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Panchanan Maheshwari

पंचानन माहेश्वरी
1904 – 1966
Life SciencesAgriculture

Father of Indian plant embryology; test-tube fertilisation of plants

Uttar Pradesh connection: Studied at Ewing Christian College, Allahabad (B.Sc., M.Sc., D.Sc.)

Story

Prof. Panchanan Maheshwari, born in Jaipur and educated at Allahabad, built the botany department of the University of Delhi into a world centre for plant embryology. His group developed test-tube fertilisation of flowering plants, which made new hybrids possible.

Key contributions

  • Developed test-tube (in vitro) fertilisation of flowering plants
  • Wrote 'An Introduction to the Embryology of Angiosperms'
  • Led NCERT's first higher-secondary biology textbooks (1964)
  • Fellow of the Royal Society (1965)

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Photos: Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons, unless uploaded by Awadh Vigyan Bharati. Ancient scholars are shown with symbolic images where no portrait exists.