BECCARI, ODOARDO. - Italian naturalist, explorer, and botanist, b. at Firenze on 16 Nov. 1843, d. there on 25 Oct. 1920. An evolutionist, he should be remembered for his theory of the “epoch of formation” in the still young world of living beings, in which every being was permitted to modify itself according to its own needs. This theory seems to have been suggested by the need to reconcile biological transformism with the constancy of species in present-day nature. It is a hypothesis in the service of another hypothesis.
His most notable works are: Malesia (3 vols., Firenze 1877-90); Asiatic Polme (4 vols., Calcutta 1908-11-1914-18); Polme del Madagascar (Firenze 1912); Polme della tribù delle Barattese (there 1924); Nelle foreste di Borneo; Viaggi e ricerche di un naturalista (there 1902, 2nd ed. 1920); Nuova Guinea, Celebes, Molusche (there 1924).