Botanist and civil servant Walter Busse became a specialist on tropical economic botany in the German colonial department.

Busse initially studied pharmacy, but later turned to botany at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg, earning his doctorate at the latter in 1892. He was subsequently employed as a scientific assistant in the Kaiserliche Gesundheitsamt (Ministry of Health), Berlin, before attaining his habilitation (teaching qualification) in 1900. He then lectured on bacteriology at Berlin and later in 1900 embarked on a botanical-agricultural expedition to German East Africa. This resulted in many plant collections and reports on the useful plants of East Africa.

Busse's next travels were to the botanical gardens of Buitenzorg, Java, where he studied cinchona cultivation and remained until February 1903. Later that year he returned to Africa, at first working in the Usambara mountains (Tanzania), then in Cameroon and Togo. As well as making collections, he studied cryptogams and phytopathology in these regions.

Busse came back to Germany in 1905, being appointed to a position with the Kaiserliche Biologische Anstalt für Land- und Forstwirtschaft. The following year he joined the Overseas Ministry (Reichskolonialamt), with which he travelled to Turkestan, the Caucasus and Crimea (1909), North America (1909) and Turkey (1910).

From 1911-1915 Busse devoted himself to German politics as a member of the Geheimer Regierungsrat and Oberregeierungsrat (Privy Council), and served in the military from 1916-1918. Officially retired in 1919, he continued to be involved in tropical agriculture. He died in Rome in 1933.

Sources:
A. Boerger, 1934, Revista sudamericana de botanica, 1: 32
J. Mildbraed, 1933, Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft, 51: (61)-(71)
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1995, Taxonomic Literature, ed. 2 (TL2), Suppl. III: 281-284.