Grisebach, August Heinrich Rudolph (1814–1879)

German botanist and plant geographer who explored the Balkans and Asia Minor. In 1866, he coined the term ‘geobotany’ (phytogeography), the study of the geographical distribution of plants.

Grisebach was born in Hannover, Germany. His first botany instructor was his uncle, the eminent botanist Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer. He studied medicine in Göttingen and Berlin, graduating 1836, and then became a lecturer at Göttingen. He travelled in the Balkans and Asia Minor 1839–40, an area in which the flora was virtually unknown at that time. The papers he published on his return helped him establish his reputation as a botanist. He rapidly became an expert in taxonomy and phytogeography and was made an associate professor at the University of Göttingen 1847.