Career
Harms worked as a botanist at the Botanical Museum in Berlin. He was longtime editor of Adolf Engler"s "Das Pflanzenreich". He was the author of several chapters on various plant families in Engler and Prantl"s Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, including the chapter on Bromeliaceae (1930).
In 1938 he revised the pitcher plant genus Nepenthes, dividing it into three subgenera: Anurosperma, Eunepenthes and Mesonepenthes.
In addition, he was interested in the genus Passiflora. The plant genus Harmsia (Schum) from the family Malvaceae is named after him.