David Heinrich Hoppe

David Heinrich Hoppe (15 December 1760 – 1 August 1846) was a German pharmacist, botanist, entomologist and physician. He is remembered for contributions made to the study of alpine flora. Life Hoppe, a merchant's son from Vilsen, Hanover, began his career as a pharmacy apprentice in Celle, and subsequently was an assistant pharmacist in Hamburg, Halle, Wolfenbüttel and Regensburg. From 1792 onwards, he studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Erlangen, and following graduation returned to Regensburg as a physician. Here he taught classes at the Regensburg lyceum. He studied the flora of the Danube region surrounding Regensburg. In June 1798 he first explored the Untersberg massif near Salzburg, and almost each summer until 1843 continued his botanical excursions from Salzburg into the Eastern Alps. With bryologist Christian Friedrich Hornschuch (1793–1850), he published a treatise involving an extended scientific journey to the Adriatic coast and the mountains of Carinthia and Tyrol, called "Tagebuch einer Botanischen Reise nach den Küsten des Adriatischen Meeres und den Gebirgen von Kärnten, Tirol und Salzburg 1799". He explored the region around Heiligenblut and the Grossglockner several times, where he found and described Eriophorum scheuchzeri, Sesleria ovata, Polytrichum sexangulare, Pedicularis asplenifolia, and Braya alpina. Work In May 1790, Hoppe founded the Regensburgische Botanische Gesellschaft (Regensburg Botanical Society), the first botanical society in Bavaria, and presently the world's oldest existing botanical society. Notable members included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Alexander von Humboldt, and Justus von Liebig. From 1812 until his death in 1846, Hoppe was its chair.