Nicolai Stepanovitch Turczaninow

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Porphir Kiril Nicolai Stepanowitsch Turczaninow (1796 in Nikitovka, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine - 1863) was a Russian botanist who first identified several genera, and many species of plants. The standard botanical author abbreviation Turcz. is applied to species he described. Several species have been named after him, for example, Connarus turczaninowii, Hydrocotyle turczaninowii, and Sisymbrium turczaninowii.

In 1814, Turczaninow graduated from Khakov University and went to work as a civil servant in St. Petersburg, where he published his first botanical list in 1825. In 1828 Turczaninov was assigned an administrative post in Irkutsk, Siberia. This allowed him to collect in the Lake Baikal area, and a spate of papers followed.

Turczaninov later opened an herbarium in Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. After a debilitating fall, he allowed others to collect for him and he spent his time in classification, study and writing.

[edit] Awards

1857 Demidov prize of The Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg

[edit] References

• Marchant, N. G. (1988) "The contribution of the Russian botanist Turczaninov to Australian plant taxonomy" in Short, P.S. (ed.) (1990) History of Systematic Botany in Australasia: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the University of Melbourne, 25-27 May 1988 Australian Systematic Botany Society, Melbourne, pp. 121-130, ISBN 0-7316-8463-X;