Wilhelm Olbers Focke

Wilhelm Olbers Focke was a medical doctor and botanist who in 1881 published a significant work on plant breeding entitled Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge, Ein Beitrag zur Biologie der Gewächse which briefly mentioned Gregor Mendel's discoveries on hybridization. Although Charles Darwin had a copy of Focke's book he passed it along to a colleague apparently without reading this particular section. The rediscovery of Mendel's work is generally considered to have taken place in the first years of the 20th century, however in Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge, Mendel is mentioned about 18 times - although Focke did not apparently take Mendel's work all that seriously. Along with hybridization, Focke analyzed the non-Mendelian phenomena of graft hybrids, pseudogamy, and xenia. ^{Wilhelm Olbers Focke, German medical doctor and botanist (d. 1922)}

5 April 1834

Born on the same birth date (5 April 1834): Frank R. Stockton • Prentice Mulford

Born on the same birth day (5 April): Bobby Miller (baseball) • Dragoljub Minić • Eric Carlberg • Freddie Fox (actor) • Georgi Markov (wrestler) • Kurt Neumann (director) • Les Binks • Marion Aye • Max Gail • Miki Manojlović • Mitsuo Ogasawara • Nikita Demidov • Paul Chung • Sercan Yıldırım • Stan Ridgway • Willeke van Ammelrooy • William II, Duke of Bavaria

Born in the same month (April 1834): Charles Farrar Browne • Charles Lennox Richardson • Frank R. Stockton • James Fisk (financier) • Prentice Mulford