Ludwig Wittmack

Ludwig Wittmack (1839 to 1929) was a German botanist who worked chiefly in agricultural settings. Born in Hamburg, he studied botany at Jena and Berlin and took his doctorate at Göttingen in 1867 with a dissertation on the banana Musa Ensete. In the same year he became curator at the Agricultural Museum in Berlin, where he managed plant breeding. He was professor of botany at the Agricultural College in Berlin from 1880 to 1913 and at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Berlin from 1880 to 1920, directed the experiment station of the Association of German Millers from 1875 to 1905, sat on the seed cultivation department of the German Agricultural Society from 1883 to 1924 and directed the Agricultural Institute in 1889 to 1891 and 1910 to 1913. From 1887 he edited the magazine Gartenflora, and the plant genus Wittmackia is named in his honor.