Scienceאורי פרגמן-ספיר

Ori Fragman

Ori Fragman-Sapir is an Israeli botanist who has served as scientific director of the university botanical garden at Givat Ram, Jerusalem, since 2001.

born 1965Jerusalem botanical garden scientific directorIsrael's rare plants surveyDescribing new garlic speciesThe Flora of Israel website

Occupation: botanist, biologist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ori Fragman was born in 1965 in Tel Aviv

Ori Fragman-Sapir was born in 1965 in Tel Aviv and grew up there. He studied under the botanists Avishai Shmida, Chaim Kigel and Avinoam Danin.

In 1987 he began studying biology, with tracks in botany and ecology, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1990 and completed a direct doctoral track in 2003, with a thesis on resource allocation in geophytes. He then did postdoctoral research in Mainz, Germany, on the genetics of populations of an iris species.

From 1987 to 1991 he was a research assistant to Avi Shmida, and from 1992 to 1999 he managed Israel's rare plants survey. This work led to the Red Book of endangered plants in Israel, which he wrote with Shmida and Gadi Pollak. He also guided botanical tours and built a photo collection of more than 200,000 images of Middle East plants.

Since 2001 he has been scientific director of the botanical garden at Givat Ram, and since 2016 he has edited the Flora of Israel website. He has published more than 150 papers and 16 books. He described species new to science, including several Israeli garlic species and a poppy from the Caucasus.