David de Gorter (April 30, 1717 – April 8, 1783) was a Dutch physician and botanist.

De Gorter was a professor at the University of Harderwijk and royal physician to Empress Elizabeth of Russia. He was a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and other academies and learned societies.

David de Gorter

At Harderwijk, De Gorter made friends with the young Carl Linnaeus, who came there to obtain his doctorate degree. Later, Linnaeus named the plant genus Gorteria after David de Gorter and his father, the physician Johannes de Gorter. In St Petersburg, de Gorter edited and published Stepan Krasheninnikov's last work, Flora Ingrica. He authored one of the first floras to use binomial nomenclature, Flora Belgica from 1767.

David de Gorter

On May 21, 1775 De Gorter married Mary Elizabeth Schultz, a friend of Betje Wolff. After his death, she donated his herbarium to the Academy in Harderwijk. It now is kept at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands.

David de Gorter

De Gorter spent his last years in Zutphen, where he wrote his Flora of the Seven Provinces.

The Dutch botanical journal Gorteria is named in his honour.

References

1717 births

1783 deaths

18th-century Dutch botanists

Dutch naturalists

18th-century Dutch naturalists

People from Enkhuizen

University of Harderwijk alumni

Academic staff of the University of Harderwijk

Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences

Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Fellows of the Royal Society