Michael Zohary

Michael Zohary (Hebrew: מיכאל זהרי‎‎) (born 1898 Michael Schein in Bóbrka, Galicia (Austria-Hungary); died 16 April 1983 in Israel) was a pioneering Israeli botanist.

Born into a Jewish family in Bóbrka, near Lviv (then Austria-Hungarian Empire), he immigrated to the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920. After working building roads, he attended the Teacher's Seminary in Jerusalem. He published the monumental Geobotanical Foundations of the Middle East. He was responsible for introduction of the important principle of antiteleochory which adumbrated that seed germination of the desert plant is ensured by dispersal near the parent plant. His research covered a wide section of the Middle East and led to his publishing more than 100 papers and books on the flora of the area. His son Daniel Zohary (b 1926) is also a highly published botanist specializing in prehistoric plant domestication.

In 1931, Alexander Eig founded the National Botanic Garden of Israel on Mount Scopus, together with Michael Zohary and Naomi Feinbrun-Dothan.

In 1952 he was appointed professor of botany at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Shortly before his death he published the comprehensive Plants of the Bible.

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