Viktor Ferdinand Brotherus (28 October 1849 – 9 February 1929) was a Finnish botanist who studied the mosses (Bryophyta).
He taught natural history and mathematics at the Swedish girls' school in Vaasa City from 1878 to 1917, carrying on his career as a botanist in parallel.
"[4]His earliest major work was on the moss flora of the Kola Peninsula (Brotherus and T. Saelan.
His work on the Musci of Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien covered Archidiales, Andreaeales, and Bryales, and continued to the second edition.
[5] By invitation of Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti, he authored the section on Chinese mosses in the Symbolae Sinicae.
In particular, he was well acquainted with Max Fleischer, and used Fleischer's new 'natural' system of moss classification, which was outlined in the latter's Die Musci der Flora von Buitenzorg, in his own systematic description of the mosses in Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien.