Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe

Who was Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe?

Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe was a German-born physician and botanist.

He studied medicine and botany at Leipzig, and in 1831 relocated to Cape Town as a physician. His primary focus soon turned to botany, and he began performing extensive investigations of South African flora. He would later earn the title of "colonial botanist", and in 1858 became the first professor of botany at South African College. His personal herbarium became the nucleus of the South African Museum herbarium.

Pappe wrote numerous articles on South African botany, and also published a work involving indigenous flora in the vicinity of Leipzig titled "Synopsis plantarum phaenogamarum agro Lipsiensi indigenarum". The genus Pappea from the family Sapindaceae is named in his honor.

As a taxonomist he described the genus Atherstonea.