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.

An orphan from Florence, Beccari studied at a school in Lucca and the universities in Pisa and Bologna. 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 3 years from 1865 to 1868 undertaking research in Sarawak, Brunei and other islands off present-day Malaysia and New Guinea. He discovered many new species of palms.

After journeying to Abyssinia, he returned to New Guinea with ornithologist Luigi Maria d'Albertis in 1872.

Beccari founded the New Italian Botanic Journal in 1869, and became director of the botanic garden of Florence. He married in 1882 and had four sons.

His works include:

• 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 ordonati dal figlio Prof. Dott. Nello Beccari (La Voce, Florence, 1924).

External links

• Palm and Cycad Societies of Australia

1843 births | 1920 deaths | Botanists | Italian naturalists

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