herbier_crypto14.php, accessed 10 September 2010.
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 298; Chaudhri, M.N., Vegter, H.I. & de Bary, H.A., Index Herb. Coll. I-L (1972): 174, 428; Harrison, S.G., Ind. Coll. Welsh Nat. Herb. (1985): 57; Murray, G.R.M., Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Dep. Brit. Mus. (1904): 157; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. S (1986): 960;
