His father, Andreas Theodor was a pharmacist who had emigrated from East Prussia to Russia with his grandfather in the 18th century and his mother, Elisabeth von Bunge, née Fuhrmann.

[3] He also studied botany there under Carl Friedrich von Ledebour and completed his thesis entitled De relatione methodi plantarum naturalis in vires vegetabilium medicalis [4] At early January, he worked as Head of Metallurgy in the Kolyvan-Voskresensker factory under P. K. Frolov and as district physician in Barnaul (Tomsk Governorate) which located in Southern Siberia.

[1] The same year he went with Ledebour and Carl Anton von Meyer on an important scientific expedition to the Kazakh Steppe and Altai Mountains.

They spent five weeks across Russia to Barnaul during the summer and collected 1,600 plant specimens, which formed the basis of the Flora Altaica.

Apart from him there were other researchers, including Georg Albert von Fuss as astronomer and metereologist, and Kovanko as mineralogist.

His research was finally stopped in May 1821 because he incurred the displeasure of the Chinese authorities when he stayed at Buddhist Monastery and did not get permission to go out of Peking [6] They returned to Russia on 6 July 1831 with the emissary of the tenth ecclesiastical mission by following the western route that bypassed Kalgan and Urga.

In addition to plants Bunge collected a few beetles, which were described by Franz Faldermann in his book Coleopterorum ab illustrissimo Bungio in China boreali, Mongolia, et Montibus Altaicis collectorum descriptio.

[4] In April 1832 Bunge returned to his duties as physician in Barnaul, but not long afterwards he made another expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences to go to Chuya, located in the eastern Altai mountains.

[6] He kept in contact with Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal, a botanist at the University of Halle, through correspondence, via articles published in the journal "Linnaea" and through the exchange of herbarium specimens.