Charles Grenier

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Charles Grenier

Jean Charles Marie Grenier (born November 4, 1808 in Besançon , † November 9, 1875 in Besançon) was a French botanist . He was best known for his plant-geographical work on the French Jura and for his three-volume work (with Dominique Alexandre Godron ) Flore de France . Its botanical author abbreviation is “ Gren. "

Life

Charles Grenier lived in Besançon all his life, apart from traveling in the service of botany. So he was a " bisontine " (bisontiner), as the citizens of the city called themselves. Charles attended secondary school in Besançon, where he was apparently a brilliant student. He then enrolled at the medical ( university ) school ( Ėcole de médecine ) of Besançon. He acquired the title of Docteur-en-médecine there in 1836 .

He spent the summer of 1836 in the spa town of Eaux-Bonnes in the Pyrenees, where he met the herbalist Pierrine Gaston-Sacaze (1797-1893), with whom he began a pen friendship. Grenier never practiced as a doctor, but turned entirely to botany. In the following year he got the position of a provisional professor of natural history at the Ėcole de médecine de Besançon. Shortly afterwards he published his first botanical work in the Bulletin de la Societé Linnéenne de Bordeaux . Grenier wrote a dissertation on the subject of La geographie botanique du département du Doubs , which he submitted to the University of Strasbourg. There he received his doctorate in 1844 to docteur-ès-sciences .

Even before that, in 1843, his provisional professorship was converted into a permanent one. The old University of Franche-Comté in Besançon was expanded. The establishment of a faculty of (natural) sciences ( Faculté des sciences ) was decided. Grenier was appointed adjunct professor with the chair of natural history (Histoire naturelle) . With this appointment, the scientist was forever fixated on Franche-Comté; but this promotion encouraged him to continue working. He published the results of his botanical excursions without ceasing and developed the materials for his work Flore de France , which he was later to publish with Dominique Alexandre Godron. The » Flore « became an indispensable book for every botanist collecting plants in France.

In addition to the joint work with Godron, Grenier wrote a flora of the Jura chain mountains Flore de la Chaine jurassique . The book earned the author a silver medal from the Ministre de l'instruction publique.

In 1869 the government appointed him dean of the Faculté des Sciences , only 25 years after he entered the faculty.

However, a terrible disease began to develop that affected the scientist's work. So the new version of the Flore de France had to be interrupted. His attempt to meet his colleagues and students at a conference in Pontarlier in 1869 is described in touching words in the necrology.

Grenier was awarded the great gold medal by the Réunion des Societés savantes in 1872 for his complete work. For his services he was also made a Knight of the Legion of Honor ( Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur ).

The scholar lived another three years and died in his hometown in 1875.

family

Grenier's father was the baker Jean Baptiste Grenier (* 1769). In 1846 Charles Grenier married Alexis Emile Donalie Demesmay (1816-1885), daughter of Guy Étienne Donat Demesmay (1781-1760), a respected lawyer and conseiller at the court of Besançon, and sister of the sculptor and painter Camille Demesmay (1815-1890).

Works (selection)

Grenier wrote about the vegetation geography of the Jura Mountains and published together with Dominique Alexandre Godron (1807-1880) between 1847 and 1856 La Flore de France (Grenier & Godron) . Jean Auguste Celestin Étienne Ogérien, known by his religious name Frère Ogérien (1825–1869) commissioned him with the completion and revision of the botanical volume of the natural history of the Jura Mountains and the neighboring regions. Before his death in 1875, Grenier bequeathed his herbarium to the National Natural History Museum in Paris.

The International Plant Names Index attributes more than 500 plants to him, which he discovered, often together with Dominique Alexandre Godron.

Web links

Commons : Jean Charles Marie Grenier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography in the French Wikipedia: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grenier
  2. ↑ https://www.chu-besancon.fr/museum/museum_200710/histoire_faculte_medecine_besancon.htm
  3. ↑ first name? Poisson (Monsieur): Notice Nécrologique. Sur M. Grenier In Bulletin de la societé botanique de France , Vol. 23: 5 (1876), pp. 168-175. DOI 10.1080 / 00378941.1876.10825649
  4. ↑ Jean Charles Marie GRENIER at Geneanet
personal data
SURNAME Grenier, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grenier, Jean Charles Marie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French botanist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Besançon
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1875
Place of death Besançon