Presl

family name of Czech scientists; brothers.

Jan Swatopluk Presl. Born Sept. 4, 1791, in Prague; died there Apr. 6, 1849. Naturalist and public figure.

Presl became a professor at the University of Prague in 1820 and a member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences in 1848. He helped found the National Museum in Prague in 1818 and the Matice Česká publishing house in 1831. Together with J. Jung-man, he edited the first Czech general-science journal, Krock (1821–40). Presl’s works on botany, zoology, crystallography, and chemistry laid the foundations of modern Czech scientific terminology. Presl was a member of the Buditeli (the Awakeners) movement.

Karel Bořivoj Presl. Born Feb. 17, 1794, in Prague; died there Oct. 2, 1852. Botanist and physician.

Presl became curator of the botanical and zoological collections of the National Museum in Prague in 1822 and a professor at the University of Prague in 1832. His chief works dealt with paleobotany, taxonomy of the higher plants and the flora of Czechoslovakia and South America. Together with his brother he published Flora of Bohemia (1819), which described 1,500 species of plants. The journal of the Botanical Society of Czechoslovakia, Preslia, was named in honor of the Presl brothers.