Born Sept. 24 (Oct. 6), 1803, in Kiev; died July 6 (18), 1890, in Kiltsi, now Rakvere Raion, Estonian SSR. Russian flower taxonomist.
In 1825, Bunge graduated from the University of Derpt (now Tartu). He was a professor at the universities of Kazan (1833-36) and Derpt (1836-67). Bunge studied the flora of Altai. In the years 1830-32 he traveled in Mongolia and China. In the years 1857-59 he participated in the expeditions of the Russian Geographical Society to Persia. From 1867 he processed material he had collected. He wrote a monograph on the taxonomy of a number of genera of flowering plants, and he described many new species. Bunge was one of the founders of the geographical-morphological method in plant taxonomy.