DUVDEVANI, SHMUEL

DUVDEVANI, SHMUEL (1903–1987), Israel botanist. Duvdevani was born in the Ukraine. He studied botany in England and went to Palestine in 1921. He was an instructor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and beginning in 1935 he taught at the agricultural school at Pardes Ḥannah. In 1936 he turned his attention to research on dew . He invented an optical method of measuring the amount of dew precipitation which has been accepted all over the world. The international meteorological organization, accepted the Duvdevani Dew Recorder as a standard method for the international measuring of dew. Duvdevani was instrumental in setting up a network of observation stations throughout Israel for recording dew precipitation, the first such network in the world. In connection with his meteorological work, Duvdevani carried out research on plant physiology, especially on the absorption of water by the foliage of the plant. In 1946 he participated in the publication of Magdir le-Ẓimḥei-Bar (1946), which is a systematic definition of flora, according to vegetative qualities alone.