Caspar Commelijn
Dutch botanist

Caspar Commelijn or Caspar Commelin (14 October 1668 Amsterdam – 25 December 1731 Amsterdam), was a Dutch botanist.
Life and work
He was the son of the bookseller, historian and publisher, Casparus Commelijn and his first wife, Margrieta Heydanus. His grandfather was Isaac Commelin. He enrolled on 12 September 1692 at Leiden as a student of medicine and graduated on 27 February 1694 with a dissertation De lumbricis ("About earthworms", Ludg. Bat. 1694). After graduation, he settled in his birthplace. When Peter Hotton departed for Leiden in 1696, Caspar was appointed to the post of botanist at the Hortus. He succeeded his uncle Jan Commelin, who together with Joan Huydecoper founded the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam.
Caspar worked on books that were left uncompleted by the death of his uncle, Jan Commelin, and enjoyed the support of Nicolaes Witsen.
The public source identifies “Caspar Commelijn” as dutch botanist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Caspar, Commelijn and Dutch.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1047867. VIAF identifies the subject as 13241728. The Library of Congress control number is n84224663. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1668, 1731, 1692 and 1694.
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This entry incorporates text from “Caspar Commelijn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.