JOSEPH, an eminent botanist, who was born at Calw, in the duchy of Württemberg, March 12, 1732. In the university of Gottingen he studied theology, law, and medicine, and attended the lectures of the celebrated Haller. Natural history was his forte, however; and the lessons of his illustrious teacher there, as well as those of Adrian Van Rogen at Leyden, rendered him still more devoted to its cultivation. After receiving his doctor's degree he travelled through Italy, France, England, and more recently Holland and England, and published several memoirs upon various subjects bearing upon marine Gaeta botany and zoology. In 1768 he was appointed professor of natural history and botany at St Petersburg, where he commenced his great work, *Carpologia seu Descriptiones et Icones fructuum et seminum plantarum*, upon which his eminent reputation depends. At the end of two years he was obliged, by the severity of the climate, to leave Russia and return to his native land, where for eight years he arduously pursued his great undertaking. During his second visit to Holland and England, Sir Joseph Banks and Thunberg opened to him their valuable collections, the one from the South Seas and the other from Japan. So long as botany continues to be studied as a science, this great work will be held in high estimation. It contains the essential generic characters and particular descriptions of the fruits of 1000 genera, illustrated by figures drawn by himself. Gaertner excels in the anatomical elucidation, definition, and description of the parts of the seeds of plants. Schirber has named a genus of plants after him, *Gaertenera*. His other works are, *De fluctibus et seminibus plantarum*, Stuttgart, 1788, and Tubingen, 1791, in 2 vols. 4to.; a *Memoire sur les Mollusques*, printed in the *Transactions Philosophiques*. A notice of the life and writings of Gaertner was published by Deleuse in vol. i. of the *Annales du Musée de l'Histoire Naturelle*.