David Heinrich Hoppe

David Heinrich Hoppe was a German pharmacist, botanist, entomologist and physician, born on 15 December 1760 and died on 1 August 1846. A merchant's son from Vilsen in Hanover, he began as a pharmacy apprentice in Celle and worked as an assistant pharmacist in Hamburg, Halle, Wolfenbüttel and Regensburg. From 1792 he studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Erlangen and, after graduating, returned to Regensburg as a physician, where he also taught at the lyceum. He is remembered for his study of alpine flora and for botanical excursions into the Eastern Alps that continued almost every summer until 1843. In May 1790 he founded the Regensburg Botanical Society, the first botanical society in Bavaria, and he chaired it from 1812 until his death. He is credited with describing and naming over 200 plant species, edited the journal Flora from 1818 to 1842, and was elected to the Leopoldina in 1820.