Helmut Gams (1893–1976) was a central European botanist.
Born in Brno, he moved to Zürich as a child.
He studied at the University of Zurich, being awarded a PhD in 1918.
He was a geobotanist who specialized in the associations of different species of mosses and lichens with each other and the environment.
[1][2] Gams coined the terms 'biocoenology' and 'phytocoenology' in his 1918 PhD thesis.