George Karsten


George Karsten was a German botanist born in Rostock.
In 1885 he earned his doctorate from the University of Strasbourg, and in 1892 received his habilitation in botany at the University of Leipzig. Later on, he served as an associate professor at the Universities of Kiel and Bonn. In 1909 he became a professor at the University of Halle and was appointed director of the botanical garden.
With Heinrich Schenck, he was editor of a popular journal of botany called Vegetationsbilder. Karsten is remembered for his studies of phytoplankton, and among his written works are publications on phytoplankton collected from the deep-sea Valdivia Expedition of 1898–99: