Franz Josef Ruprecht

Franz Josef Ruprecht was an Austrian-born physician and botanist who worked in the Russian Empire, where he was known as Frants Ivanovich Ruprekht. Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1814, he grew up in Prague and took his doctorate in medicine there in 1836. After a brief medical practice he became curator of the herbarium of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg in 1839, later assistant director of the botanical garden and professor of botany. He described many plants from the Russian Far East and Alaska, and the genus Ruprechtia is named for him. He died in Saint Petersburg in 1870.