Carl Ludwig Sprenger
Encyclopedia
Carl Ludwig Sprenger was a German botanist, born on 30 November 1846 at Güstrow
, Mecklenburg
and died 13 December 1917 on the island of Corfu
.
Sprenger lived in Naples
from 1877 to 1917, and was a partner in the horticultural house of Dammann & Co. of San Giovanni a Teduccio, Naples, Italy. David Fairchild
praised Sprenger, "a brilliant botanist who had established a nursery...he was one of those real plantsmen who both know the names of plants and how to grow them.... Sprenger was known to roam mountain sides and meadows. He enthusiastically collected seeds for botanical gardens and freely gave of his knowledge to others... The eruption of Vesuvius [April 4, 1906] buried his plants under volcanic ash, destroying hundreds of his best specimens."
In 1907, Kaiser Wilhelm
(William II) purchased Achilleion, a garden with a palace on Corfu
(Kerkyra). Sprenger became supervisor of the Kaiser's garden.
Sprenger's life had no sound; Fairchild wrote that he was "very deaf". Perhaps he loved plants so much because they spoke in colors, shapes, and scents. In the end, he did not even have flowers. The man who surrounded himself with plants died December 13, 1917, a hostage of war. Being German and living on a Greek island in the middle of the First World War was high-risk, but at 70 years of age he was not prepared to leave behind his beloved plants and move to another country.
Sprenger concluded that by constantly interbreeding the large flowered Crozy canna
varieties nothing novel or more remarkable could be secured, and he therefore experimented with some new blood, employing for this purpose the Canna flaccida
, a species of the southern USA, of medium height and large flowers, with one specially developed petal. The result was what became known as the 'Orchid' Cannas or the 'Italian' Cannas, when in 1893 he introduced Canna 'Italia' and Canna 'Austria'
. At the same time, Luther Burbank
in the USA was pursuing a similar approach, the results of which were introduced some two years later than Sprengers' introductions.
The list of Italian Group introductions is as follows:
What is not so well known, is that Sprenger also released many new Crozy Group cultivars. Some of those are:
hybrids in the years from 1897 to 1907:
Yucca treculeana canaliculata × Yucca recurvifolia (= Yucca treculeana × Yucca recurvifolia)
Yucca treculeana canaliculata × gloriosa(= Yucca treculeana × Yucca gloriosa)
Yucca gloriosa × filamentosa
Yucca gloriosa robusta × flaccida
Yucca gloriosa longifolia x flaccida
Yucca gloriosa plicata x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca flexilis × filamentosa
Yucca flexilis × flaccida glaucescens
Yucca filamentosa x flexilis
Yucca flaccida x flexilis
Yucca rupicola x gloriosa
Yucca rupicola x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca rupicola
Yucca flaccida x Yucca rupicola
Yucca aloifolia x filamentosa
Yucca aloifolia x flaccida
Yucca aloifolia x Yucca rupicola
Yucca aloifolia x Yucca gloriosa
Yucca aloifolia gigantea x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca aloifolia purpurea x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca aloifolia x flexilis
Yucca aloifolia marginata x flexilis
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca aloifolia
Yucca flaccida x Yucca aloifolia
Yucca flexilis x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca gloriosa
Yucca filamentosa media x Yucca gloriosa
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca filamentosa media x Yucca recurvifolia
Yucca flaccida × Yucca gloriosa longifolia
Yucca flaccida glaucescens × Yucca gloriosa
Yucca flaccida glaucescens × Yucca recurvifolia
Güstrow
Güstrow is a town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany the capital of the district of Güstrow. It has a population of 30,500 and is the seventh largest town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Since 2006 Güstrow has the official suffix Barlachstadt.-Geography:The town of Güstrow is located...
, Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
and died 13 December 1917 on the island of Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
.
