Karl Georg Gustav Wüstnei

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Karl Georg Gustav Wüstnei (18 February 1810 – 12 October 1858) was a German theologian, naturalist, and schoolteacher. He collected fungi, plants, and insects from the Mecklenburg region, and the fungus genus Wuestneia is named after him.

He was born in Malchin, where his father was a doctor. He studied theology at Rostock starting in 1830, but also studied mathematics and botany with Hermann Karsten and Heinrich Gustav Flörke. From 1835 he worked as a teacher of mathematics and natural science in Schwerin.

Wüstnei gathered plants from Mecklenburg and traded specimens with collectors around the world. He especially liked mosses and lichens and edited two exsiccatae: Musci hepatici exsiccati Florae Megapolitanae and Sammlung Mecklenburgischer Lebermoose.

He showed only a small interest in birds, but his son Carl Wüstnei became a specialist on Mecklenburg birds. He collaborated with Carl Fiedler, Hans Brockmüller, and others.

Several species are named after him, including the fungus genus Wuestneia, the bee Anthidium wuestneii, and the sawfly Brachythops wuestneii. The author abbreviation Wüstnei is used when citing botanical names.