Dutch botanist. A native of Den Haag, Carel Jongkind earned a PhD from Wageningen University in 1989 for his revision of the African Connaraceae, in collaboration with fellow PhD candidate Roel Lemmens. Since then he has specialised in West African flora, especially lianas. He has undertaken fieldwork in all the countries of the region and lived for three years, 1994 to 1997, in Ghana. Since the mid-1990s, he has concentrated on closed forest areas in Upper Guinea.

He was a researcher for many years in the herbarium at Wageningen, and for two years at Missouri Botanical Garden, but today, although still connected to Wageningen, he works as a freelancer. He started as a taxonomist, but has turned increasingly toward geographically-oriented botany because it offers more opportunities for paid work. His publications include the Flore du Gabon (1999), "Checklist of Upper Guinea forest species" in Biodiversity of West African Forests (2004), and "A botanical synopsis of the lianes and other forest climbers" in Forest Climbers of West Africa (2005). His most recent work has been as a researcher for the ECOSYN project, Woody Plants of Western African Forests (2006). Since finishing the ECOSYN project, he has been engaged in botanical diversity research, creating inventories and preparing checklists of threatened areas and proposed nature reserves. Secamone jongkindii Klack. and Dactyladenia jongkindii Breteler are named after him.