Casper van Overeem

Casper van Overeem was a Dutch mycologist who pioneered the systematic study of tropical fungi in the Dutch East Indies. Initially trained as a teacher, he developed his scientific expertise under the botanist Hugo de Vries before earning his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1920 with research on chromosome variations in Oenothera. At Buitenzorg, he established a mycology department at the botanical gardens' herbarium and authored the illustrated series Icones Fungorum Malayensium alongside numerous scientific publications. His career was cut short by tuberculosis at age 33, but his meticulously detailed work and extensive collections established a foundation for tropical mycology, leading to multiple fungal taxa being named in his honour.