Boris Schischkin


Boris Konstantinovich Schischkin was a Russian botanist and from 1943 corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His name was Борис Константинович Шишкин, with his surname sometimes transliterated as Shishkin.

Life and Works

In 1911 Schischkin graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of Tomsk State University 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. From 1925 to 1930 he was professor at the Tomsk State University, where he held a chair of morphology and plant systematics. From 1930 he worked in the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and from 1945 to 1958 also as professor at Leningrad University. From 1946 to 1963 he was vice-president of the Botanical Society of the USSR. Shishkin's herbarium 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 and plant geography. 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 project.
Another significant works of the 1900s was 'Flora Rossiae Austro-orientalis' by Boris Fedtschenko and Schischkin.

Honours

Shishkin was awarded the USSR State Prize, the Order of Lenin and other medals.
He was an honorary member of the Société Botanique de France and Botanical Society of Washington.
The plant genera Schischkinia Iljin and Schischkinella Steenis were named in his honour. Additionally, a number of species use schischkinii as specific epithet.