Johann Hieronymus Kniphof

Johann Hieronymus Kniphof (1704 to 1763) was a German physician and botanist from Erfurt. He studied medicine at the universities of Jena and Erfurt and became a professor of medicine at Erfurt in 1737. In 1745 he succeeded Andreas Elias Büchner as director of the library at Erfurt, two years later he was named dean of the faculty of medicine, and in 1761 he was chosen university rector. At Erfurt he assembled a large herbarium and published Botanica in originali, first issued in 1733 and later known as Botanica in Originali, seu Herbarium Vivum, which is considered his main work. It was renowned for nature printing, a then little understood technique that Kniphof had mastered in order to imprint the fine details of plant specimens. The botanical genus Kniphofia, in the family Asphodelaceae, was named in his honour by Conrad Moench.