Gérard Daniel Westendorp

Gérard Daniel Westendorp (8 March 1813, The Hague – 31 January 1869, Dendermonde) was a Dutch born, Belgian military physician and botanist.

He studied medicine at the Ecole de Médecine de Bruxelles, later working as a student-physician in Antwerp. Around 1834, he became a naturalized citizen of Belgium, subsequently serving as an assistant army and navy physician, later spending his career as a "regular doctor" in the Belgian army.^[1][2]

As a botanist, he specialized in cryptogamic flora, being the co-publisher (with A.C.F. Wallays) of a cryptogamic exsiccata series of Belgium. He also made significant contributions towards the "Prodromus Florae Batavae" project (1850-1866). In the field of zoology, he published a treatise on Bryozoa and sponges of Belgium.^[3]

Westendorp's botanical specimens are preserved in the Jardin Botanique National de Belgique.^[2]

Selected works

• Herbier cryptogamique, ou, Collection des plantes cryptogames et agames qui croissent en Belgique, 1845-1859 (exsiccata series; starting with 1849 together with A.C.F. Wallays).^[4][5]
• Notices sur quelques cryptogames, 1851-1863.
• Polypiers flexibles de la Belgique. Collection des bryozaires, sertulaires, flustres & spongiaires qu'on rencontre en Belgique, et particuliérement aux environs d'Ostende, 1853.
• Les cryptogames : classes d'apres leurs stations naturelles, 1854.
• Description de quelques Cryptogames inédites ou nouvelles pour la flore des deux Flandres, 1863.^[6]