Martius was born at
Erlangen, the son of Prof
Ernst Wilhelm Martius, court apothecary. He graduated PhD from
Erlangen University in 1814, publishing as his thesis a critical catalogue of plants in the university's
botanical garden. After that he continued to devote himself to botanical study, and in 1817 he and
Johann Baptist von Spix were sent to Brazil by
Maximilian I Joseph, the
king of Bavaria. They travelled from
Rio de Janeiro through several of the southern and eastern provinces of Brazil and travelled up the
Amazon River to
Tabatinga, as well as exploring some of its larger tributaries. On his return to Europe in 1820 Martius was appointed as the keeper of the botanic garden at
Munich, including the
herbarium at the
Munich Botanical Collection, and in 1826 as professor of botany in the university there, and he held both offices until 1864. He devoted his chief attention to the
flora of Brazil, and in addition to numerous short papers he published the
Nova Genera et Species Plantarum Brasiliensium (1823–1832, 3 vols.) and
Icones selectae Plantarum Cryptogamicarum Brasiliensium (1827), both works being finely illustrated. He is credited for introducing the word in this latter work, referring to a specific layer of tissue in a lichen that his extensive microscopical work had revealed. An account of his travels in Brazil appeared in three volumes between 1823 and 1831, with an atlas of plates, but probably the work by which he is best known is his
Historia naturalis palmarum (1823–1850) in three large folio volumes, in which all known genera of the palm family are described and illustrated. The work contains more than 240
chromolithographs, with habitat sketches and botanical dissections. In 1840 he began the
Flora Brasiliensis, with the assistance of the most distinguished European botanists, who undertook
monographs of the various orders. Its publication was continued after his death under the editorship of
A. W. Eichler (1839–1887) until 1887, and subsequently of
Ignatz Urban. At completion, the
Flora described almost 23,000 plants, of which 5,689 were new to science. He also edited several works on the zoological collections made in Brazil by Spix, after the death of the latter in 1826. In 1837, he was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. On the outbreak of potato disease in Europe he investigated it and published his observations in 1842. He also published works and short papers on the
aborigines of Brazil, on their civil and social condition, on their past and probable future, on their diseases and medicines, and on the languages of the various tribes, especially the
Tupi. He died at
Munich; his gravestone is decorated with two palm fronds and the Latin inscription
In palmis semper virens resurgo. A species of South American snake,
Hydrops martii, is named in his honor. The
Martiusstraße in Munich is named after him. He married (1801–1843). His son was German chemist, entrepreneur and company founder
Carl Alexander von Martius (1838–1920). According to the Puerto Rican historian
Cayetano Coll y Toste, von Martius was the first person to describe the
Indigenous peoples of
Haiti as "Taini" (
Taino) in 1867. However,
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque had referred to the "Taino of Hayti" in his 1836 work
The American Nations. The archaeologist
L. Antonio Curet has written that Martius described these peoples as "Taini...perhaps by mistaking the qualifier for an ethnonym". In 2012, botanists Harley & J.F.B.Pastore named a genus of
flowering plants from Brazil and Peru, belonging to the family
Lamiaceae as
Martianthus in his honour. His birthday, Apr 17, is International Palm Day, an observance by the
International Palm Society to raise awareness of the conservation plight of palms. ==
Herbarium Martii==