Gustav Albert Peter

Gustav Albert Peter (21 August 1853, in Gumbinnen – 4 October 1937, in Göttingen) was a German botanist.

In 1874 he received his doctorate from the University of Königsberg, and later on, worked as a curator at the botanical garden in Munich. In Munich, he edited the well-known exsiccata Hieracia Naegeliana [exsiccata] (1884–1886) with a number of Hieracium specimens from the herbarium of Carl Nägeli, some of them observed and collected at the Alter Botanischer Garten (Munich).^[1] From 1888 to 1923 he was a professor at the University of Göttingen, where he also served as director of the botanical garden.^[2]

From 1913 till 1919 he collected plants in German South-West Africa, South Africa and especially German East Africa, then later in 1925/26 he was engaged in another botanical expedition in Africa. In 1936 his herbarium of roughly 50,000 plants was acquired by the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum.^[3] The plant genus Peterodendron (family Achariaceae) was named in his honor by Hermann Otto Sleumer,^[2] in 1936.^[4]

Peter's daughter Hedwig was married to Leo Rosenberg.^[5]