Janaki Ammal

Janaki Ammal Edavalath Kakkat (4 November 1897 – 7 February 1984) was an Indian botanist who worked on plant breeding, cytogenetics and phytogeography.[1] Her most notable work involved studies on sugarcane and the eggplant (brinjal) but she also worked on the cytogenetics of a range of plants and co-authored the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945) with C.D. Darlington. She also took an interest in ethnobotany, and took an interest in plants of medicinal and economic value from the rain forests of Kerala, India. She was awarded a Padma Shri by the Indian government in 1977.

This article is about the Indian botanist. For the wife of Srinivasa Ramanujan, see Janakiammal. For the politician, see K.P. Janaki Ammal.

Janaki Ammal
Born(1897-11-04)4 November 1897
Tellicherry, Madras Presidency, British India
Died(1984-02-07)7 February 1984 (aged 86)
Madras, Tamil Nadu
NationalityIndian
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Scientific career
FieldsBotany, Cytology
InstitutionsMadras University, John Innes Centre
ThesisChromosome Studies in Nicandra physaloides
Signature

Biography

Janaki Ammal was born in the Thiyya family of Diwan Bahadur Edavalath Kakkat Krishnan (sub-judge) and Devi Kuruvayi in Tellicherry. Her mother was an illegitimate daughter of John Child Hannyngton (colonial administrator and Resident at Travancore) and Kunhi Kurumbi Kuruvai, who was later a mistress to Walter Gaven King. Frank Hannyngton, Indian civil servant and entomologist, was thus a half-brother of Janaki Ammal's mother.[2][3]

Janaki Ammal studied at Sacred Heart Convent in Thalassery followed by Queen Mary's College, Madras. She obtained an Honours degree in Botany from the Presidency College and then moved to the University of Michigan in 1924, obtaining a masters degree in botany in 1926 with a Barbour Scholarship. She returned to India to work as a professor in the Women's Christian College, Madras for a few years, and then returned to the University of Michigan as an Oriental Barbour Fellow and obtained a PhD in 1931. Her thesis was titled "Chromosome Studies in Nicandra Physaloides". The University also awarded her an honorary LLD in 1956. Janaki Ammal then joined the John Innes Institute, Merton, London, where she worked with C D. Darlington, who would become a long-term collaborator. From 1932 to 1934 she served as a Professor of Botany as the Maharaja's College of Science, in Trivandrum, Kerala. She then worked at the Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore and worked with C.A. Barber. Her worked involved the production of hybrids including several intergeneric crosses including the variety SG 63-32.[4]

In 1939 she went to attend the 7th International Congress of Genetics, Edinburgh and was forced to stay on due to World War II. She then spent the next six years at the John Innes Centre as an assistant cytologist to C.D. Darlington. Together they published a  Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants in 1945. She was invited to work as a cytologist at the Royal Horticultural Society, Wesley from 1945 to 1951. During this period she studied Magnolias, their cytology and conducted experiment on their hybridization. The Indian government invited her to reorganize the Botanical Survey of India and she worked as the director of the central botanical laboratory. She took special interest in ethnobotany. From 1962, she served as an officer on special duty at Regional Research Laboratory in Jammu.[4]

Research

During the years (1939–1950) she spent in England, she did chromosome studies of a wide range of garden plants. Her studies on chromosome numbers and ploidy in many cases threw light on the evolution of species and varieties. The Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants which she wrote jointly with C. D. Darlington in 1945 was a compilation that incorporated much of her own work on many species. Ammal also worked on the genera Solanum, Datura, Mentha, Cymbopogon and Dioscorea besides medicinal and other plants. She attributed the higher rate of plant speciation in the cold and humid northeast Himalayas as compared to the cold and dry northwest Himalayas to polyploidy.[5] Also, according to her, the confluence of Chinese and Malayan elements in the flora of northeast India led to natural hybridisation between these and the native flora in this region, contributing further to plant diversification. Following her retirement, Ammal continued to work focusing special attention on medicinal plants and ethnobotany. She continued to publish the original findings of her research. In the Centre of Advanced Study Field Laboratory where she lived and worked she developed a garden of medicinal plants. She also worked on cytology.

The 'Magnolia kobus Janaki Ammal'

As a geneticist working for the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden Wisley in the early 1950s, Dr. Janaki was investigating the effects of colchicine on a number of woody plants, including Magnolia, where a stock solution in water is made up and applied to the growing tip of young seedlings once the cotyledons (seed leaves) have fully expanded. Doubling of chromosomes occurs, giving the cells twice the usual number. The resulting plants have heavier textured leaves; their flowers are variable, often with thicker tepals, helping them last longer. As Magnolia kobus seeds were available in quantity, a number of seedlings were treated by Dr Janaki Ammal and ultimately planted on Battleston Hill at Wisley.

