Polish botanist interested in plant anatomy and cytology as well as fungi and algae. Born in Warsaw Kazimierz Rouppert attended the Jagiellonian University in Cracow where he was taught by Edward Janczewski and later by Marian Raciborski. The former tutor was a keen mycologist and phycologist and instilled this interest in his pupils. Named doctor of philosophy in 1909 Rouppert continued his botanical research there, particularly focusing on the stinging trichomes of Chinese Girardinia cuspidata Wedd. and other Urticaceae species.
In 1919 Rouppert became a professor at the university in Cracow and at the same time director of the botanical institute, which he promptly named after his master, the Edward Janczewski Botanical Institute. Remaining there as professor, he was given the opportunity to work at the Treub Laboratory in Buitenzorg (now Bogor) on Java, Indonesia, in 1926. With funding from the Rockefeller International Education Board he spent April to October of this year in Java, collecting and dealing with many biological problems.
In 1939, at the outbreak of World War Two, he moved to the University of Budapest and worked in their plant physiology laboratory. It was said that Rouppert was an excellent lecturer and organiser and he inspired a generation of botanists at the university in Cracow. Publishing some 60 papers during his life, he studied taxonomy as well as anatomy. Roupert died in London in 1963 and the fossil horse-chestnut Aesculus roupertii Zabł. was named after him.
Sources:
Z. Mirek, 1933, "Plant names formed in commemoration of botanists of the Cracow botanic garden", Polish Botanical Studies: Guidebook Series, 9: 95-111
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2)
W. Szafer, 1969, Concise History of Botany in Cracow Against the Background of Six Centuries of the Jagiellonian University
Kazimierz Stefan Rouppert, Flora Malesiana collectors cyclopaedia:
http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/FMCollectors/R/RouppertKS.htm#career, accessed 27 October 2010.
