Ernst Ferdinand Nolte

Ernst Ferdinand Nolte (24 December 1791, Hamburg – 18 February 1875, Kiel) was a German botanist. He was son-in-law to chemist Christoph Heinrich Pfaff (1773-1852).

After duties as a pharmacy apprentice in Goslar, he studied medicine at the University of Göttingen. While a student, he engaged in frequent botanical excursions throughout northern Germany. In 1817 he finished his studies at Göttingen, and later came under the influence of Danish botanist Jens Wilken Hornemann (1770-1841). From 1821 to 1823 he conducted botanical investigations in Lauenburg and the "Elbe Duchies", later taking scientific excursions to Zealand, Funen, Jutland and islands off both coasts of the Schleswig-Holstein mainland.

From 1826 to 1873 he was a professor of botany at the University of Kiel, as well as director of its botanical garden. He was an instructor to Ferdinand von Mueller (1825-1896), who would later be known for his botanical work in Australia.

The plant genus Noltea from the family Rhamnaceae is named in his honor,^[1] as is Zostera noltei, a species of seagrass (named by Jens Wilken Hornemann, 1832).^[2]

Written works

He made significant contributions to the botanical atlas Flora Danica, and was the author of the following publications:

• Botanische Bemerkungen über Stratiotes und Sagittaria, 1825
• Novitiæ floræ Holsaticæ : sive supplementum alterum Primitiarum floræ Holsaticæ G. H. Weberi, 1826
• Index seminum horti botanici Kiliensis, ca. 1836-1841.^[3]

References

• Biographical information @ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie