Martin Martens

Martin Martens (8 December 1797 – 8 February 1863) was a Belgian botanist and chemist born in Maastricht, Netherlands.

He studied medicine in Liège, afterwards serving as a physician in Maastricht from 1823 to 1835. From 1835 to 1863 he was a professor of chemistry at the Catholic University of Louvain.[1]

With Henri Guillaume Galeotti (1814-1858), he was the binomial author of many botanical species.[2] In 1842, with Galeotti, he published an important treatise on ferns of Mexico titled Memoire sur les Fougères du Mexique, et considérations sur la géographie botanique de cette contrée.[3] With Galeotti, he was also co-author of works on the botanical families Gesneriaceae and Solanaceae.[4]

The mycological genera Martensiomyces and Martensella are named in his honor, the latter genus being circumscribed by Henri Eugène Lucien Gaëtan Coemans (1825–1871).[1]

In 2011, botanists Borhidi & Lozada-Pérez published a genus of flowering plants from Mexico, belonging to the family Rubiaceae as Martensianthus in his honour.[5]