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Johann Gottfried Zinn was born on 4 December 1727 in the small Franconian town of Schwabach. In 1753, at just twenty-six, he became director of the Botanical Garden at the University of Göttingen and soon after professor of medicine.
The Aztecs who were the very first to have observed these flowers had called the plant something like “eyesore”, the locals of Mexicans referred to it as “mal de ojos” which somewhat carries the same meaning because the wild form was so unimpressive. Walk into almost any summer garden and you’ll spot them right away, those bold, daisy-like blooms in every shade from pure white to deep crimson, often standing tall on sturdy stems that refuse to flop even after a heavy rain. Zinnias are the kind of flower that make people stop and smile. They’re easy to grow, bloom for months, and look as cheerful in a vase as they do in the ground. Yet almost no one knows that this garden favourite carries the name of a young German scientist who never lived to see thirty-two. By his mid-twenties he had already made a name for himself as both an anatomist and a botanist. His most lasting scientific work was a detailed study of the human eye, the first complete account of its anatomy. Once Zinn laid his hands on the seeds of the flora (though how he got those seeds remain unverified), he planted them in the Göttingen garden, watched them grow into rather plain, weedy plants with dull purple flowers, made careful drawings, and shared both the plants and the seeds with other botanists across Europe. Zinn’s careful notes and illustrations were enough to catch the attention of the great Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.
Linnaeus was busy putting the natural world into order and often named new plants after scientists he respected. When he came to this Mexican flower, he decided to honour the young director of the Göttingen garden, as per a review study titled ‘Germplasm resource and genetic breeding of Zinnia: a review’. He named the genus Zinnia. The timing mattered. Zinn’s story is a gentle reminder that influence does not always need decades. In fewer than ten years as a professor and garden director he left marks in two very different fields.
Zinn had died only a few years earlier, still in his early thirties, and his reputation as a bright, hard-working scholar was fresh in people’s minds. One of them; the detailed map of the human eye, still helps doctors today.