Ferdinand Ignatius Xavier Rugel (17 December 1806 – 31 January 1879) was a German-born American pharmacist, botanist, and plant collector.
Ferdinand Rugel was born on 17 December 1806 in Wolfegg,[1] a municipality in the district of Ravensburg in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
He was buried at the Westminster Presbyterian Church Cemetery in the town of White Pine, Tennessee.
[2] The inscription on his gravestone states he was born on 24 December 1806 but that is in fact incorrect based on church records in Weingarten, a town about 12 kilometers from Wolfegg.
[8] In his description, Chapman attributed both the generic name Rugelia and the specific epithet nudicaulis to R.J. Shuttleworth.