Charles François Antoine Morren

Morren was born in Ghent and went to study in Brussels where he was a student of Abbé Van Brabant. He also attended the lectures of Adolphe Quetelet at the Athénée, as well as those by Dekin on natural history, Laisné on chemistry, Jean Kickx (1775-1831) and Pierre-Léonard Vander Linden. He taught physics at Ghent University 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 from 1835 to 1837, and full professor from 1837 to 1854.{{cite book |author=Ecrin, Fr. |url=https://academieroyale.be/Academie/documents/FichierPDFBiographieNationaleTome2057.pdf |title=Biographie Nationale. Moens - Noyer. 15 |year=1899 |pages=275-280 |chapter=Morren (Charles-Francois-Antoine)}}

Pollination of Vanilla orchids is required to make the plants produce the pods from which vanilla extract is obtained. In 1837, Morren was among the first to publish a method for artificial pollination of Vanilla,{{cite journal |last1=Morren |first1=C. |title=Note sur la première fructification du Vanillier en Europe |journal=Annales de la Société Royale d'Horticulture de Paris |date=1837 |volume=20 |pages=331–334 |url=http://bibliotheque-numerique.hortalia.org/items/viewer/216#page/n681/mode/1up |trans-title=Note on the first fruiting of vanilla in Europe |language=French }} Morren describes the process of artificially pollinating vanilla on p. 333: "En effet, aucun fruit n'a été produit que sur les cinquante-quatre fleurs auxquelles j'avais artificiellement communiqué le pollen. On enlève le tablier ou on le soulève, et on met en contact avec le stigmate une mass pollinique entière, ou seulement une partie de cette masse, car une seule de celles-ci, coupée en huit ou dix pièces, peut féconder autant de fleurs." (In effect, fruit has been produced only on fifty-four flowers to which I artificially communicated pollen. One removes the labellum or one raises it, and one places in contact with the stigma a complete mass of pollen [i.e., pollinium], or just a part of that mass, for just one of these, cut into eight or ten pieces, can fertilize as many flowers.) {{Cite web |url=http://www.hortalia.org/viewer/show/216 |title=Annales de la Société royale d\'horticulture de Paris, et journal spécial de l\'état et des progrès du jardinage. Année 1837 |access-date=2016-09-08 |archive-date=2016-08-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160825231127/http://www.hortalia.org/viewer/show/216 |url-status=bot: unknown }}{{Cite journal |last=Morren |first=Charles |date=1839 |title=On the Production of Vanilla in Europe |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3387866 |journal=Annals and Magazine of Natural History |language=en |volume=3 |issue=14 |pages=1–9 |doi=10.1080/03745483909443189 |issn=0374-5481}} but his method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841, Edmond Albius, 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 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.

Morren was an early promoter of Bordeaux mixture as a fungicide for crops.{{Cite journal |last=Johnson |first=George Fiske |date=1935 |title=The Early History of Copper Fungicides |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3739659 |journal=Agricultural History |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=67–79 |issn=0002-1482}}

Morren also coined the term phenology,{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1007/s00484-011-0442-5|pmid = 21713602|title = From "Periodical Observations" to "Anthochronology" and "Phenology" – the scientific debate between Adolphe Quetelet and Charles Morren on the origin of the word "Phenology"|journal = International Journal of Biometeorology|volume = 55|issue = 6|pages = 753–761|year = 2011|last1 = Demarée|first1 = Gaston R|last2 = Rutishauser|first2 = This|bibcode = 2011IJBm...55..753D|s2cid = 1486224|url = https://boris.unibe.ch/9252/8/484_2011_Article_442.pdf|access-date = 2019-09-17|archive-date = 2020-12-04|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201204080856/https://boris.unibe.ch/9252/8/484_2011_Article_442.pdf|url-status = dead}} which refers to the scientific discipline that studies the seasonal cycles of animals and plants. Quetelet had established a network to observe plant flowering (referred to as anthochronology following Carl Joseph Kreutzer) but Morren was critical of the methodology and critiqued the vagueness of the "period of plant flowering", arguing on the subject for over a decade.{{Cite journal |last=Demarée |first=Gaston R. |last2=Rutishauser |first2=This |date=2011 |title=From “Periodical Observations” to “Anthochronology” and “Phenology” – the scientific debate between Adolphe Quetelet and Charles Morren on the origin of the word “Phenology” |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00484-011-0442-5 |journal=International Journal of Biometeorology |language=en |volume=55 |issue=6 |pages=753–761 |doi=10.1007/s00484-011-0442-5 |issn=0020-7128}} Morren first used the term phenology on 16 December 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”).{{Cite journal |last=Demarée |first=Gaston R. |last2=Rutishauser |first2=This |date=2009 |title=Origins of the Word “Phenology” |url=https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009EO340004 |journal=Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union |language=en |volume=90 |issue=34 |pages=291–291 |doi=10.1029/2009EO340004 |issn=0096-3941}} He created the term from the Greek roots φαίνω, meaning to show, to bring to light, make to appear, and λόγος, meaning study.{{Citation |last=Scheifinger |first=Helfried |title=Plant Phenology of the European Alps |date=2021-05-26 |work=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science |url=https://oxfordre.com/climatescience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-807 |access-date=2025-01-17 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.807 |isbn=978-0-19-022862-0}} This paper describes an exceptionally warm winter when plants exhibited unusually phenological patterns.

When he died in 1858, his position was taken over by his son Charles Jacques Édouard Morren.{{Cite journal |date=1886 |title=Professor Edward Morren |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/033447b0 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=33 |issue=854 |pages=447–448 |doi=10.1038/033447b0 |issn=0028-0836|doi-access=free }} Morren and his son produced the journal La Belgique Horticole (35 volumes, 1851–1885).

This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation C.Morren when citing a botanical name.{{cite book|last = Brummitt|first = R. K.|author2=C. E. Powell|title = Authors of Plant Names |publisher = Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |year = 1992 |isbn = 978-1-84246-085-6}}

• 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.

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Demarée, G.R and T. Rutishauser. 2009. Origins of the word “phenology”. Eos 90(34): 4.

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Category:Botanists with author abbreviations

Category:19th-century Belgian botanists

Category:Belgian horticulturists

Category:1807 births

Category:1858 deaths

Category:Academic staff of Ghent University