"[1] Largely self-taught he was the first to study and establish alternation of generations and the details of sexual reproduction in the bryophytes.

He left vocational high school (Realschule) at the age of 15 and was apprenticed in a bookshop in Hamburg by an acquaintance of his father.

[5][6][7] Hofmeister is widely credited with discovery of alternation of generations as a general principle in plant life.

[3] This discovery and unifying principle of plant reproduction occurred eight years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.

There is good evidence that Gregor Mendel was aware of Hofmeister's work and this was part of his motivation to study plant hybridisation.

They contained very detailed descriptions and illustrations from microscopic study of plant cell structure and internal organisation.

Charles Darwin referred to Hofmeister's studies extensively in his own book The Power of Movement in Plants (1880).