Peter Thonning

Peter Thonning (9 October 1775 – 29 January 1848) was a Danish physician and botanist.

Thonning had begun systematizing his botanical collections but his herbarium was destroyed during the shelling of Copenhagen by the British in 1807.

Only the duplicates and manuscripts in the possession of Heinrich Christian Friedrich Schumacher (1757–1830) survived.

Today, around 1,050 samples are preserved at the University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden.

In 1829, he joined the Executive Board of the Natural History Museum of Denmark and held this position until his death.