German physician and botanist (1834–1922).
Wilhelm Olbers Focke (5 April 1834, Bremen – 29 September 1922, Bremen) was a medical doctor and botanist who in 1881 published a significant work on plant breeding entitled Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge, Ein Beitrag zur Biologie der Gewächse (The plant hybrids, a contribution to the biology of plants) which briefly mentioned Gregor Mendel's discoveries on hybridization. Although Charles Darwin had a copy of Focke's book he passed it along to a colleague apparently without reading this particular section. The rediscovery of Mendel's work is generally considered to have taken place in the first years