Cornelius Elisa Bertus Bremekamp

Cornelis Elisa Bertus Bremekamp was born at Dordrecht on February 7th 1888. He is therefore now just past eighty, and he has been a member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Botanische Vereniging for sixty years. He studied at the Utrecht State University and, like many of his contemporaries, was strongly attracted to plant physiology under Prof. F. A. F. C. Went’s influence. Phototropy and geotropy had become the principal fields of research in Went’s wellequipped laboratory, and Bremekamp’s first scientific work was also devoted to these subjects. His thesis (1912) dealt with the Geotropy of Twining Plants. His publications of the following years were the results of similar studies. In the same year he left for what was then the Dutch East Indies where he was first employed at the Java Sugar Experiment Station; then, until 1921, he taught at the Medical College (N.I.A.S.). After returning to the Netherlands he lectured from 1921 to 1923 on plant physiology at the University of Amsterdam. During these years, too, his scientific work was mainly devoted to phototropy and hydrotropy. In 1924 he accepted a position as professor of botany at the Transvaal University College, South Africa. Initially his research there was also in plant physiology, but, perhaps partly under the influence of local conditions, partly through some shift in his interest, his work became gradually oriented toward morphology and systematics. Certain physiological problems in the Rubiaceae drew his attention to that family (Revision of the South African species of Pavetta). In 1930 he was on leave in the Netherlands. It was on that occasion that I first met him, when he attended the awarding of a Ph. D. to one of his South African students. I had long been familiar with his name. For all students studying with Prof. Went thorough knowledge of the scientific work of “Went’s school” was compulsory. Went’s pupils from the days before the First World War were the scientific models that we tried to follow. Names we pronounced with some awe were, beside Bremekamp, Blaauw, Mrs. Rutten-Pekelharing, Arisz, etc. Meeting Bremekamp and being in his company at a dinner party greatly impressed me. Since that time I have known that Bremekamp was a source of information who would take great pains to answer a question as well as possible.