Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kehr, Gustav Herman

KEHR, Gustav Herman (kair). German botanist, b. in Freysingen in 1581; d. in Magdeburg in 1639. He was professor in the universities of Tübingen and Halle, and afterward librarian of the Prince of Lippe-Detmold, who sent him in 1621 to America to study the plants of that country. Kehr went first to New Spain, and after several years crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and, sailing for Patagonia, studied the plants of the country that is now the Argentine Republic from 1624 till 1629, visiting afterward Chili, Brazil, and Peru. On his return he published, among other works, “De Sexu plantarum” (Magdeburg, 1631); “Aphorismi botanicae” (Tübingen, 1633); “Historia generalis plantarum Americanarum” (3 vols., Halle, 1635); “Grundlehren der Anatomie und Physiologie der Pflanzen von Amerika” (Magdeburg, 1636); “Sertum Patagonicum et florula peruviensis” (2 vols., Dresden, 1636); “Criptogamæ Brasilienses ab Gustavius Kehr collectæ” (Magdeburg, 1632); and “Reisen in Amerika” (2 vols., 1639).