BIRBAL SAHNI

BIRBAL SAHNI
( 1891 - 1949 )

Birbal Sahni was the greatest Palaeobotanist of Inida. Palaeobotany is the study of plants of past ages. Sahni was born in Bhera, now in Pakistan on 14 November 1891. He was the son of a chemistry teacher. Both father and son used to climb the mountains and collect rocks, plants and fossil bearing rocks. Birbal Sahni showed interest in botany and geology. His father wanted his son to become an ICS officer. After graduation from Punjab university Sahni went to Britain in 1911. he did research on ferus, Conifers and fossil plants. A.C. Steward, a noted botanist guided him. Sahni got D.Sc. in 1929 from Cambridge university. In 1936 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society.

In the days when no equipment was available to cut and grind rocks to enable to study the fossils of plants Sahni did them with his own skilled hands. He spent his money to buy tools. He studied extensively the flora of Indian Gondwana. He discovered new genus of plants at Mahal hills in Bihar. They helped in understanding the evolutionary relationship between certain species of plants of both the present and past ages. “Penloxyleae” a new group of fossil gymnosperms was his one more discovery. As a geologist, he estimated the age of old rocks. He declared the age of the salt range is 40 to 60 million years old. He found that the Deccan traps in M.P. were of the about 62 million years old., Sahni showed keen interest in archealogy also. He studied the technique of casting coins in ancient India. For this he received the Nelson wrights Medal of the numismatic society of India. Painting, clay modeling, Philately and Numismatics were his favourite hobbies. Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany has been established at Lucknow. He died in 1949.