Lafayette Frederick (9 March 1923 - 29 December 2018) was an American plant pathologist, mycologist, and specialist in myxomycete ecology and systematics.

[1] Frederick was born in Dog Bog, a rural town near Friars Point, Mississippi.

[2] In 1943, Frederick earned his bachelor's degree at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

He earned his PhD at Washington State University under Charles Gardner Shaw [es].

[5] Harold St. John named the species Cyrtandra frederickii in his honor.