User:MargaretRDonald/Chellapilla Venkata Rao

Chellapilla Venkata Rao (1910 – 1971) was an Indian botanist.

He was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Tasmania in 1957 with a thesis entitled Cytotaxonomic studies in the Proteaceae.

A major interest was the Proteaceae family,             and in 1971, CSIR published his monograph on the family. The monograph was said by J.P.Rourke of the Compton Herbarium, himself a specialist in Proteaceae, to be a broad survey of the whole family on the basis of the anatomy and morphology of the leaves, stems, inflorescences, flowers, and fruits of representative species from most of the living genera. Embryological features are treated in detail and accounts of the cytology and fossil records are also provided....As the leading researcher on this family, Venkata Rao has, not unnaturally, drawn heavily on his own work but has nevertheless succeeded in dealing with the literature as a whole in a comprehensive manner. A second reviewer, Ronald Melville (of Kew Gardens), disagreed with Rao's phylogenetic and evolutionary conclusions but thought that many would be grateful to Venkata Rao "for bringing together in one volume such a detailed, comparative account of the vegetative and floral morphology and anatomy, the cytology and embryology, which will make it a valuable work of reference for a long time to come."

Within the Proteaceae, he authored the tribes, Macadamieae and Lambertieae (basionym of Lambertiinae). He also worked on other families, in particular, the Sterculiaceae,    Malvaceae      and Bombacaceae (now subsumed in an enlarged Malvaceae), and also Euphorbiaceae,  Elaeocarpaceae and Apocynaceae.

His work centred on plant anatomy, morphology and embryology and led to work in other families. This work on embryology, anatomy and morphology continues to be of importance.

In 1950, he was working in the Department of Botany, Andhra University, Waltair, where he was still working in 1967. In 1970, prior to his death in 1971, he was working in the department of botany, Andhra University Postgraduate Centre, Guntur, India.

His abbreviation for botanical citations is Venk.Rao

He is not among the deceased fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, India.