Carl Kuntze was a wealthy German businessman who retired at an early age and devoted himself to world travel and the study of botany. After a tour around the world in 1874-76, he decided to become a student and earned a doctorate in science at the age of thirty-five. In his travels, he had made extensive botanical collections in the New World and in Asia, and he occupied himself for six years in organizing and describing them. Revisio generum plantarum, published in two volumes in 1891, contained a large section on Kuntze’s nomenclatural system, which became the source of a great deal of controversy. In the third volume, Kuntze replied to many of his critics and introduced much new material. It was published in two parts in 1893 and 1898 and contains a lengthy summary of his nonconformist system. For the rest of his life, Kuntze was engaged in disputes with the botanical community on the basic questions of plant nomenclature.