Fritz Hamer (22 November 1912, Hamburg - 13 January 2004, Sarasota, Florida) was an outstanding German botanist who worked in Central America, specializing in orchids.
In 1948, at the end of the war, he returned to Guatemala and established himself in El Salvador, where he created a company to import and distribute machinery and equipment.
At the beginning the Salvadoran Civil War, Hamer left El Salvador and moved to Florida, where he worked as a scientist at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.
Hamer visited the herbaria of Kew and the Field Museum of Chicago by Pan-American Agricultural School of Honduras, Managua, the University of Michigan.
Then the Flora of Nicaragua was published by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 2001, and Hamer, 89 years old, was the author of Chapter Orchidaceae, describing 587 species in 144 genera.