Karl August Gustav Fiebrig


Karl August Gustav Fiebrig-Gertz was a German-born Paraguayan botanist.

Early life and education

He studied natural sciences in Berlin as a pupil of Adolf Engler,

Career

In 1902 travelled to South America in order to collect botanical and entomological specimens for European museums. In 1903–04 he collected in Bolivia, followed by collection duties in Paraguay from 1904 to 1909.
From 1910 to 1936 he was a professor of zoology and botany at Asunción University. In 1914 at Asunción, he became founder-director of the Botanical Garden and Zoo of Asunción, of which, several parts were co-designed along with his wife, Anna Gertz.
In 1934–36 he was director of the Paraguayan Department of Agriculture until leaving Paraguay following the Chaco War. He and his family returned to Germany, where he worked as a lecturer at the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut in Berlin.
In 1948 he returned to South America, where he worked as a botanist at the Instituto Miguel Lillo in Tucumán, Argentina.

Honours and legacy

The plant genus Fiebrigiella was named in his honor by Hermann Harms.

Selected works