Leopold Dippel

Georg Heinrich Leopold Dippel (4 August 1827 – 4 March 1914) was a German botanist born to Carl Friedrich Peter Dippel, a royal Bavarian forester, and Sussanna Purpus. He attended schools in Kaiserslautern and Zweibrücken before studying at the Academy of Forestry in Aschaffenburg from 1845 to 1848. During this time, he was a member of the Munich Corps Hubertia fraternity. Dippel continued his studies under Matthias Jacob Schleiden in Jena, where he gained extensive knowledge in botany and pioneered work in microscopy and plant structure research.

From July 1869, he served as Professor of Botany and Zoology at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, shifting his focus to dendrology. He introduced many foreign trees and shrubs to Germany, primarily collected by his cousin Carl Albert Purpus in North America and Mexico. Dippel held leadership roles, including rector of the Technical University of Darmstadt from 1870 to 1871 and Dean of the Chemical-Technical School from 1882 to 1887. He retired at the end of the summer semester in 1896.

Dippel received several honors: the Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1863, rates from the Dutch Society for Experimental Science in 1864/65, an honorary doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1865, and honorary membership in the Royal Microscopical Society, London, in 1914. His notable works include *The Microscope and Its Application* (1867–1869) and *Handbook of Dendrology* (1889–1893), a three-part description of domestic and cultivated outdoor trees and shrubs for botanists, gardeners, and foresters.