Kai Larsen is a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 botanist.

Kai Larsen is Professor of botany (Emeritus from 1-12-1996) at Århus University

University of Aarhus

Aarhus University , located in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, is Denmark's second oldest and second largest university...

, Denmark. He is Danish editor of Flora Nordica, Editor Flora of Thailand, Advisor to Flora of China

Flora of China (journal)

Flora of China is a scientific publication aimed at describing the plants native to China.The is a collaborative scientific effort to publish the first modern English-language account of the approximately 31,000 species of vascular plants of China...

 and Executive member of Flora Malesiana.

He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...

. and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Research

SE Asian flora region, particularly Thailand, Malaysia and Indo-China. Revisions of several families e. g. Caesalpiniaceae, Caryophyllaceae

Caryophyllaceae

The Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactaceae and Polygonaceae...

, and Lowiaceae

Lowiaceae

Orchidantha is a genus of flowering plants, often given its own family, Lowiaceae. It includes the plants in the formerly recognised genera Lowia, Protamomum and Wolfia. Orchidantha remains a poorly known genus, with up to about a dozen species, found from southern China to Borneo...

for several of the regional floras.

Current research project
Zingiberaceae

Zingiberaceae

Zingiberaceae, or the Ginger family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes, comprising ca. 52 genera and more than 1300 species, distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas.Many species are important...

for Flora of Thailand and Flora Malesiana.

Eponymous species

Some plants are named in recognizing his contribution to studying Asian flora:
Genera

• Kailarsenia fragrant plant from the family Rubiaceae
  Rubiaceae
  The Rubiaceae is a family of flowering plants, variously called the coffee family, madder family, or bedstraw family. The group contains many commonly known plants, including the economically important coffee , quinine , and gambier , and the horticulturally valuable madder , west indian jasmine ,...
  
   can be found in Southeast Asia.
• Larsenaikia once endemic Australian species of Gardenia
  Gardenia
  Gardenia is a genus of 142 species of flowering plants in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, southern Asia, Australasia and Oceania....
  
  in the family Rubiaceae
  Rubiaceae
  The Rubiaceae is a family of flowering plants, variously called the coffee family, madder family, or bedstraw family. The group contains many commonly known plants, including the economically important coffee , quinine , and gambier , and the horticulturally valuable madder , west indian jasmine ,...
  
  
• The generic name Kaisupeea B.L. Burtt (Gesneriaceae
  Gesneriaceae
  Gesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3,200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...
  
  ) honours Kai and Supee Larsen.

Species

• Burmannia larseniana D.X.Zhang & R.M.K.Saunders (Burmanniaceae
  Burmanniaceae
  Burmanniaceae is a botanical name of a family of flowering plants, consisting of about a hundred species of herbaceous plants in roughly a dozen genera. Often they are quite remarkable plants, more often red than green, without much leaf area and not growing very big in any way.The APG II system,...
  
  )
• Bauhinia larsenii Y.F. Chen & D.X. Zhang, fossil
  Fossil
  Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
  
   Leguminosae from southern China
  China
  Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
  
  
• Caulokaempferia larsenii Suksathan & Triboun
• Cornukaempferia larsenii Saensouk, Theerakulpisut, & Chantaranothai
• Curcuma larsenii C. Maknoi & T. Jenjittikul
• Impatiens larsenii T. Shimizu
• Kaempferia larsenii Sirirugsa
• Zingiber larsenii Theilade

Personal

Professor Larsen is well known for elegantly and undauntedly wearing a bow tie

Bow tie

The bow tie is a type of men's necktie. It consists of a ribbon of fabric tied around the collar in a symmetrical manner such that the two opposite ends form loops. Ready-tied bow ties are available, in which the distinctive bow is sewn into shape and the band around the neck incorporates a clip....

. He recently acquired the dignity of great-grandfather. Professor Larsen has 4 children; three daughters and a son named Ann-Margrit Mayer and Hanne van Assendelft de Coningh, Lisbeth Glastrup and Christian Larsen. Christian has 3 children named Christoffer Wadum Larsen, Thorvald Wadum Larsen and Mads Wadum Larsen. Mads are also very interested in biologi and plants. Lisbeth Glastrup has 2 children named Jakob Glastrup and Nina Glastrup. Ann-Margrit and Hanne are living in the Netherlands.