Odoardo Beccari (16 November 1843 – 25 October 1920) was an Italian naturalist perhaps best known for discovering the titan arum, the plant with the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world, in Sumatra in 1878. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Becc. when citing a botanical name.
An orphan from Florence, Beccari studied at a school in Lucca and the universities in Pisa and Bologna. He was the student of Ugolino Martelli. After graduating, he spent a few months at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he met Charles Darwin, William Hooker and Joseph Hooker, and James Brooke, the first Rajah of Sarawak. The latter connection lead to him spending 13 years from 1865 to 1878 undertaking research in Sarawak, Brunei and other islands off present-day Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. He spent most of his time in Indonesia (then Dutch East Indies) and believed to be able to speak Malay, Javanese, and Sundanese fairly fluently. During his career he discovered many new species of plants, mainly palms (family Arecaceae).
After an expedition to Ethiopia, he made a second trip to New Guinea, this time with ornithologist Luigi Maria d'Albertis in 1872. Here they collected zoological specimens, especially birds of paradise and ethnographic materials.
Beccari founded the Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano (New Italian Botanic Journal) in 1869, and also published his results in Bolletino della Società geografica Italiana. He found the Corpse Plant in 1878, located in Sumatra. In the same year, on his return to Florence, he became Director of the Botanic Garden of Florence as successor to Filippo Parlatore but resigned in the following year, 1879, after conflicts with the administration. In 1882 he married and had four sons.
Beccari's botanical collection now forms part of the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze. While the greatest part of Beccari’s archive is preserved at the University of Florence, some travel notes can be found in the library of the Museo Galileo.
- Malesia, raccolta d'osservazioni lese e papuano (three volumes, 1877–1889).
- Nelle Foreste di Borneo. Viaggi e ricerche di un naturalista (S. Landi, Florence, 1902).
- Asiatic Palms (1908).
- Palme del Madagascar descritte ed illustrate (1912).
- Nova Guinea, Selebes e Molucche. Diari di viaggio ordinati dal figlio Prof. Dott. Nello Beccari (La Voce, Florence, 1924).
Genera & Species named after Odoardo Beccari
- Beccarianthus, a genus in the Melastomataceae family
- Beccarinda, a genus in the Gesneriaceae family
- Beccariophoenix, a genus in the Arecaceae family
- Aglaia beccarii, a tree in the Meliaceae family
- Aulandra beccarii, a tree in the Sapotaceae family
- Bulbophyllum beccarii, an orchid
- Dacrydium beccarii, a conifer in the Podocarpaceae family
- Dryobalanops beccarii or Kapur Keladan, a tree in the Dipterocarpaceae family
- Haplolobus beccarii, a plant in the Burseraceae family
- Holochlamys beccarii, a plant in the Araceae family
- Musa beccarii, a wild banana in the Musaceae family
- Myrmecodia beccarii, a plant in the Rubiaceae family
- Palaquium beccarianum, a tree in the Sapotaceae family
- Acanthopelma beccarii, a tarantula
- Carlia beccarii, a skink
- Clinidium beccarii, a ground beetle in the Carabidae family
- Cochoa beccarii, a bird in the Turdidae family
- Conraua beccarii, frog in the Ranidae family
- Crocidura beccarii, a shrew
- Draco beccari, a "flying dragon" lizard
- Emballonura beccarii, a bat in the Emballonuridae family
- Gallicolumba beccarii, a bird in the Columbidae family
- Harpesaurus beccarii, a lizard in the Agamidae family
- Margaretamys beccarii, a rat in the Muridae family
- Mormopterus beccarii, a bat in the Molossidae family
- Otus beccarii, an owl in the Strigidae family
- Scopula beccarii, a moth in the Geometridae family
- Sericornis beccarii, a bird in the Acanthizidae family
- Tropidophorus beccarii, a skink
- Varanus beccarii, a monitor lizard
- Brummitt, R. K.; Powell, C. E. (1992). Authors of Plant Names. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 1-84246-085-4.
- "Beccari, Odoardo". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
- "Inventory of Beccari's documents at the Museo Galileo library".
- Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M. (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. iii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Beccari", pp. 20-21).
- Nalesini, O. (2009). L'Asia Sud-orientale nella cultura italiana. Bibliografia analitica ragionata, 1475–2005. Roma: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente. pp. 17–18 (Biography), 64–65 (travels), 385–390 (Botany). ISBN 978-88-6323-284-4.
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