George Karsten was a German botanist born in Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

.

In 1885 he earned his doctorate from the University of Strasbourg

University of Strasbourg

The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....

, and in 1892 received his habilitation in botany at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. In 1909 he became a professor at the University of Halle and was appointed director of the botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

.

With Heinrich Schenck

Heinrich Schenck

Johann Heinrich Rudolf Schenck was a German botanist who was a native of Siegen. He was a brother to geographer Adolf Schenck ....

 (1860-1927), he was editor of a popular journal of botany called Vegetationsbilder. Karsten is remembered for his studies of phytoplankton

Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν , meaning "plant", and πλαγκτός , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye...

, and among his written works are publications on phytoplankton collected from the deep-sea Valdivia Expedition of 1898-99:

• Das Phytoplankton des Antarktischen Meeres nach dem Material der deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition 1898-1899 (Phytoplankton of the Antarctic Seas from the German Deep-sea Valdivia Expedition); (1905)
• Das Phytoplankton des Atlantischen Ozeans nach dem Material der deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition 1898-1899 (Phytoplankton of the Atlantic Ocean from the German Deep-sea Valdivia Expedition); (1906)
• Das Indische Phytoplankton nach dem Material der Deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition 1898-1899 (Phytoplankton of the Indian Ocean from the German Deep-sea Valdivia Expedition); (1907)