Charles Franois Antoine Morren

Vocation

Notable

Family

Belgian botanist and horticulturist, and Director of the Jardin botanique de l’Université de Liège (Botanical gardens at Liege University). Morren discovered that the vanilla flower is pollinated by the social and stingless Melipone bee, which occurs only in Mexico, obviating natural pollination in other countries. Hernán Cortés brought vanilla to Europe, but for more than 300 years the pollination mechanism remained a mystery. Morren was the first to discover a method for artificial pollination, which made it possible to cultivate vanilla in the French colonies. He was the father of Charles Jacques Édouard Morren. Morren and his son produced the journal La Belgique horticole, journal des jardins et des vergers. A total of 35 volumes were published between 1851 and 1885. Morren also coined the term phenology, which refers to the scientific discipline that studies the seasonal cycles of animals and plants. Morren first used the term phenology in 1849 during a public lecture at the Academy of Brussels. The first use of the term phenology in a scientific paper dates back to 1853 when Morren published Souvenirs phénologiques de l’hiver 1852-1853 (Phenological memories of the winter 1852-1853). This paper describes an exceptionally warm winter when plants exhibited unusually phenological patterns. He died on 17 December 1858 in Liège, aged 51. Link to Wikipedia biography