Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe

Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe (1803, in Hamburg – 14 October 1862) was a German-born physician and botanist.^[1]

He studied medicine and botany at Leipzig, and in 1831 relocated to Cape Town as a physician. His primary focus soon turned to botany, and he began performing extensive investigations of South African flora. He would later earn the title of "colonial botanist", and in 1858 became the first professor of botany at South African College. His personal herbarium (including the collection he acquired from his colleague Karl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher 1799-1858) became the nucleus of the South African Museum herbarium.

Pappe wrote numerous articles on South African botany, and also published a work involving indigenous flora in the vicinity of Leipzig, titled "Synopsis plantarum phaenogamarum agro Lipsiensi indigenarum" (1828). The genus Pappea from the family Sapindaceae is named in his honor.

As a taxonomist he described the genus Atherstonea (synonym Strychnos, family Loganiaceae).^[2]

Botanical works by Pappe that have been published in English

• Florae capensis medicae prodromus, or, An enumeration of South African indigenous plants : used as remedies by the colonists of the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town: W. Brittain. 1857. 
• Silva capensis; or, A description of South African forest-trees and arborescent shrubs used for technical and oeconomical purposes by the colonists of the Cape of Good Hope. London: Ward and Co. 1862. 
• Synopsis Filicum Africae australis; or, an enumeration of the South African ferns hitherto known. Cape Town: Saul Solomon. 1858. 

He described some fifty new plant taxa.^[4]

References

External links

Wikispecies has information related to: Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe

• Biography of Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe at the S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science