Florian Porcius, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetFlorian Porcius
Date of Birth: 28-Aug-1816
Place of Birth: Rodna, Bistrița-Năsăud County, Romania
Date of Death: 30-May-1906
Profession: botanist
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Florian Porcius
- Florian Porcius (August 28 [O.S.
- August 16] 1816–May 30 [O.S.
- May 17] 1906) was an Austro-Hungarian ethnic Romanian botanist and administrator. Born in Rodna, a village in Transylvania's Bistri?a-Nasaud County, he came from a poor peasant family, and his parents were Precup ?teopan and his wife Ioana.
- He was raised by his grandfather, the priest Gherasim Porcu (Latinized as Porcius), whose name he took by adoption.
- In 1824, he entered the primary school in Rodna, for miners' sons, where he began to pick up the German and Hungarian languages.
- From 1827 to 1831, he attended the German-language military normal school in Nasaud, followed by the high schools in Blaj and Cluj from 1833 to 1836.In 1836, Porcius was named a schoolteacher in his native village.
- In 1844, Porcius he a scholarship from the Military Frontier fund allowing him to study at the Vienna pedagogical institute for two years; while there, he audited courses on botany.
- After returning home, he began teaching in Zagra in 1847 and in Nasaud the following year.
- After the Transylvanian Revolution of 1848, he occupied various administrative posts, up to that of deputy prefect (vice-captain) of the Nasaud district, until retiring in 1877.
- A defender of Transylvanian Romanians' rights, he obtained an audience with Emperor Ferdinand I in 1848, causing him to be arrested and deported to Cluj for a year.Although Porcius was involved in botany as a passionate amateur, his work was acknowledged by the scientific authorities of the empire.
- For over sixty years, he explored the Rodna Mountains, methodically studying their flora and discovering several endemic species, of which two bear his name.
- These are Centaurea carpatica, Lychnis nivalis, Heracleum carpaticum, Pulmonaria dacica, Festuca porcii and Saussurea porcii.
- He maintained close contact with leading botanists of Central Europe as well as from the Romanian Old Kingdom.
- He collaborated with Dimitrie Brândza on Flora Dobrogei, and was tasked with specifying the nomenclature and synonyms, as well as compiling cross-references.Porcius was among the most prominent originators of Romanian botanical terminology.
- A manuscript of his, kept in the Romanian Academy Library and titled Explicarea termenilor botanici, care se folosesc în opurile botanice la descrierea plantelor fanerogame ?i criptogame vasculare.
- Cu îndrumarile ?i anexele necesare pentru determinarea genurilor ?i familiilor naturale care provin din Europa medie, played a crucial role in this process.
- His most important publication, from 1868, is Enumeratio plantarum phanerogamicarum districtus quondam Naszondensis; as was customary at the time, it is written in Latin.
- A Romanian variant appeared in 1881 as Diagnozele plantelor fanerogame ?i cryptogame vasculare, care provin spontaneu din Transilvania.
- This was followed in 1893 by Diagnoza plantelor fanerogame ?i cryptogame vasculare care cresc spontaneu în Transilvania ?i nu sunt descrise în opul lui Koch: Synopsis Florae Germanicae et Helveticae.
- He was elected a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1882; this was due to his scientific merits as well as his status as the most important Romanian botanist in Transylvania during the Austro-Hungarian period.
- He died in Rodna.The standard author abbreviation Porcius is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
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