AASP Primary Records Program

PALYNOS 12(2): p. 1-2, 1989.

ENCOMIUM FOR ROBERT POTONIÉ

December 2, 1989 marked the Centenary of the birth of Prof. Dr. Robert Potonié. In view of his pioneering contributions to the science of paleopalynology, dating back more than 50 years- long before our science even had a formal title- a tribute to his life and scientific achievements is long overdue. In Henry Andrews' history of paleobotanv, T!ie Fossil Hunters (1980), he cites a quotation in A. C. Seward's biographical sketch of John Ray (1937): "IT IS A WHOLESOME THING TO REMEMBER THE GOOD WORK MEN HAVE DONE, AND TO THANK GOD FOR IT AND FOR THEM."

Robert Potonié was born in Berlin in 1889, the son of the famous French-German paleobotanist, Henry Petonie (1857-1913). In the early part of this century, the son frequently accompanied his father during his studies on the vegetation and peat of the north German moors. Robert often acknowledged his debt to his father for his lifelong interests in botany, coal geology and conservation of nature. Dr. Hilde Grebe, for more than 20 years a good friend and close colleague of Robert at the German Geological Survey, stated (1970) that a very common expression that he used in his lectures and formal addresses was, "Wie mein Vatt'r Henry Potonié bereits sagtt" (as my father has already said).

In 1920 he was awarded the Ph.D. by the University of Berlin for his dissertation on the chemical nature of fossilized cell walls in German coals. His first appointment after graduation was a 3-year stint as an assistant in the Prussian Geological Survey in Berlin. During the next decade as a Professor at Berlin's Teclinischen Hochscliule, he vigorously pursued his research on the German brown coals. His initial palynological paper appeared in 1931: Pollenformen der miocanenen braankohle. Assisted principally by his students, A. Ibrahim and F. Loose, he soon published numerous papers describing and classifying the palynomorphs of both Tertiary and Paleozoic coals of Germany. Many of these earlier papers are classics and, as such, frequently appear in literature citations of palynologists even today. Although his support of the practical value of treating spores and pollen as organ genera (versus the natural genus concept) was initially strongly opposed, over the years his concept has been adopted by most paleopalynologists.

(I can remember my feelings of awe when I first met Professor Potonié at the International Botanical Congress in Paris in 1954. Also, after Potonié presented a paper comparing the names of Paleozoic in situ spores with sporae dispersae, I recall the outspoken Australian palynologist, Isabel Cookson, jumping to her feet and saying, "Robert we simply must get this taxonomic mess straightened out!").

Potonié was drafted in 1938 and later became promoted to the rank of Major in the German Army; captured on the Russian front, he was held as a POW in Siberia until 1948. Upon his return to Germany, he accepted the position of Director of the Division of Paleobotany and Coal Geology in the German Geological Survey for Nordrheinland and Westfalen located at Krefeld. It was here that he first met Gerhard 0. W. Kremp and Hilde Grebe, who were then Research Assistants in this branch of the Geological Survey. Both were originally doctoral students of Prof. Paul Thomson at the University of Poznan, but the war interrupted their studies. (They later completed their Ph.Ds at Göttingen and Bonn, respectively).

After Potonié examined Kremp's sizable collection of slides and photomicrographs of spores and pollen of NW German coal seams of Pennsylvanian age, he proposed they collaborate on the description and taxonomy of this material. The results are well-known to all students of Paleozoic palynology- Potonié and Kremp's Die Sporae dispersae des Ruhrkarbons appeared in three major papers in Palaeontographica in 1955-56. Here the authors proposed a new set of suprageneric form genera, viz., Abtteilung, Turma and Anteturma, as the foundation for their morphographic system of classification.

In 1950 Robert Potonié obtained an additional position as a Professor at the University of Bonn. Many students and colleagues were attracted to his laboratories in Krefeld and Bonn during the 50s and 60s, including such well-known palynologists as Dinesh Bhardwaj (India), Claude Sittler (France), Svein Manum (Norway), Wilhelm Klaus (Austria), Paul Simoncsics (Hungary) and Robin Helby (Australia).

Although he officially retired as the Division Director of the Geological Survey in 1955, he retained his Honorary Professorship at the University of Bonn until 1966, when he cached the ripe old age of 77. During that decade his substantial synopses of genera of sporai dispersae and sporae in situ appeared.

Despite all these years of intensive researh, teaching, writing (226 publications overall) and administration, he managed to find time (jointly with his beloved wife, Olga) to pursue a study of butterflies; this hobby resulted in the assembling of a rich collection, which he was proud to display.

Among the many honors he earned during his lifetime were: the Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Co-Founder and Honorary Member of the Society for Nature Conservation, Honorary President of the International Commission for Petrology and the InternationaI Corn mission of the Microflora of the Paleozoic, recipient of the Reinhardt Thiessen Medal, the Medal of the Birhal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany and the Medal of the University of Lüttich, and Corresponding Member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Liege.

(I wish to thank both Gerhard Kremp and Hilde Grebe for supplying me with much of the information upon which this account is based. -J.E.Canright.)

Grebe, H. 1976. In Memoriam, Robert Potonié (1889-1974). Rev. Palaeobot. & Palynol. 17 (3/4): 217-220.