Karl Theodor Rümpler


Karl Theodor Rümpler was a German botanist and horticulturist.
He developed a passion for botany in his youth, and studied natural sciences at the gymnasium in Mühlhausen, where one of his classmates was Wilhelm Gerhard Walpers. He later took classes in botany, zoology and foreign languages at the University of Berlin. Beginning in 1852 he was associated with the Gärtner-Lehr-Anstalt zu Erfurt as an instructor and inspector.
In 1860 he became secretary of the Erfurter Gartenbauvereins as well as secretary of the county agricultural association. From 1873 onward, he was director of the newly established agricultural school in Erfurt.
He is remembered for his investigations of the family Cactaceae, and was the taxonomic authority of numerous cactus species. In 1886, he published a new edition of Karl Friedrich Förster's 1846 "Handbuch der Cacteenkunde in ihrem ganzen Umfange".

Selected works