Georg August Zenker (11 June 1855, in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

– 6 February 1922, in

Bipindi Bipindi is a town and commune in Cameroon. Gallery File:ASC Leiden - van Achterberg Collection - 1 - 016 - Marché à Bipindi - Bipindi, Cameroun - 6-12 février 1997.tif, Market, Bipindi, 1997 File:ASC Leiden - van Achterberg Collection - 1 - 0 ...

) was a German gardener and naturalist. He worked as a gardener at the botanical gardens in Leipzig and

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, and in 1886, on behalf of the Italian government, traveled as a researcher to Africa. Subsequently, he was put in charge of the Sibange Farm, located near

Libreville Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon. Occupying in the northwestern province of Estuaire, Libreville is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea. As of the 2013 census, its population was 703,904. The area has been inh ...

(

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

), and later on, he worked as a preparator at Yaoundé Station in

Kamerun Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern p ...

. In 1895 he quit the colonial service and returned to Germany, but soon afterwards, he went back to Kamerun as a private citizen and established a plantation at Bipindi, where he grew coffee, cacao and rubber.Zenker, Georg August (1855-1922)
JSTOR Global Plants During his many years spent in Kamerun, he amassed an enormous collection of botanical, zoological and ethnographic items. Unfortunately, his botanical specimens sent to Berlin were for the most part destroyed during World War II. His name is associated with numerous plant and animal taxa; a few examples being: * '' Zenkerella'' (family

Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...

): a plant genus circumscribed by

Paul Hermann Wilhelm Taubert Paul Hermann Wilhelm Taubert (12 August 1862 – 1 January 1897) was a German botanist. Taubert was born in Berlin, where he studied botany as a pupil of Ignatz Urban. While a student, he collected plants in Cyrenaica (1887). From 1889 to 189 ...

. * Zenker's fruit bat, ''Scotonycteris zenkeri'', circumscribed by

Paul Matschie Paul Matschie Paul Matschie (11 August 1861, Brandenburg an der Havel – 7 March 1926, Friedenau) was a German zoologist. He studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Universities of Halle and Berlin, afterwards working as an unpaid v ...

. *

Zenker's honeyguide Zenker's honeyguide (''Melignomon zenkeri'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Uganda ...

, ''Melignomon zenkeri'', circumscribed by

Anton Reichenow Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He wa ...

. * Zenker's worm snake, ''Letheobia zenkeri'', circumscribed by

Richard Sternfeld Richard Sternfeld (8 February 1884, in Bielefeld – 1943 in Auschwitz) was a German-Jewish herpetologist, who was responsible for describing over forty species of amphibians and reptiles, particularly from Germany's African and Pacific colon ...

.The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles
by Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zenker, Georg August 1855 births 1922 deaths Scientists from Leipzig German naturalists German gardeners 19th-century German botanists