Janaki Ammal Research Articles

Inscribing Janaki Ammal: Biographies and the Act of Remembering

Abstract This paper examines the life and commemoration of E. K. Janaki Ammal, a groundbreaking Indian botanist and cytogeneticist. By analysing three biographical sources, the paper explores how these narratives portray Ammal as an exemplary female scientist, specifically by formulating a rigid picture of an ‘ideal female scientist’. While elucidating the career and gender-specific challenges faced by Ammal as a female scientist, the paper employs the methodological framework of feminist science studies to explore the creation, dissemination, and attribution of specific subjectivities. It examines how class, gender, and caste in India affected Ammal’s scientific career. Moreover, these biographies shed light on the role played by race in her scientific pursuits in nineteenth-century British India.

Development and characterisation of new Hibiscus rosa-sinensis cultivar (‘Janaki Ammal’) from India

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L. is a well-known traditional, ornamental, and aesthetic plant in India and China due to its wide range of coloured cultivars, a long history of cultivation and worship. The flowers of hibiscus are locally called Joba / Gudhal, and which are offered to Goddess Kali/Durga and Lord Vinayaka in West Bengal, India. A new significant cultivar H. rosa-sinensis ‘Janaki Ammal’ has been developed from the cross breeding of Hibiscus rosa- sinensis L. ‘Yvonne’ (Female pod parent) and Hibiscus rosa- sinensis L. ‘White Satin’ (Male pollen parent). The new cultivar named as ‘Janaki Ammal’ after a famous Indian Botanist E. K. Janaki Ammal. Detailed selection, hybridisation and characterisation of the new cultivar with photographs is provided to facilitate identification.

Some Asian Women Pioneers of Chemistry and Pharmacy

At present, several countries on the Asian continent are still very closed off to the idea of allowing not only the work of women, but also even the fact that they can study university degrees and, after finishing them, go on to practice their professions. In addition, if we go back to the beginning of the 20th century, this situation was even more serious. However, this was not an impediment for some women from these countries to achieve their goals of pursuing higher education and then serving society with their work. This article is dedicated to showing the biographies of three of them, the Indian chemist Asima Chatterjee and Philippine pharmacists Matilde S. Arquiza and Filomena Francisco. The most relevant features of their personal and professional lives are presented and previous biographies about them are completed. The main objective of this work is to show these figures to society and hold them up as references to other people, and the methodology followed has been the search for data about their lives and work that would allow us to complete the previous existing biographies about them. A brief biography on Janaki Ammal, the first Indian woman to obtain a doctorate, is also included.

Fragmented Forest Patches in the Indian Himalayas Preserve Unique Components of Biodiversity: Investigation of the Floristic Composition and Phytoclimate of the Unexplored Bani Valley

Subtropical and temperate forests are amongst the most threatened habitats of Asia, due to large-scale habitat loss and the fragmentation of landscapes. Inspite of these, the Asiatic regions preserve their endemic biodiversity, and provide a favorable environment for the abundant growth of vegetation. In the Himalayas, many interior regions are still unexplored from a biodiversity perspective, due to remote locations and high snow-clad mountains. In this study, we investigated the unexplored Bani Valley in order to reduce the gap of uninventorized areas of rich biodiversity in the Himalayas and formulate plant conservation and management strategies. Thirteen field expedition tours were undertaken during 2017 and 2020 for data collection in different growing seasons in the study area. All plant species were collected as voucher samples, identified, and deposited in the internationally recognized Janaki Ammal Herbarium (acronym RRLH). GPS points were recorded in order to study the forest types and vegetation components of the study area. A total of 196 plant species belonging to 166 genera and 68 families were identified in Bani Valley, covering a total area of 2651 km2. Approximately 70.62% of the species were native and 29.38% were non-native. In total, 46% of species were Indo-Malayan, followed by 22% Palearctic species. In angiosperms, dicotyledon species (68.37%) dominated. Poales were the most dominant order, with 38 species (19.38%). The most abundant families were Poaceae with 29 species (14.79%), Fabaceae (17, 8.67%), Rosaceae, Cyperaceae, and Asteraceae (9, 4.59% each). The life form analysis showed 50% of species as phanerophytes, followed by therophytes (25.77%). The leaf size spectra show mesophyllous species (34.69%) as the dominant group. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants categorized Ailanthus altissima as endangered (EN), Aegle marmelos and Quercus oblongata as near threatened (NT), Ulmus wallichiana and Plantago lanceolata as vulnerable (VU), Taxus baccata and 75 other species as least concern (LC), and 2 species as data deficient (DD). The remaining 113 species of plants had not been evaluated according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This study will help to shape conservation and management plans for threatened species for future implementation, and will help in biodiversity conservation. This study will serve as a database for future reference materials in terms of biodiversity management.

Janaki Ammal, C. D. Darlington and J. B. S. Haldane: scientific encounters at the end of empire.

Right from the beginning, genetics has been an international venture, with international networks involving the collaboration of scientists across continents. Janaki Ammal's career illustrates this. This paper traces her scientific path by situating it in the context of her relationships with J. B. S. Haldane and C. D. Darlington.

History and Development of Genetics Research in India: Three case studies

The paper discusses three major contributions in genetics research from India; Genetic and cytogenetic studies on sugarcane undertaken at the Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore during 1912- 1938 by C. A. Barber, T. S. Venkatraman, and E. K. Janaki Ammal, the publication of D. D. Kosambi’s mapping function (1944), and the discovery of the Bombay blood group in KEM Hospital, Mumbai by Y.M. Bhende and co-workers in 1952. Most current research on these topics is now done outside India, possibly because India never developed the critical mass of researchers to sustain the early leads of these pioneers.

Gender, Race and Science in Twentieth-Century India: E. K. Janaki Ammal and the History of Science

The article discusses the role of Indian woman scholar E. K. Janaki Ammal in the historiography of environmental history studies in India. She was a professor of botany as well as a geneticist at University Botany Laboratory in Madras, India and was notable as being a women scientist invited to participate at the 1955 conference resulting in the book of the same name Man’s role in changing the face of the earth, edited by W. L. Thomas. Subjects considered include gendered history, twentieth-century history of science, and the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism on intellectual history. The relationship between Ammal and her mentor English biologist C. D. Darlington is explored.

Problems Associated with Studying Spatial Distribution of Plants Through Herbarium Anthology: A Case Study of Family Berberidaceae in North West Himalaya

Estimation of spatial plant distribution of a large area is very tedious and time consuming assignment. In this regard, herbaria of the world are supposed to be the excellent repositories of the plant collections for reference purpose. But many repositories of the world do not have the associated information of the collections and thus it becomes a muddle for future studies. The aim of this study is to know the extent of this mess. Therefore, spatial distribution of Berberidaceae members in NW Himalaya was studied through available herbarium data in three herbaria at Department of Botany, University of Jammu, Janaki Ammal Herbarium, Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine and Herbarium, Department of Botany, Punjabi University. It is observed that the collected specimens in aforesaid herbaria are correctly identified; but simultaneously, proper collection sites and collection dates are not mentioned for some specimens. Therefore, it is difficult to recollect the species. This is also revealed that India harbours 04 genera (Berberis, Epimedium, Mahonia and Nandina) and 22 species of the Berberidaceae, out of which 02 (Berberis and Mahonia) are reported from the NW Himalaya.

Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal

E K Janaki Ammal was a renowned botanist and plant cytologist who made significant contributions to genetics, evolution, phytogeography and ethnobotany. This brief biographical sketch describes her life and work.

Formic Acid and its Salts

Sivapackiam Jothilingam was born in T. Ramanathapuram, Tamilnadu, India in 1976. After completing his undergraduate degree (BSc) and post-graduate degree (MSc) in Chemistry at Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal College, Sivakasi, India, he joined the research group of Dr. H. Surya Prakash Rao (Pondicherry University) to pursue a PhD. His primary research interests focus on the synthesis and characterization of new heterocyclic compounds and development of environmentally benign procedures for their synthesis.

Women in Dark Times: Gender, Culture and Politics

While I was going through whatever details I could get of Janaki Ammal's life, I found the thoughts behind this paper crystallising in my mind. Driven by poverty to the career of a child-actress, growing up to be a highly-paid lead player through sheer talent, Janaki Ammal deliberately moved out of professional theatre in order to join the Nationalist Movement. Subsequently she became a communist working in the Kisan Sabha and also played a role in founding the All Indian Democratic Women's Association. It was in connection with her political work that she continued to use her talents as singer and actress. These were not forgotten although these became secondary to her other work. For her all these widely-ranging activities were interrelated. A continuous and conscious articulation of gender and culture as political issues is the key-theme of Janaki Ammal's career. And this is the message she seems to have left for women of our own times. I have described these times, covering the span of the last ten years or so in our country as 'dark times'. For me, this term is not the rhetoric of despair. I use it to describe some specific historical features of these years, and in doing so purposely recall Hanna Arendt's use of it to describe the period of the rise and growth of fascism in Europe.1 She describes how until the very moment when catastrophe overtook everything and everybody 'the disorder and hunger, the massacres and slaughters, outrage over injustice, and the despair where there was only wrong and no outrage' went on taking place publicly with nothing secret or mysterious about it-it was still by no means visible to all as

