Kalipada Biswas (3 December 1899 – 29 December 1969) was an Indian botanist who specialized in the
algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
of the Indian region and worked at the
Calcutta botanical garden erstwhile Royal Botanic Garden, becoming its first Indian director and heading it from 1937 to 1955.
Biswas was born in Calcutta to Sarada Prasad Biswas and grew up at Beltala, studying at the
Mitra Institution
Mitra Institution (Main) is one of the heritage schools of Kolkata, West Bengal, teaching grades one to twelve under the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education
The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education is the West Bengal state govern ...
,
Bhowanipur
Bhowanipore (also Bhowanipur; bn, ভবানীপুর) is a neighbourhood of South Kolkata in Kolkata district of West Bengal, India.
History
In 1717, the East India Company obtained the right to rent from 38 villages surrounding their ...
where he was a contemporary of
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. He passed out of
Bangabasi College in 1920 and studied under
S.P. Agharkar, S.N. Bal, S.C. Banerjee and G.C. Bose. Biswas had a brilliant academic career. He stood first- class first in the M.A. (Botany) examination in 1922 (securing the University Gold Medal). In 1936 he left for Europe and worked at the
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and in the Natural History Department of the
British Museum.
He was awarded the Elliot Gold Medal and Prize in 1928 and again in 1936; the Coronation Medal in 1937 for meritorious service in the Royal Botanical Garden and at the Herbarium; the Paul Johannes Briihl Memorial Medal in 1952 for the best research work in Systematic Botany; the Rabindranath Prize in Science in 1951-52 and the Barclay Memorial Medal in 1969.
He became interested in the algae through the influence of
Paul Johannes Brühl
Paul Johannes Brühl (25 February 1855 – 1935) was a German-origin professor of botany who worked in India, mainly at the Presidency College, Calcutta.
Brühl was born in Saxony to Michael Brühl and was educated in Germany and received a schola ...
and began to examine algae from various waterbodies including Salt Lake and Chilka. He was appointed curator of the
herbarium
A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant 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 sheet of paper (called ...
at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Calcutta in 1927. In 1936 he was deputed to study in Edinburgh under Sir
W.W. Smith. He received a DSc from the
University of Edinburgh in 1937 and returned to India to become director of the
Botanical Survey of India. After retiring from the botanical garden he became a director of the medical plants scheme of the West Bengal Government in 1954. From 1955 -1956 he was Chairman, Medicinal Plants Committee-member of the Executive Council, Central Indian Medicinal Plants Organization and National Botanic Gardens, Lucknow. He retired in December 1964 but continued to work as an emeritus scientist at the University of Calcutta.
Biswas wrote numerous papers on botany and botanical history. He considered ''Ficus krishnae'' as a mutant variety of ''Ficus bengalensis''.
References
External links
INSA Fellows
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biswas, Kalipada
20th-century Indian botanists
1899 births
1969 deaths
Scientists from Kolkata