Awards and honours

Janaki is mentioned among Indian Americans of the Century in an India Currents magazine article published on 1 January 2000, by S.Gopikrishna & Vandana Kumar: "In an age when most women didn't make it past high school, would it be possible for an Indian woman to obtain a PhD at one of America's finest public universities and also make seminal contributions to her field?!" The Kerala-born Ammal was arguably the first woman to obtain a PhD in botany in the U.S. (1931), and remains one of the few Asian women to be conferred a DSc (honoris causa) by her alma mater, the University of Michigan. During her time at Ann Arbor she lived in the Martha Cook Building, an all-female residence hall and worked with Harley Harris Bartlett, Professor at the Department of Botany.

Ammal was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1935, and of the Indian National Science Academy in 1957. The University of Michigan conferred an honorary LL.D. on her in 1956 in recognition of her contributions to botany and cytogenetics said: "Blest with the ability to make painstaking and accurate observations, she and her patient endeavours stand as a model for serious and dedicated scientific workers." The Government of India conferred the Padma Shri on her in 1977.[6] The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Government of India instituted the National Award of Taxonomy in her name in 2000.

She produced many hybrid brinjals (Indian name for eggplant).[7][8][9]

Two awards were instituted in her name in 1999: EK Janaki Ammal National Award on Plant Taxonomy and EK Janaki Ammal National Award on Animal Taxonomy.[10] There is herbarium with over 25000 plant species in Jammutawi named after Janaki Ammal.[11] The John Innes Centre offers a scholarship to PhD students from developing countries in her name.[12]

In 2018, to celebrate her remarkable career and contribution to plant science, two Indian plant breeders, Girija and Viru Viraraghavan bred a new rose variety which they named E.K. Janaki Ammal.[13]

Eponymy-(Plants named in honour)

Janakia arayalpathra J.Joseph & V.Chandras. (1978) (= Decalepis arayalpathra (J.Joseph & V.Chandras.) Venter) (1997) Sonerila janakiana Ratheesh, Sunil &Sivadasan (2017)

Hybrids/ Cultivars Magnolia kobus Janaki Ammal Hybrid Rose 'E.K. Janaki Ammal' (its parentage Landora x [Montezuma x {Little Darling x (R.clinophylla x R.bracteata)}])

References
  1. C.V, Subramanyan. "Janaki Ammal" (PDF). Indian Association of Scientists. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
  2. The Mother of Modern Botany in India, A Biographical Journey of Dr Edavalath Kakkat Janaki Ammal
  3. Damodaran, Vinita (2013). "Gender, Race and Science in Twentieth-Century India: E. K. Janaki Ammal and the History of Science". History of Science. 51 (3): 283. doi:10.1177/007327531305100302.
  4. Nayar, M.P. (1985). "In Memoriam: Dr E.K. Janaki Ammal (1897-1984)". Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India. 27 (1–4): 265–268.
  5. Janaki Ammal .E.K. The effect of the Himalayan uplift on the genetic composition of the flora of Asia. 1960. Indian botan. Soc., 39: 327-334
  6. "Padma Shri" (PDF). Padma Shri. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 November 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  7. The Michigan Alumnus, Volume 42, Page 532, UM libraries 1935
  8. E.K. Janaki Ammal. A polyploid egg plant, Solanum melongena L. Papers of Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 15:81.
  9. E. K. Janaki Ammal. Polyploidy in Solanum Melongena Linn. CYTOLOGIA. Vol. 5 (1933-1934) No. 4 P 453-459
  10. Doctor, Geeta. "Remembering Dr Janaki Ammal, pioneering botanist, cytogeneticist and passionate Gandhian". Scroll.in. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  11. "Long ignored, renowned botanist Janaki Ammal finally recognised in biography". Newsminute. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  12. "Janaki Ammal Scholarships". John Innes Centre. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  13. Kannan, Ramya (8 June 2019). "A glorious yellow bloom in honour of botanist E.K. Janaki Ammal". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 25 February 2020.

Other sources
  • S Kedharnath, Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897–1984), Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy, 13, pp. 90–101, with portrait (1988).
  • P Maheshwari and R N Kapil, Fifty Years of Science in India. Progress of Botany, Indian Science Congress Association, Calcutta, pp. 110, 118 (1963).
  • Damodaran, Vinita (2017). "Janaki Ammal, C. D. Darlington and J. B. S. Haldane: Scientific Encounters at the End of Empire", Journal of Genetics, 96 (5), 827–836. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-017-0844-1
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