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
from 1877 to 1917, and was a partner in the horticultural house of Dammann & Co. of San Giovanni a Teduccio, Naples, Italy. David Fairchild
David Fairchild
David Grandison Fairchild was an American botanist and plant explorer. Fairchild was responsible for the introduction of more than 200,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United States, including soybeans, pistachios, mangos, nectarines, dates, bamboos, and flowering...
praised Sprenger, "a brilliant botanist who had established a nursery...he was one of those real plantsmen who both know the names of plants and how to grow them.... Sprenger was known to roam mountain sides and meadows. He enthusiastically collected seeds for botanical gardens and freely gave of his knowledge to others... The eruption of Vesuvius [April 4, 1906] buried his plants under volcanic ash, destroying hundreds of his best specimens."
In 1907, Kaiser Wilhelm
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
(William II) purchased Achilleion, a garden with a palace on Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
(Kerkyra). Sprenger became supervisor of the Kaiser's garden.
Sprenger's life had no sound; Fairchild wrote that he was "very deaf". Perhaps he loved plants so much because they spoke in colors, shapes, and scents. In the end, he did not even have flowers. The man who surrounded himself with plants died December 13, 1917, a hostage of war. Being German and living on a Greek island in the middle of the First World War was high-risk, but at 70 years of age he was not prepared to leave behind his beloved plants and move to another country.
Cannas
Canna (plant)
Canna is a genus of nineteen species of flowering plants. The closest living relations to cannas are the other plant families of the order Zingiberales, that is the gingers, bananas, marantas, heliconias, strelitzias, etc.Canna is the only genus in the family Cannaceae...
varieties nothing novel or more remarkable could be secured, and he therefore experimented with some new blood, employing for this purpose the Canna flaccida
Canna flaccida
Canna flaccida Salisb. is a species of the Canna genus, a member of the family Cannaceae. Indigenous to the wetlands of south-eastern USA. It was a parent to many of the early-hybridised cannas originally known as orchid flowered cannas, but now correctly named as Italian Group cannas. It grows...
, a species of the southern USA, of medium height and large flowers, with one specially developed petal. The result was what became known as the 'Orchid' Cannas or the 'Italian' Cannas, when in 1893 he introduced Canna 'Italia' and Canna 'Austria'
Canna 'Austria'
Canna 'Austria is a medium sized Italian Group Canna cultivar with green foliage, oblong shaped, upright habit; oval stems, coloured green; flowers are cupped, self-coloured yellow, throat orange-red spots on yellow, staminodes are large; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are long...
. At the same time, Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science.He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 54-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables...
in the USA was pursuing a similar approach, the results of which were introduced some two years later than Sprengers' introductions.
The list of Italian Group introductions is as follows:
- Canna 'Africa'
- Canna 'Alemania'
- Canna 'America'
- Canna 'Aphrodite'
- Canna 'Asia'
- Canna 'Atlanta'
- Canna 'Australia'
- Canna 'Austria'Canna 'Austria'Canna 'Austria is a medium sized Italian Group Canna cultivar with green foliage, oblong shaped, upright habit; oval stems, coloured green; flowers are cupped, self-coloured yellow, throat orange-red spots on yellow, staminodes are large; seed is sterile, pollen is low fertile; rhizomes are long...
- Canna 'Bavaria'
- Canna 'Borussia'
- Canna 'Brittania'
- Canna 'Burgundia'
- Canna 'Campania'
- Canna 'Ch. Naudin'
- Canna 'Edouard André'
- Canna 'Emilia'
- Canna 'Grand Sasso d'Italia'
- Canna 'H. Wendland'
- Canna 'Heinrich Seidel'
- Canna 'Hellas'
- Canna 'Iberia'
- Canna 'Italia'
- Canna 'Kronos'
- Canna 'La France'
- Canna 'Oceanus'
- Canna 'Pandora'
- Canna 'Partenope'
- Canna 'Penelope'
- Canna 'Perseus'
- Canna 'Phoebe'
- Canna 'Pluto'
- Canna 'Prof. Treub'
- Canna 'Rhea'
- Canna 'Roi Humbert'Canna 'Roi Humbert'Canna 'Roi Humbert is an Italian Group canna cultivar; bronze foliage, ovoid shaped, spreading habit; oval stems, coloured purple; flowers are cupped, self-coloured scarlet, staminodes are large, edges ruffled, fully self-cleaning; seed is sterile, pollen is sterile; rhizomes are thick, up to...
