Odoardo Beccari (16 November 1843 – 25 October 1920) was an Italian botanist famous for his discoveries in Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia. He has been called the greatest botanist to ever study Malesia. His author abbreviation is Becc. when citing a botanical name.
Life
Youth and education (1843–1864)
Odoardo Beccari was born in Florence as the third child of Giuseppe di Luigi Beccari and the first child of Antonietta Minucci. After he lost his mother in early infancy and his father in 1849, he was brought up by a maternal uncle Minuccio Minucci.
From 1853–1861, he attended the prestigious secondary school Real Collegio in Lucca. Here, one of his teachers was abbot Ignazio Mezzetti (1821–1876), a passionate collector of botanical specimens, who inspired him to pursue botany and assemble a herbarium. He later named the genus Mezzettia in his honor.
In August 1861, he commenced his studies at the University of Pisa. Here he quickly captured the attention of the eminent naturalists Giuseppe Meneghini and Pietro Savi. Very unusually, Savi made him assistant to the chair already in 1831.
Beccari, however, was disappointed with the conventionality of the scientists in Pisa. Therefore, he quit his position there and changed to the University of Bologna in March 1864, where he graduated in July of the same year.
First voyage to Borneo (1865–1868)
After finishing his studies, Beccari got to know the young Giacomo Doria in Genoa, who had traveled widely in Mesopotamia, and the two decided to conduct an expedition to Sarawak in northern Borneo, which was then poorly explored.
To prepare for this voyage, Beccari stayed in London from February–April 1865 to study the natural history collections there, in particular at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. There, he also met Charles Darwin, William and Joseph Hooker, as well as James Brooke, the first rajah of Sarawak.
Beccari departed from Southampton on 4 April 1865, meeting Doria in Suez. Calling in Aden, Ceylon and Singapore, the two reached Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, on 19 June 1865. For the first three months, they were also accompanied by Beccari's brother Gioavanni Battista, who then continued to Japan. After a short productive period, Doria's health worsened dramatically by March 1866, forcing him to return to Italy. He worked mostly in a hut in the forest some 80 km from Kuching, in today's Kubah National Park. In 1867, he visited Batang Lupar, hunting and studying Orangutans. Later in 1867, he also conducted a long and risky expedition into the interior of Sarawak.
In 1866 he discovered and drew in his notebook the plant Thismia neptunis of the family Thismiaceae; only after 151 years, in 2017, was this discovery confirmed. He also discovered a new species of Rafflesia, the largest-flowered plant genus, which he called Rafflesia tuan-mudae in honor of James Brooke.
Beccari contracted Malaria and Elephantiasis and had to leave in January 1868, arriving in Italy on 2 March.
Florence and Africa 1868–1871
Back in Florence, Beccari published, on his own costs, a journal titled Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano, which he edited from 1868–1871, which published original research by the most important Italian botanists of the day, including Beccari's own descriptions of his collections made in Borneo. Before his expedition to New Guinea, Beccari handed the management of the journal to Teodoro Caruel.
He also published his results in Bolletino della Società Geografica Italiana. He collaborated with specialists to study particular groups such as seagrasses with P. Ascherson, pteridophytes with Vincenzo de Cesati, mosses with Hampe, lichens with August von Krempelhuber etc.
From February–October 1870, Beccari joined an expedition alongside geologist Arturo Issel and zoologist Orazio Antinori to Eritrea. This came just two years after the purchase of Assab marked the beginning of the Italian colonization of Eritrea which would come into full swing in the 1880s. Apart from Assab, the party also visited the country of the Bilen people, then called Bogos.
Expedition to New Guinea (1871–1876)
On 26 November 1871 Beccari departed on a voyage to New Guinea, then hardly explored, together with the ornithologist Luigi D'Albertis. Since Western New Guinea was then already claimed by the Dutch, the voyagers had to call at Batavia (Jakarta) to ask for permission for their scientific voyage and get hold of official maps. They also visited the botanical garden at Buitenzorg (Bogor), Java and Beccari climbed Mount Pangrango.