Dimitrie Grecescu (June 15, 1841 – October 2, 1910) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

n botanist, physician and historiographer of science. Born in Cerneți,

Mehedinți County Mehedinți County () is a county ( ro, județ) of Romania on the border with Serbia and Bulgaria. It is mostly located in the historical province of Oltenia, with one municipality ( Orșova) and three communes ( Dubova, Eșelnița, and Svinița) ...

, he attended school in his native village and then in nearby Turnu Severin. He then studied at the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north ...

from 1856 to 1863. With a recommendation from Carol Davila, Grecescu continued his studies in France, earning a doctorate in medicine and surgery from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

in 1868. His thesis, which dealt with the favid-causing '' Trichophyton'' fungi, was supervised by Charles-Philippe Robin. For the 1862–1863 school year, he was honorific professor of botany, physics and cosmography, and in 1867, following the death of Ulrich Hoffmann, he became substitute professor of botany at his Bucharest alma mater. He became director of the Bucharest Botanical Garden in 1866, serving until 1874.Grădina Botanică
at the University of Bucharest site In 1868, he rose to full professor of medical botany. He taught pharmacy at the university level from 1869 to 1895, and was a professor at the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princ ...

's medical faculty from 1876 to 1903. Elected a corresponding member of the

Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its by ...

in 1898, he rose to titular status in 1907. He belonged to the Moscow Society of Naturalists, the Académie Internationale de Géographie Botanique in Paris and the Société nationale des sciences naturelles et mathématiques de Cherbourg. In 1878, he became a founding member of the Bucharest Society of Medical Sciences.Ion Văduva-Poenaru, ''Enciclopedia marilor personalități'', pp. 56–7. Bucharest: Editura Geneze, 2000. Grecescu was among the founders of research into floristics and phytogeography in Romania. He compiled a detailed inventory of Romania's flora, published in 1898 as ''Conspectul Florei României''. The book includes 2450 species and 550 varieties, with precise details as to geographic range, growth conditions and popular names; the morpho-physiological descriptions are completed by pedoclimatic notes. In the same text, he introduced innovations into the de Candolle system, as well as now-obsolete contributions to botanical taxonomy. He intensively explored certain natural reservations in Romania, publishing books about flora and vegetation in the

Bucegi Mountains The Bucegi Mountains (Romanian: ''Munții Bucegi'' ) are located in central Romania, south of the city of Brașov. They are part of the Southern Carpathians group of the Carpathian Mountains. At , '' Omu'' is its highest point. To the east, the ...

(1869, 1876); the surroundings of

Agapia Agapia is a commune in Neamț County, Western Moldavia, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Agapia, Filioara, Săcălușești and Văratec. At the 2002 census, 100% of inhabitants were ethnic Romanians, and 99.2% were Romanian Orthodox. The ...

, Văratec and Neamț monasteries (1879); the Gorj and Argeș Mountains (1895); the

Suceava Suceava () is the largest urban settlement and the seat town ( ro, oraș reședință de județ) of Suceava County, situated in the historical region of Bukovina, northeastern Romania, and at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe. Klaus Pet ...

Massifs (1895); and the Ceahlău Massif (1906). He was also interested in the vegetation of

Macedonia Macedonia most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...

, in 1899 becoming the second Romanian to study the Balkans from a phytogeographical perspective. He authored studies on the history of botany and on medical botany. As a thinker on biological phenomena, Grecescu was an adherent of the Pasteurian theory on the genesis of organisms, rejecting the notion of

spontaneous generation Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise f ...

. Regarding evolution, he was strongly influenced by the then-current ideas of

Lamarckism Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

and opposed to the creationist paradigm. As director of the botanical garden, he contributed to its organization and systematization along scientific lines, and also intensified exchanges with foreign colleagues. He put together two valuable herbaria, one for the flora of Romania and another covering Europe. Along with the building of the botanical institute, these were destroyed in the April 1944 bombing of Bucharest.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grecescu, Dimitrie 1841 births 1910 deaths People from Mehedinți County University of Bucharest alumni Academic staff of the University of Bucharest Romanian botanists 19th-century Romanian physicians Phytogeographers Titular members of the Romanian Academy