German botanist Helmut Freitag is Professor Emeritus at Kassel University and was formerly at Göttingen University. He is an authority on the flora of Afghanistan and the Chenopodiaceae family in the Mediterranean and south-west Asia. He is also interested in the Poaceae and Ephedraceae.

Freitag carried out a survey of the flora of Afghanistan in 1960 while he was a visiting professor at Kabul University. His studies of the region culminated in his report, Die natürliche Vegetation Afghanistans: Beiträge zur Flora und Vegetation Afghanistans, published in Vegetatio (1971).

Sources:
M. Alam, 2009, "Plant Collectors in Afghanistan", Bulletin de la Société vaudoise des Sciences naturelles, 91(3): 328.