German emigrant botanist in Nicaragua. Heller was watering the garden of his large estate high up in the hills overlooking Managua when he met his demise, struck by a heart attack. He had studied the orchids of Nicaragua since 1957 and left a "truckload full of information on local orchids with drawings, descriptions, color slides, and specimens of dried plants of Orchidaceae, as well as a large and valuable library," according to Carlos Ossenbach (2005). The Heller collection was donated to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, then under the directorship of Calaway H. Dodson, who arranged for much of the material to be published with the help of Fritz Hamer, then residing in El Salvador. Hamer used Heller's research in producing the chapter on orchids in the Flora de Nicaragua (2001) published by the Missouri Botanical Garden and the University of Managua. The genera Hellerorchis A.D. Hawkes and Helleriella A.D. Hawkes are both named in his honour.

Sources:
C. Ossenbach, 2005, "Fritz Hamer and the German Tradition of Botany in Mesoamerica", Selbyana, 25(2): 246.