George Karsten (3 November 1863 – 7 May 1937) was a German botanist born in Rostock.
Later on, he served as an associate professor at the Universities of Kiel (1898) and Bonn (from 1899).
In 1909 he became a professor at the University of Halle and was appointed director of the botanical garden.
With Heinrich Schenck (1860–1927), he was editor of a popular journal of botany called Vegetationsbilder.
[1] Karsten is remembered for his studies of phytoplankton, and among his written works are publications on phytoplankton collected from the deep-sea Valdivia Expedition of 1898–99: