Korzhinsky

KORZHINSKY Sergei Ivanovich (1861-1900), one of the outstanding botanists of Europe. K. - at first professor of Tomsk University, then chief botanist of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden, ordinary academician. More than 70 works were written by K., predominantly of botanical-geographical and systematic character. In 1899 appeared his small work, having great significance in the doctrine of the evolution of the organic world («Heterogenesis and Evolution, to the Theory of the Origin of Species», Zap. Imp. ross. akad. nauk, vol. IX, book 2, 1899). In this work K. collected many examples of the appearance of new species not by the gradual development of initially small deviations (Darwin's principle), but immediately by the unexpected reorganization of the entire structure of a given organism. This principle of the sudden appearance of large deviations from parental forms was established by him only through literary data. By experiment this method was proved by de Vries, who created an epoch with his research on speciation in plants Oenothera. K. can rightfully together with de Vries be considered the founder of mutation theory.