AASP Primary Records Program

PALYNOS 11(1): p. 5, 1988.

LUDMILA ANDREEVNA KUPRIANOVA
1914-1987

On January 13, 1987 the distinguished Soviet palynologist, Dr. Ludmila A. Kuprianova, Chairman of the Palynological Section of the All-Union Botanical Society (USSR), died of a heart attack.

Her scientific career spanned more than 50 years, most of it associated with the Komarov Botanical Institute in Leningrad; for many years she was the Head of the Palynology Group at this institution. She was among the first to recognize the importance of vouchered pollen and spore reference collections for research in both actuo- and paleopalynology. As a result, she was responsible for the development and organization of the Komarov Institute's widely-known "Palynotheca" which now includes some 21,000 slides of palynomorphs. During this period she also found time to direct the thesis research of one D.Sc. candidate and 7 Ph.Ds.

Dr. Kuprianova has published more than 200 papers on botanical systematics, history of floras and pollen morphology, especially as related to problem of the origin and evolution of the angiosperms. (Ed. note: Her complete bibliography is slated to appear in the second number of the 1988 volume of Botanicheskij Zhurnal SSSR).

Her earliest professional contributions were taxonomjc treatments of several genera, e.g., Lotus, Linaria, Panzeria, Leonurus, etc., for the "Flora of the USSR." Her first palynological paper (on pollen of Rosaceae) appeared in 1940; shortly after the end of WW 11(1948) she published a comprehensive (100-page) report entitled "Pollen Morphology and Phylogeny of Monocotyledons" which is often considered as a landmark paper on this subject.

"Palynology of Amentiferae" was the title of her D.Sc. dissertation; its publication as a 215-page book in 1965 provided many new insights on the systematics and phylogeny of this interesting major taxon.

She was one of the pioneers in the utilization of TEM and SEM for the study of pollen morphology, revealing fine details of such grains as Liquidambar, Nelumbo, Nymphiaea, Cousinia, Allium and Chloranthus.

In 1972 she initiated an exhaustive research program-formal descriptions of pollen and spores indigenous to the European region of the USSR. This massive project was finally completed in 1983 with the appearance of the last of three copiously illustrated volumes covering some 900 species of pteridophytes, gymnosperms and monocotyledons.

Dr. Kuprianova was an active participant in numerous international botanical and geological congresses. As a delegate to the 2nd International Conference on Palynology in Utrecht in 1966, she was elected as a member of the newly-formed International Committee for Palynology. She was also the first recipient of the prestigious Gunnar Erdtman Medal in Palynology,

Her breadth of palynological expertise was recognized by her appointment to the editorial boards of such journals as Pollen et Spores (France), Review of Palaeobotany & Palynology (Netherlands) Journal of Palynology (India) and World Pollen and Spore Flora (Sweden).

She was an attractive, energetic, outgoing person of considerable charm and warmth. Her death is a great loss to the fields of botany and palynology, as well as to her family and many friends.

Valentjna Fedorovna Tarasevich, Ph.D.
Palynological Section
Komarov Botanical Institute
Leningrad, USSR