Johann Jakob Manissadjian

Life Manissadjian mother, Katharina "Katherine" Margarete Barbara Klein, was German In 1890, he became Professor of Botany at the American Anatolia College in Marsovan (also spelled Mersiwan) in Paphlagonia in Northeastern Anatolia, where he founded a museum.

Manissadjian collected plants from the Southern Black Sea region, where he discovered several new species of bulbous plants that were later published by the Austrian Botanist Josef Franz Freyn.

In 1893, he wrote Lehrbücher des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin Band 11: Mürsid-i lisan-y 'Osmani. Lehrbuch der modernen osmanischen Sprache, it has been reprinted many times. Manissadjian edited and distributed an exsiccata series with the title Plantae orientales.

By 1894, he had supplied commercial gardeners in the Netherland, foremost Van Tubergen, with plant material from the Pontus region. Among those were bulbs of the now locally extinct Sprenger's tulip from the Amasya region, and Allium tubergeni Freyn.

He sold other rare plants, for example Iris gatesii to Dutch commercial gardeners. Too many bulbs of Tulipa sprengeri were taken from the wild, and the plant became extinct.

The museum-library of Merzifon was constructed between 1910 and 1911.

In 1924, the college closed in Merzifon and reopened in Thessaloniki, Greece as Anatolia College. The college museum closed in 1939, and 130 of Manissadjian's plants went sent to the Herbarium of Ankara University, Faculty of Science.

Species Species named after Manissadjian include: Colchicum manissadjianii (Azn.) K.Perss. Iris manissadjiani Freyn, now a synonym of Iris sari Merenda manissadjiani