Wilhelm Nikolaus Suksdorf (September 15, 1850 – October 3, 1932) was an American botanist who specialized in the flora of the Pacific Northwest.

[1] Suksdorf was born on September 15, 1850, in the small village of Dransau, along the eastern border of Schleswig, but it is often listed as the nearby large city of Kiel, Germany.

Two of his brothers took botany classes at Iowa State University and Suksdorf watched them prepare specimens.

From 1874 to 1876 Suksdorf began studying agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley but then left, apparently because of finances, shyness, health, and because his German was better than his English.

[2] In 1876 Suksdorf moved to join the rest of his family in White Salmon, Washington, where the two elder brothers had bought 320 acres of land.

Gray had never been to the Pacific Northwest and relied on collectors to send him specimens for the book on the flora of North America that he was working on.

[5] Suksdorf was "shy, retiring, modest, and unsure of himself",[2] and Gray's encouragement was a key factor in keeping him motivated in collecting and studying plants.

[6] Another result of this collaboration was that in 1882, Suksdorf published the first of 13 volumes of the exsiccata-like specimen series Flora of Washington.

[7] Suksdorf continued to live in Bingen, Washington, a village his brothers founded, and remained there for 56 years.

[1] Suksdorf used his own names and shorthand for many local land features, making it difficult for fellow botanists to figure out which places he was talking about; until it was nearly entirely deciphered and published in 1942 in a master's thesis by William Alfred Weber, then a student at Washington State University.

Suksdorf eventually collected over 150,000 specimens, including all or practically all the plants native to his home region in southwest Washington.

All three corresponded with one another, and they had to rely on academics to help identify and name specimens and at times would get frustrated with the delays; Gray generally responded more promptly than the others.

He only left home for brief trips thereafter and lived with his brothers, one of which gave him four acres of land and a small house that still stands.

[4] After Gray's death, Suksdorf developed working relationships with academics in the Pacific Northwest, including Edward Lee Greene of the University of California.

In an 1895 letter to Suksdorf, Greene wrote: "You are so careful an observer, and so excellent a collector, that I just wish you could be taught to study books and papers and get a little clearer botanical head.

... Gray knew nothing about the plants [in this case genus Mimulus] and so in his [Synoptical Flora] he copied Bentham's jumble in the Prodromus; and you are content with anything; ... you are not the only one who wants to swim by some authority whom nobody shall criticize ...

Suksdorf's working relationship with the Harvard botanists steadily worsened and about 1900–1905 he had begun naming his own species.

[16] Suksdorf summed up the issue this way: "A collector sees the plants in the field and mostly many of each kind he collects, but his notes or remarks are seldom considered of importance.

[18] Suksdorf felt limited when using English, so most of his published writings from 1897 to 1923 appeared in German and Austrian journals.

Suksdorf had many conflicts with fellow botanists over the "International Rule", so in the 1920s he founded his own journal, Werdenda, which was published four times between 1923 and 1932.

One of Suksdorf's brothers, Theodor, tried to sell his books and herbarium to raise funds for medical and funeral expenses, totaling $1,142.27.

Theodor and Pickett both hired lawyers since Suksdorf's will had left the herbarium to Washington State University.