Career
In the late fifties, van Bruggen obtained from an aquarium-plant importer an Aponogeton species which he failed to be able to name using the existing literature. He concluded that it was a new species, unknown to science, and with the help of Hendrik de Wit he described the new species as Aponogeton rigidifolius H. Bruggen. In subsequent years he published a revision of the genus Aponogeton in several parts (organised geographically), culminating in his magnum opus, a complete monograph of this genus, which was well received in professional circles.
In total, van Bruggen described 13 new Aponogeton species.
Foreign health reasons, van Bruggen never travelled to the tropics himself, but based his studies on observations from others and both living and dried (herbarium) materials sent to him. Two Aponogeton species were named after van Bruggen: A. vanbruggenii C. B. Hellquist & South. West. L. Jacobs (Australia) and A. bruggenii South. R. Yadav & R. South. Govekar (India).
In addition, one orchid subspecies, Ophrys holosericea (Netherlands Burman) Greuter subsp. vanbruggeniana J. & L. Essink & Kreutz, was named after him, commemorating van Bruggen"s lifelong interest in this family.
