Radlkofer became a physician in 1854 and earned a PhD in botany at Jena the following year.
He became an associate professor of botany at the University of Munich in 1859 as well as deputy director of the Nymphenburg Palace botanical garden and herbarium.
He was made emeritus professor in 1913 and died in 1927 in the same room in which he was born.
Radlkofer's main work was on the family Sapindaceae.
The South African flower Greyia radlkoferi is named for him, as are the South American based genera of Radlkoferotoma,[1] and Radlkofera, a monotypic genus of flowering plants from Africa belonging to the family Sapindaceae.