Chromosome Numbers of Tropical Rhododendrons

Current knowledge of chromosome numbers in Rhododendron species stems mainly from the extensive studies of Janaki Ammal and her associates over 20 years ago (Janaki Ammal, Enoch and Bridgwater 1950, Janaki Ammal 1950). Their results in combination with the more limited studies of Sax (1930), Nakamura (1931) and Li (1957) showed that whereas all the nonlepidote species were diploids (2n = 26) those of the lepidote section included diploids, triploids (2n = 39), tetraploids (2n 52), hexaploids (2n = 78), octoploids (2n 114) and a dodecaploid (2n = 156). It was further pointed out that the polyploid species were not distributed at random but had precise geographical and altitudinal distributions. With the exception of two tetraploid species in north-eastern North America they were clustered in a region of Central Asia centred upon the mountainous region of Western China between the headwaters of the Salween and Yangtse rivers and spreading eastward into southern China and westward to the easternmost part of Nepal. The tetraploids occupied the more eastern part of this region and the hexaploids the western, but their areas overlapped and it was here that the octoploids occurred. The dodecaploid was found entirely within the area of the hexaploids. There was marked correlation between polyploidy and altitude as best demonstrated in the series Triflorum where diploids are never found over 9000 feet while tetraploids are found only above 0o,ooo feet. These earlier investigations excluded most of the tropical Rhododendrons; only four were examined viz. R. jasminiflorum, R. javanicum, R. Lochae and R. retusum and all were diploids, 2n = 26. Despite the smallness of this sample, it appeared likely that all tropical species would be diploids, though the possibility that pockets of polyploids may be present in mountainous areas could not be excluded.

NEW EVIDENCE CONCERNING THE ORIGINAL BASIC CHROMOSOME NUMBER OF ANGIOSPERMS

The Annonales (woody Ranales; a portion of Polycarpicae) generally have been conceded to include the living angiosperms with the most impressive array of unspecialized characteristics (see Thorne, in Carlquist, 1964, p. 433, for a definition of this group). Because of this, they have been studied in some detail morphologically, but, with a few exceptions (e.g., Whitaker, 1933), insufficiently cytologically. An analysis of chromosome numbers in Annonales, however, might be expected to shed some light on the original basic chromosome number of angiosperms, and is therefore of especial interest. The purpose of this communication is to record several newly determined chromosome numbers in the group and to comment on their possible phylogenetic significance. One of the most interesting families in this alliance is Winteraceae, with six genera and more than 100 species. All Winteraceae lack vessels in their xylem; they are found mostly in the eastern tropics and Southern Hemisphere of the Old World. The largest genus, Drimys, is the only one with representatives in the New World. It is divided into two sections. In the larger, exclusively Old World section Tasmannia, fo-ur Australian species have a gametic chromosome number of n = 13 (Hotchkiss, 1955). One of these, Drimys lanceolata (Poir.) Baill. (D. aromatica F. v. Muell.), has also been reported to have a somatic chromosome number of 2n = 28 (Gulline unp., in Darlington and XVylie, 1955). In studying pistillate material of this species cultivated in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (Walther in 1949, CAS), however, we found that each member of one pair of chromosomes has a satellite which often is widely separated from the pair early in mitosis, giving the impression that there are 28 chromosomes. Later in the course of mitosis, when the chromosomes were more contracted, it was a simple matter to determine the somatic number 2n -26, also reported for this species by Stebbins (1958). Another chromosome number reported for the same species, 2n = 38? (Janaki Ammal unp., in Darlington and Wylie, 1955), was probably from a triploid individual with 2n = 3x = 39. To summarize the available information, n = 13 is the only chromosome number reliably reported for Drimys sect. Tasmannia. For the New World section, Drimys sect. Drimys (Wintera), only the commonest of the four species, D. winteri J. R. & G. Forst., has been studied cytologically. We examined a plant of this species cultivated in the botanic garden, University of California, Los Angeles (Raven 18738, DS), and another from the Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco (Menzies in 1960, CAS). Both of these plants formed 43 bivalents at meiotic metaphase I (Fig. 1). The bivalents were conspicuously variable in size. Both plants are probably from the same original introduction from plants cultivated in England (Brandt, 1951), as was also, probably, the plant reported earlier as having 2n = about 76 (Whitaker, 1933). The San Francisco plant had a small fragment in addition to its normal chromosome complement. Thus the chromosome numbers determined for the Old and New World sections of Drimys bear no obvious numerical relationship to one another. The New World species are neither polyploids based on x = 13, as suggested by Hotchkiss (1955), nor polyploids based on x = 19, as suggested by Whitaker (1933) and many others. The differences in chromosome

Cytological Technique Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants Animal Cytology and Evolution

THREE books on cytological subjects published so soon after the close of hostilities is perhaps a wholesome sign of activity in an expanding field of biological knowledge. The three are of widely different types. Baker's little volume on technique is a welcome second edition, emended to include much of the author's own most recent work, notably that on the Golgi apparatus. Like its predecessor, it fills a position not easily catered for by any other book. It is an account of cytological methods, not in the sense of supplying a beginner with instructions and formulae, but as an analysis as full as present knowledge permits of the basic physical and chemical processes underlying the cytological methods in current use. For any worker wishing to understand the reasons for the things he does or requiring to modify or devise technical methods for particular purposes the information supplied is invaluable, and the small size and low price of the book should bring it easily into every cytological laboratory. Cytological Technique The Principles and Practice of Methods used to determine the Structure of the Metazoan Cell. By Dr. John R. Baker. (Methuen's Monographs on Biological Subjects.) Second edition, re-written and enlarged. Pp. vii + 212. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1945.) 6s. net. Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants By Dr. C. D. Darlington Dr. E. K. Janaki Ammal. Pp. 398. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1945.) 12s. 6d. net. Animal Cytology and Evolution By M. J. D. White. Pp. viii + 375. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1945.) 36s. net.