Boris Konstantinovich Schischkin (born 1886 in

Kukarka Sovetsk (), formerly Kukarka (; ), is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Sovetsky District, Kirov Oblast, Sovetsky District in Kirov Oblast, Russia. Population: Etymology The origins of the name " ...

; died 21 March 1963 in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) was a Russian botanist and from 1943 corresponding member of the

Academy of Sciences of the USSR The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

. His name was , with his surname sometimes transliterated as Shishkin.

Life and Works

In 1911 Schischkin graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of

Tomsk State University The National Research Tomsk State University, TSU () is a public research university located in Tomsk, Russia. The university, which opened in 1888, was the first university in the Asian part of Russia and, in practice, the first Russian univ ...

and from 1913 to 1915 he taught there. Between 1915 and 1918 he worked as a military medical officer. From 1918 to 1925 he headed the botanical section of the Caucasian Museum in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი, ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), ( ka, ტფილისი, tr ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia ( ...

. Schischkin edited some

exsiccata Exsiccata (Latin, ''gen.'' -ae, ''plur.'' -ae) is a work with "published, uniform, numbered set of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels". Typically, exsiccatae are numbered collections of dried herbarium Biological specimen, spe ...

series.Triebel, D. & Scholz, P. 2001–2024 ''IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae''. – Botanische Staatssammlung München: http://indexs.botanischestaatssammlung.de. – München, Germany. Together with

Alexander Alfonsovich Grossheim Alexander Alfonsovich Grossheim (6 March 1888 – 4 December 1948) was a Soviet botanist of German descent. He traveled widely over the Caucasus region collecting and studying various different plant life. He is most known for Pteridophytes and ...

he published and distributed the exsiccata ''Plantae orientales exsiccatae'' (1924-1928). From 1925 to 1930 he was professor at the Tomsk State University, where he held a chair of

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

and

plant systematics The history of plant systematics—the biological classification of plants—stretches from the work of ancient Greek to modern evolutionary biologists. As a field of science, plant systematics came into being only slowly, early plant lore usuall ...

. From 1930 he worked in the

Komarov Botanical Institute The Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences () is a leading botanical institution in Russia, It is located on Aptekarsky Island in St. Petersburg, and is named after the Russian botanist Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov (1869– ...

of the

(from 1938 to 1949 as director) and from 1945 to 1958 also as professor at

Leningrad University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public university, public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the uni ...

. From 1946 to 1963 he was vice-president of the Botanical Society of the USSR. Shishkin's

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

included more than thirty thousand samples, the majority of which are held in Tomsk. His main work was concerned with the classification of flowering plants (especially from the families

Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family (biology), family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranth ...

Umbelliferae Apiaceae () or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus '' Apium,'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering ...

and

Compositae Asteraceae () is a large family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger fa ...

) and plant geography (Siberia, Transcaucasia). He was the organizer and editor of numerous joint works, including ''The Flora of the USSR'' (), ''The Flora of the Byelorussian SSR'' (), ''the Flora of the Leningrad Oblast ('' ) and ''the Flora of Turkmenistan'' (). He was a regional adviser for the Soviet Union on the

Flora Europaea The ''Flora Europaea'' is a 5-volume encyclopedia of plants, published between 1964 and 1993 by Cambridge University Press. The aim was to describe all the national Floras of Europe in a single, authoritative publication to help readers identify ...

project. Another significant works of the 1900s was 'Flora Rossiae Austro-orientalis' (1927-1936, index in 1938) by

Boris Fedtschenko Boris Alexeevich Fedtschenko (27 December 1872 – 29 September 1947) was a Russian plant pathologist and botanist. He is primarily known for his work on various regions of Russia, especially the Caucasus, Siberia and Asiatic Russia. He was ...

and Schischkin.David G. Frodin

Honours

Shishkin was awarded the

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize () was one of the Soviet Union’s highest civilian honours, awarded from its establishment in September 1966 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It recognised outstanding contributions in the fields of science, mathem ...

(1952), the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

and other medals. He was an honorary member of the

Société Botanique de France The Société botanique de France (SBF) is a French learned society founded on 23 April 1854. At its inaugural meeting it stated its purpose as "to contribute to the progress of botany and related sciences and to facilitate, by all means at its di ...

and

Botanical Society of Washington Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially their anatomy, taxonomy, and ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field. "Plant" and "botany ...

. The plant genera '' Schischkinia'' Iljin (Compositae) and ''Schischkinella''

Steenis Cornelis Gijsbert Gerrit Jan van Steenis (31 October 1901 – 14 May 1986) was a Dutch botanist. Van Steenis wrote many publications on the flora of the Maritime Southeast Asia region, among others about taxonomy and plant geography. Beside ...

(

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of '' Gastrocalyx''; Caryophyllaceae) were named in his honour. Additionally, a number of species use ''schischkinii'' as specific epithet.

References

External links

*
Biography in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
(in Russian)
Great Soviet Encyclopedia article translated into Englishshort biography (in Russian) and photo
on the page of the Томская областная универсальная научная библиотека имени А.С. Пушкина {{DEFAULTSORT:Schischkin, Boris Konstantinovich Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Order of Lenin Soviet botanists 1886 births 1963 deaths Tomsk State University alumni Academic staff of Tomsk State University Burials at Serafimovskoe Cemetery