Walter Zimmermann

Born May 9, 1892, in Walldürn. German botanist.

Zimmermann taught at the University of Freiburg from 1919 to 1925 and the University of Tübingen from 1925 to 1960 (professor from 1930). His main works are on plant systematics, geography, and phylogeny; evolutionary morphology; paleobotany; and the theory of evolution. Zimmermann developed the telome theory of the structure of terrestrial plants and the principle of hologeny, in which phylogenesis is regarded as the transformation of ontogenetic cycles in an uninterrupted chain. He has devoted special attention to the evolution of traits rather than of taxa.