- Canna 'Roi Leopold'
- Canna 'Roma'Canna 'Roma'Canna Italian Group 'Roma is a tall aquatic Italian Group cultivar, equally at home as a water marginal or in the border; large green foliage, oval shaped, white margin, upright habit; round stems, coloured green & purple; flowers are open, yellow with orange blotches, throat red-orange, staminodes...
- Canna 'Romagna'
- Canna 'Sicilia'
- Canna 'Suevia'
- Canna 'Trinacria'Canna 'Trinacria'Canna 'Trinacria is a tall Italian Group Canna cultivar; with light green foliage, large, oval shaped, branching habit; clusters of flowers are open, sulphur-yellow with faint red spots in the throat, staminodes are large, throat pearl base; labellum is sulphur-yellow, throat pearl; stamen is...
- Canna 'Umbria'
- Canna 'Wilhelm Beck'
What is not so well known, is that Sprenger also released many new Crozy Group cultivars. Some of those are:
- Canna 'Aetna'
- Canna 'Ajax'
- Canna 'Alkmene'
- Canna 'Arethusa'
- Canna 'Capri'
- Canna 'Königin von Italien'
- Canna 'Kronprinz von Italien'
- Canna 'Madame Oscar Meuricoffre'
- Canna 'Nero'
- Canna 'Paestum'
- Canna 'Prinzessin Laetitia'
- Canna 'Professor Rossi'
- Canna 'Solfatara'
- Canna 'Stromboli'
- Canna 'Sultana'
Yuccas
Sprenger created and named 122 beautiful YuccaYucca
Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry parts of North...
hybrids in the years from 1897 to 1907:
Yucca treculeana canaliculata × Yucca recurvifolia (= Yucca treculeana × Yucca recurvifolia)
- Yucca × Elwesiana
- Yucca × Fosterana
- Yucca × Lawrensceana
- Yucca × Diana
Yucca treculeana canaliculata × gloriosa(= Yucca treculeana × Yucca gloriosa)
- Yucca × Minerva
Yucca gloriosa × filamentosa
- Yucca × Nicotrana (no pollen)
- Yucca × Rex (Yucca gloriosa minor × Yucca filamentosa)
Yucca gloriosa robusta × flaccida
- Yucca × Dux
Yucca gloriosa longifolia x flaccida
- Yucca × luxurians
Yucca gloriosa plicata x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × Darwinii
Yucca flexilis × filamentosa
- Yucca × Augusta
Yucca flexilis × flaccida glaucescens
- Yucca × regalis
Yucca filamentosa x flexilis
- Yucca × Saturnus
Yucca flaccida x flexilis
- Yucca × Gaea
Yucca rupicola x gloriosa
- Yucca × aletrodes
Yucca rupicola x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × Sokrates
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca rupicola
- Yucca × liliacea
- Yucca × Psyche
- Yucca × Treleasei
Yucca flaccida x Yucca rupicola
- Yucca × amonea
- Yucca × Atropos
- Yucca × paradoxa
Yucca aloifolia x filamentosa
- Yucca × Adenophora
- Yucca × fastuosa
- Yucca × Ismene
- Yucca × linearis
- Yucca × linifolia
- Yucca × virescens
Yucca aloifolia x flaccida
- Yucca × Candolleana
- Yucca × columnaris
- Yucca × Oceanus
Yucca aloifolia x Yucca rupicola
- Yucca × smaragdina
Yucca aloifolia x Yucca gloriosa
- Yucca × Europa
- Yucca × Naudiniana
- Yucca × vomerensis
Yucca aloifolia gigantea x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × Heliodorus
Yucca aloifolia purpurea x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × Victor Emmanuel II (Vittorio Emanuele II)
Yucca aloifolia x flexilis
- Yucca × Casertana
- Yucca × Helios
- Yucca × Sieheana
Yucca aloifolia marginata x flexilis
- Yucca × Titanus
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca aloifolia
- Yucca × Ada
- Yucca × Alexandrae
- Yucca × Boissieri
- Yucca × Dohrnii
- Yucca × tulipfera
- Yucca 'Washington'
