Georg Rudolf Boehmer

Georg Rudolf Boehmer, in German Böhmer, was a German botanist and physician, born in Liegnitz in 1723, who is also known as an entomologist. He studied botany at the University of Leipzig under Christian Gottlieb Ludwig, and in 1752 he succeeded Abraham Vater as professor of botany and anatomy at the University of Wittenberg, where in 1782 he became a professor of therapy. Alongside his teaching he served part time as city physician in Wittenberg and later in Kemberg. Among his publications are a lexicon of botany, a technical history of plants, a systematic handbook of natural history and economics, and a five volume work on natural history called Bibliotheca scriptorum historiae naturalis, issued between 1785 and 1789. The plant genus Boehmeria of the nettle family is named in his honour, and he died in 1803.