Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer

Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer (born 26 March 1846 in Königsberg, died 3 December 1906 in Heidelberg) was a German botanist who specialised in the taxonomy of the Orchidaceae (orchids).

He studied chemistry and botany at Berlin and Königsberg, receiving his PhD in 1867. Afterwards he worked as assistant to Wilhelm Hofmeister in Heidelberg and under Johannes von Hanstein at the University of Bonn, where he obtained his habilitation in 1869. From 1872 to 1906 he was a professor and director of the botanical garden at Heidelberg.

In the first edition of Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, work by Adolf Engler and Carl Prantl, he collaborated about orchids (published in 1889).

In addition to his work involving orchids, he conducted important research of diatoms, publishing the treatise "Untersuchungen über Bau und Entwicklung der Bacillariaceen (Diatomaceen)" (1871) as a result.

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