The New International Encyclopædia/Kerner, Anton

KERNER, kĕr'nẽr, Anton (1831-98). An Austrian botanist. He was born at Mautern, in Lower Austria. In 1858 he became professor of botany at the Polytechnic Institute at Buda, and in 1860 was elected to the same chair in the University of Innsbruck, a post which he resigned in 1878 to accept the directorship of the botanical garden of Vienna and the professorship of botany in the university there, where his labors continued until his death, in 1898. He established his reputation by publishing a report of his botanical exploration of Hungary, Pflanzenleben der Donauländer (Innsbruck, 1863); and Vegetationsverhältnisse des mittlern und östlichen Ungarn und Siebenbürgen (ib., 1875). In 1864 he published a book upon the culture of alpine plants (Die Kultur der Alpenflanzen); in 1867 finished the publication of the results of his studies with respect to the limits of vegetation of more than a thousand species of plants, and in 1874 sketched a model botanical garden, Die botanischen Gärten. One of his most important works is Das Pflanzenleben, which first appeared in 1887.