Gopinath Panigrahi
| Dr Gopinath Panigrahi | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 27, 1924 Baikunthapur,Basudevpur, Bhadrakh, Orissa, India |
| Died |
December 23, 2004 Kolkatta India |
| Alma mater |
Ravenshaw College,Cuttack University of Leeds,UK |
| Profession |
Scientist Flora of Orissa Botanical editor of the Flora of the USSR (English Translation) The Family Rosaceae in India, Volume 1,2,3,4 FERNS AND FERN-ALLIES OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH VOL.1 & VOL.2 |
Scientist
Dr.Gopinath Panigrahi (27 February 1924 to 23 December 2004) Botanist,Ph.D. (University of Leeds), FBS, FLS (London), FIFS, FAST, the renowned plant taxonomist expert par excellence and an authority on botanical nomenclature in a lifetime devoted to Botany. This biography needs to be finalised for his work during the final few years of his life.
His scientific researches have also led to :
(1) Theorising the mechanism of photoperiodic reaction and his proposing a formula confirms and extends the one advanced by F.G. Gregory, FRS (1948) (cf. Samantrai & Panigrahi, 1954a);
(2) Synthesising 13 F1 hybrids in 4 fern genera (an achievement in itself judged against the chances of self-fertilisation in a fern prothallus bearing both antheridia and archegonia) and which do not lend themselves to emasculation and, therefore, ensure self-fertilisation) and meiotic analysis of these hybrids, have led him to postulate:
(a) superdominance of the male genome in F1 hybrids of Cyclosorus parasiticus complex – an adaptation of Fischer's (1918) superdominance of gene-allele theory and to explain the phenomena of heterosis, patrocliny and reproductive precosis (Panigrahi, 1962, 1992).
(b) Asplenium aethiopicum (12n) from Madeira as an old polyploid complex involving several stages of hybridisation and chromosome-doubling from seven putative diploid cytotypes (all presumably extinct and untraced) in the field up-to-date (Panigrahi, 1963). Braithwaite (in Botanical Journ. Linn. Soc., London (93: 343-378. 1986) observes that Panigrahi's 12n plant from Madeira is morphologically different from his 12n cytotype from South Africa, which he names Asplenium aethiopicum ssp. dodecaploideum Braithw. and the 12n plant from Madeira is morphologically similar to the 8n plant from South Africa and Sri Lanka-India identified with Asplenium aethiopicum (Burm.) Becher. ssp. aethiopicum Asplenium furcatum Thumb.), a cytotaxonomist's paradox indeed.
(c) Operation of complementary gene system for producing golden-yellow ceraceous covering on fronds in the F1 5n hybrid, an experimentally produced apogamous taxon in Aleuritopteris farinosa complex (Panigrahi, 1962b).
(d) Probable ancestral parentage of several amphidoploid taxa.
3. Establishing the basic chromosome numbers in several genera of the Polypodiaceae (Panigrahi & Patnaik, 1961, and Patnaik & Panigrahi, 1963); Fuchs (1963) reviewed the paper in Nature (1961), in Amer. Fern J. 53 (1963) and paid glowing tribute to the authors;
4. Computer-analysis of 934 species of Indian grasses (Clayton & Panigrahi, 1974) established as many as seven endemic centres in the Indian Region, with 41% of species endemics; by the methods of cluster analysis and with the aid of 13 maps and a diagram based on Peter's ranking method, floristic relationships of the Indian grass flora with one or the other of 25 floristic regions delimited in the Old World, excluding the 14 areas in the Indian Region, were worked out. New evidence from computer studies was utilised to support Wagner's 'Theory of Continental Drift' and to include the Khasi-Nagaland-Manipur hill ranges and the Himalayas in the Holarctic Kingdom, although Good (1974) included these areas in the Palaeotropical Kingdom (cf. Takhtajan, 1986, Panigrahi, 1994).
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