Cryptogamia - that marry in obscurity
2024, oak wood and ash wood from the Trebnitz Castle Park, 1 x ca. 140 x 80 x 80 cm, 3 x ca. 50 x 42 x 40 cm
About 300 years ago, Georg Friedrich von Ziethen and Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch created a botanical garden in Trebnitz. 3,025 species and subspecies grew there, including exotic species such as bananas, pineapples and coffee. Gleditsch recorded the plant population and published it in the Catalogus plantuarum Trebnizii. This great diversity of species made the park famous beyond the borders of the Mark at that time. Gleditsch was a doctor, philosopher, botanist, forest scientist and director of the Botanical Garden in Berlin. He corresponded with the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Who knows what seeds and plants the two gave each other...
When Carl von Linné attempted to classify and organise all living creatures in his “Systema Naturae”, he chose their names with a subtle sense of humour. Cryptogamics – “that marry in obscurity” – these include algae, mosses, lichens, ferns and fungi.
