Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World and the New World, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.
Gesneriaceae
Haberlea rhodopensis flowers
Corytoplectus capitatus is a large plant with fruit that are black berries.
Ramonda myconi fruit are dry dehiscent capsules.
Conrad Gessner was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his talents and supported him through university, where he studied classical languages, theology and medicine. He became Zürich's city physician, but was able to spend much of his time on collecting, research and writing. Gessner compiled monumental works on bibliography and zoology and was working on a major botanical text at the time of his death from plague at the age of 49. He is regarded as the father of modern scientific bibliography, zoology and botany. He was frequently the first to describe species of plants or animals in Europe, such as the tulip in 1559. A number of plants and animals have been named after him.
Portrait by Tobias Stimmer, c. 1564
Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry), from Gessner's Historia plantarum
Porcupine, Historiae animalium, 1551
Title page from The new Iewell of Health, 1576