Nathaniel Wallich (1786 – 1854) was a Danish botanist and surgeon. Nathaniel Wallich obtained the diploma of the Royal Academy of Surgeons at Copenhagen in 1807 and was also stuying botany. In the same year he sailed to India and became a surgeon in the Danish settlement at Serampore (former Frederiksnagore) in Bengal near Calcutta. As Danish settlements has been seized by the British, beacause of the Danish alliance with Napoleonic France, Nathaniel Wallich was imprisoned. He has been released in 1809 and became an assistant surgeon in the East India Company. Later on he has been appointed assistant to William Roxburgh, the East India Company’s botanist in Calcutta. As he has been temporarily appointed as superintendent of the Botanical Garden at Calcutta, he joined the botanical Garden in 1817 and served it until his retirement in 1846.

Wallich was also responsible for packing the specimens, that had been collected and had one of the best records for keeping plant material alive, while shipped. He published several books on plants,
the most well-known are Tentamen Florae Nepalensis Illustratae and Plantae Asiaticae Rariores.
Nathaniel Wallich died at the 28 April 1854 in London at the age of 68.
His author abbreviation is: Wall.