Joseph Georg Beer (1803–73)

Austrian botanist. Worked in the family clothing business until 1843, when he began to devote himself to botany full time. Studied orchids and bromeliads and later the cultivation of fruit trees. General secretary of the kaiserlich-königliche Gartenbau-Gesellschaft of Vienna, 1859–66. Government representative to horticultural exhibitions in Paris, 1867, and Hamburg, 1869. Member of the government committee for the world horticultural exhibition in Vienna, 1873.