Wilhelm Christian August Heering (6 September 1876, Altona – 26 May 1916, Verdun) was a German botanist.
He studied natural sciences at the universities of Munich, Halle and Kiel, receiving his doctorate in 1899. While a student, he began expansion of a herbarium that was formerly maintained by apothecary Johann Jacob Meyer from 1812 to 1834. The herbarium is now kept at the botanical institute of the University of Hamburg.[1]
Beginning in 1899 he focused on studies of freshwater algae, providing information on a wide variety of algae found in the Eppendorfer Moor. In 1902 he began teaching classes at a secondary school in Ottensen, and in 1909 became associated with the Schleswig-Holstein provincial office for nature conservation. From 1911 he worked as a research assistant at the Botanical State Institute in Hamburg, during which time he also conducted lectures at the Colonial Institute. While serving as a deputy officer in World War I, he died on the Western Front in May 1916.[1]
As a taxonomist he circumscribed numerous species within the botanical genus Baccharis.[2]