Yucca flaccida x Yucca aloifolia
- Yucca × Draco
- Yucca × Mariea
- Yucca × pygmaea
- Yucca × pyramidalis
- Yucca × Roland
- Yucca × stellaris
- Yucca × Theseus
- Yucca × tortilis
Yucca flexilis x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × grandis
- Yucca × superba
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca gloriosa
- Yucca × albella
- Yucca × candida
- Yucca × Engelmanii
- Yucca × ensata
- Yucca × floribunda
- Yucca × margaritacea
- Yucca × micans
- Yucca × Moraea
- Yucca × Parthenope
- Yucca × preacox
- Yucca × Rekowskiana
- Yucca × robusta
- Yucca × Triton
- Yucca × Wilhelmi (Gugielmi)
Yucca filamentosa media x Yucca gloriosa
- Yucca × bicolor
- Yucca × elegantissima
- Yucca × elmensis ('St. Elmo')
Yucca filamentosa x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × Aurora
- Yucca × Ceres
- Yucca × exsultans
- Yucca × Federicus Cäsar
- Yucca × Lachesis
- Yucca × lanceolata
- Yucca × Magnolia
- Yucca × peregrina
- Yucca × princeps
- Yucca × viridiflora
- Yucca × Willmottiana
Yucca filamentosa media x Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × fulgens
- Yucca × Imperator
- Yucca × regia
- Yucca × Sanderana
- Yucca × victorialis
- Yucca × Klotho
- Yucca × Cybele
- Yucca × imperialis
- Yucca × Koelleana
- Yucca × Milton
- Yucca × Passiflora
- Yucca × purpurascens
- Yucca × Tenoreana
- Yucca × Virgilius
- Yucca × Wittmackiana
Yucca flaccida × Yucca gloriosa longifolia
- Yucca × luxurians
Yucca flaccida glaucescens × Yucca gloriosa
- Yucca × Colombiana
- Yucca × formosa
- Yucca × formosissima
- Yucca × nebularis
Yucca flaccida glaucescens × Yucca recurvifolia
- Yucca × amabilis
- Yucca × campanulata
- Yucca × caelestis
- Yucca 'Eros'
- Yucca 'Flora'
- Yucca 'Luna'
- Yucca × grasilis
Others
- Sprenger's asparagusAsparagus densiflorusAsparagus densiflorus, Sprenger's Asparagus, is a plant native to South Africa. Often used as an ornamental plant, it is considered an invasive weed in many locations. Asparagus fern is a common name; however, it is unrelated to true ferns. Some authorities also use the name A...
(A. densiflorus), a weed native to South Africa. - Sprenger's magnolia (M. sprengeri), a species of magnolia native to China.
See also
- CannaCanna (plant)Canna is a genus of nineteen species of flowering plants. The closest living relations to cannas are the other plant families of the order Zingiberales, that is the gingers, bananas, marantas, heliconias, strelitzias, etc.Canna is the only genus in the family Cannaceae...
- List of Canna cultivars
- List of Canna species
- List of Canna hybridists
- YuccaYuccaYucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40-50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitish flowers. They are native to the hot and dry parts of North...
Recommended reading
- Garden and Forest. / Volume 8, Issue 409. [December 25, 1895, 511-520]
- Henry John Elwes and Augustine Henry, The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Privately Published, 1907
- David Fairchild, - The World was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938
- John Hendley Barnhart (1965). Biographical Notes upon Botanists. G.K. Hall & Co. (Boston).
- Árpád Mühle, 1909. Das Geschlecht der Canna
- Sprenger, Carl., Mitteilungen Deutschen Dendrol. Gesell. 29: 96-138 + pls.: 21-22. (1920)
- Mitteilungen über meine Yucca-Hybriden und -Formen, gezüchtet in den Jahren 1897-1907.