The plaque was unveiled on 15 September 2010 on the occasion of the 12th conference organised by the Czech Society of Experimental Plant Biology from 14 to 17 September 2010. The commemorative black marble plaque with the bust of Bohumil Němec is the work of sculptor Jindřich Zeithammel and bears the inscription:
BOHUMIL NĚMEC / 1873–1966 / CZECH PLANT / BIOLOGIST OF WORLD / RENOWN ° RECTOR / OF CHARLES UNIVERSITY / AND FOUNDER OF THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE.
Bohumil Němec is one of the important figures of biological sciences - he studied natural sciences under František Vejdovský, in 1899 he habilitated at the Faculty of Arts of Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague with his contribution to the physiology and anatomy of the cell. A few years earlier, he had been appointed assistant at the Botanical Institute of the Czech University under Ladislav Čelakovský. From 1903 he headed the Institute of Plant Physiology and in 1907 he became the youngest tenured professor. He was one of those who in 1908 initiated the division of the Faculty of Philosophy: the philological-historical branch and that of mathematical-natural sciences. Later, already as its dean (1919) and a member of the National Assembly of the independent republic, he worked to establish the natural sciences as a separate faculty, which has been announced on 24 June 1920. In 1921-1922 he was the rector of Charles University and in 1953 he was appointed academician of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The first lectures on genetics were held in his institute.
His research and popularization work is invaluable. He became known as the founder of Czech plant anatomy, physiology and experimental cytology. In particular, he worked on the extrapolation of methodologies and experimental interventions applied to zoological objects. He gained worldwide fame by his statolith theory, which found in the localization of starch grains in root cells a signal of geotropism, the orientation of growth and bending of the root under the influence of the earth’s gravity (1900). He was also the first to experimentally induce polyploidy, i.e. the multiplication of the chromosomal set of the cell nucleus by the action of chemical substances (1904).
Němec’s discovery of the accumulation of gold in plants and the so-called Němec effect - the discovery of the change of pollen grains into germ sacs in the hyacinth - became a sensation. As a populariser of science, he worked from 1910 to 1914 on the editorial staff of the magazine Živa, and in 1923 he re-established the popular science magazine Vesmír (Cosmos), which he edited and co-authored more than 20 editions (1923-1944). His own publishing activity was also very extensive.
Bohumil Němec was been politically involved from his youth. During the war he was a member of the Maffia, the main organ of the domestic resistance during World War I. Later he also served as MP (1918-1920) and senator (1920-1929) for the National Democracy, and in 1935 he ran for President of the Republic after Masaryk’s abdication. It should not be forgotten that he fell out of favor between 1945 and 1953 because of his interwar political involvement.
Svatoš, M. a kol. 100 let Přírodovědecké fakulty UK: 1920-2020. [Praha] 2020, s. 14–17.
Přírodovědecká fakulta Univerzity Karlovy 1920-1998. Praha 1998, s. 9–21, 41.
Němec, B. et al. Vzpomínky. Praha 2020.
Krekule, J.: Odhalení pamětní desky Bohumilu Němcovi. Živa 5/2010, s. LXX.
Další zdroje – heuristika (osobní data a badatelský odkaz):
MÚA AVČR, v.v.i. (vědecká pozůstalost), Památník národního písemnictví (Literární pozůstalost).
