August Max Einsele was a doctor and botanist and a friend of the Murnau painter and German Roman Johann Michael Wittmer, who painted a portrait of him in 1824. He lived with his father, who was a country doctor in Murnau, in the Weghaus estate near Murnau from 1814, where he also went to school for a few years. In 1825, Einsele received his doctorate in surgery. At the same time, he was very interested in botany. His later career oscillated between these two fields of interest. At the beginning of his career, he practiced as a doctor in Partenkirchen and Mittenwald and later worked as a forensic doctor in Starnberg and Füssen. In 1842, he was the director of the Landshut hospital and worked as a professor at the Landshut Barber School. After the school was closed, Einsele moved to the Botanical State Collection in Munich. During his work there, he tried in vain to become a professor of botany. He became known, among other things, through his research into the Alpine flora. A small-flowered columbine (Aquilegia einseleana) and a mountain mint (Calamintha einseleana) are named after him. Botany soon became insufficient for him and so he turned back to medicine. In Tegernsee he met the painter Theres Weber, who painted a herbarium for the plants he had collected. In 1861 he returned to Murnau, which became his retirement home. Einsele's diary entries not only report on his hikes, mountain tours and excursions, but also occasionally give information about his friend Johann Michael Wittmer. Works and commissions are mentioned, as is Wittmer's audience with King Ludwig I. The entries begin on October 23, 1823, when Einsele took a trip on the Staffelsee with Wittmer and another friend.