Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Jessen

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Jessen (15 September 1821, in Schleswig – 27 May 1889, in Berlin) was a German botanist.

He studied botany and natural sciences at the University of Kiel, where he obtained his doctorate in 1848.

He received his habilitation in Berlin in 1851, afterwards teaching classes at the University of Greifswald, and during the same time period, giving lectures at the agricultural college in Eldena.

Following closure of the Eldena agricultural college in 1877, he relocated to the University of Berlin as a professor of botany.

In addition to his own writings, he completed Georg August Pritzel's "Die deutschen Volksnamen der Pflanzen" (The German common names of plants, 1882–84).