Portrait of Wilhelm Hofmeister (1824-1877), German botanist. Hofmeister followed his father's interest in botany, and by the age of 27 had established a considerable reputation for himself for his work on mosses and ferns. His major contribution came with the discovery of the relationship between cryptogams (mosses & ferns), gymnosperms (conifers) and the angiosperms (flowering plants). This led to a unified view of the plant kingdom. He was appointed professor at Heidelberg in 1863, and Tubingen in 1872,