Swedish botanist. Adam Afzelius, a pupil of Linnaeus, taught oriental languages at Uppsala University prior to his appointment as Demonstrator of Botany in 1785. Later as botanist for the Sierra Leone Company, he made two expeditions, in 1792-1793 and 1794-1796, to West Africa. In addition to reporting on the geography, climate, and natural productions of the region, he made significant botanical and ethnographic collections, which were later acquired by the University of Uppsala.

Following his travels Afzelius spent a year in London as secretary to the Swedish embassy (1797-98) and then resumed his lectureship at Uppsala, where he eventually became professor of materia medica. In 1802 he was elected president of the Zoophytolithic Society (later, the Linnaean Institute). In addition to his African journal, he published works on the flora and ethnobotany of Sierra Leone and Guinea: Note sur les fruits comestibles de Sierra Leone (1794), Genera plantarum guineensium revisa aucta (1804), Remedia Guineensia (1813-17), Stirpium in Guinea medicinalium species novae (1825). In the latter part of his life he edited and oversaw the publication of Carl Linnaeus's autobiographical notes. The plant genus Afzelia Sm. was named in his honour.