Charles François Antoine Morren (3 March 1807 in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

– 17 December 1858 in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

), was a Belgian botanist and horticulturist, and Director of the ''Jardin botanique de l’Université de

''. Morren taught physics at

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...

between 1831 and 1835. At the same time he studied medicine and graduated in 1835. He became Professor extraordinarius of botany at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

from 1835 to 1837, and full professor from 1837 to 1854. Morren discovered that the

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

flower is pollinated by the social and stingless Melipone bee, which occurs only in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, obviating natural pollination in other countries.

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

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. Pollination of vanilla pods is required to make the plants produce the fruit from which the vanilla spice is obtained. In 1837, Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841,

Edmond Albius Edmond Albius (1829 – 9 August 1880) was a horticulturalist from Réunion. Born into slavery, Albius became an important figure in the cultivation of vanilla. At the age of 12, he invented a technique for pollinating vanilla orchids quickly and ...

, a 12-year-old slave who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered that the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant. Noted French botanist and plant collector

Jean Michel Claude Richard Jean Michel Claude Richard (16 August 1787 – 1868) was a noted French botanist and plant collector active in Senegal, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Réunion, and a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. Richard was born in Volon, Haute-Saône. He was ...

falsely claimed to have discovered the technique three or four years earlier, but by the end of the 20th century, Albius was considered the true discoverer. He was the father of Charles Jacques Édouard Morren. Morren and his son produced the journal ''

La Belgique Horticole ''La Belgique Horticole'' ("Horticultural Belgium") was an illustrated horticultural review published in Liège, Belgium, from 1851 to 1885. For the first four years it was edited by Charles Morren, director of the Botanical Garden of Liège. Fr ...

'' (35 volumes, 1851–1885). Morren also coined the term

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality, seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as environmental factor, habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples includ ...

, 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. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation C.Morren when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the '' International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the ''Intern ...

Publications

*Morren, C. (1838). ''Recherches sur le mouvement et l'anatomie du Stylidium graminifolium''. Mem. Acad. Roy. Scien. et belles lett., Brux. * Morren, C. (1853) Souvenirs phénologiques de l'hiver 1852–1853. Bulletin de l'Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Tome XX, 1e partie, pp. 160–186.

References

Demarée, G.R and T. Rutishauser. 2009. Origins of the word “phenology”. Eos 90(34): 4. {{DEFAULTSORT:Morren, Charles Francois Antoine Botanists with author abbreviations 19th-century Belgian botanists Belgian horticulturists 1807 births 1858 deaths Ghent University faculty