摘要：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 Rosa which 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.
关键词：François Crépin; botany; rhodology; genus Rosa
