User:DavidAnstiss/Olga Fedtschenko

Fedtschenko, Olga Alexandrowna (1845-1921)
Olga Fedtschenko (née Armfeldt) was a Russian botanist, geologist and explorer. She made numerous expeditions in the Caucasus, Crimea, southern Urals, Kyrgyzstan, West Tien Shan and Pamir mountain ranges.

Olga Fedtschenko biography
Ольга Александровна Федченко was born on 18 (30) October 1845, in Moscow. She is the daughter of a Professor of medicine at the University of Moscow, Alexandre Armfeldt (1806-1868). She was the third child of nine children (five daughters and four sons).

Then Olga works in the Zoological Museum, where she met her future husband, Alexei Fedchenko who had just finished his studies in natural sciences, where she majored in anthropology and zoology. Together they translated the first volume of Anthropologie Theodor Weiz published in 1867 and she translates scientific works of anthropology, domain studied simultaneously and organized with Fedchenko ethnographic exhibits at the museum in 1867 they were married on July 2, 1867 and spend their honeymoon in Scandinavia, especially in the Grand Duchy of Finland and Sweden. She helped her husband in Helsingfors and Stockholm on measurements of skulls ; and drawing them, in particular by means of a pantograph.

Between 1868-1871, she made several botanical explorations with her husband and fellow botanist 'Aleksei Fedtschenko(1844-1873). In 1872, she gave birth to a son Boris Fedtschenko. Aleksei then died in a climbing accident on Mont Blanc, France in 1873. While she brought up her son alone, she organised her late husbands scientific collections and started publishing his investigations. Between the 1890 and late 1900s, she returned to make solo botanical explorations. In 1895, she established a private botanical garden on the family estate near Moscow. The garden became a home to the many specimens, that she had gathered during her explorations. In 1921, the garden was destroyed by [Bolsheviks]], during (????).

She also published several works in 'Trudy Imp. S.-Peterburgsk. Bot. Sada' (Proceedings of the Petersburg Botanical Garden); including for Draba korshinskyi in 1914.

Olga described 3 Juno irises, Iris baldshuanica (in Russk. Bot. Zhurn. 5: 77. 1909, ),Iris degerensis (now classed as a synonym of Iris narbutti) and Iris narynensis (in Bullletin of the Jardin of St Peterburgs Botanic Garden 159 in 1905, ).

In 1906, Olga Fedtschenko became the second female corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Olga named one species of plant, 'Fritillaria seravschanica' but she never published it (to validate the name). Later, another Russian botanist Alexei Vvedensky, a monocot specialist, appears to have changed Olga’s temporary epithet to Fritillaria olgae and formally described it in Boris Fedtschenko’s book 'Flora Turkmenistan' (1932).

She died on April 24, 1921, in Petrograd.

See (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Fédchenko) Spanish wiki article for more details.

Other sources

 * Russkii Botanicheskii Zhurnal, 57(3), pages 413-416
 * Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992), page 196
 * Lanjouw, J. & Stafleu, F.A., Index Herb. Coll. E-H (1957), page 192