A biobibliographical sketch of a naturalist turned rhodologist: François Crépin (1830-1903)

Samenvatting

Born in Rochefort, in the Belgian Ardennes, François Crépin (1830-1903) soon developed a taste for wild plants, yet he never received a formal training in botany. By the late 1850s, still without a job but living with his parents, the ambitious naturalist had built a large network of correspondents that included botanists in Belgium and abroad. His Manuel de la flore de Belgique, published in 1860, was an immediate and lasting success and yielded him a job as a teacher and a place in the inner circles of Belgian field botany. In the decades following its creation, in 1862, he dominated the Société royale de Botanique de Belgique and wrote numerous book reviews and papers on the flora and biogeography of Belgium. In the late 1860s, his career took a turn: he embraced the idea of evolution and started work on a world monograph of the genus Rosawhich unfortunately remained unfinished. Although rhodologists had described thousands of species, Crépin arrived at a natural classification that included no more than ca. 60 species. Before becoming director of the State Botanic Garden in Brussels, in 1876, he also did research on paleobotany.