Prof Sudhanshu Chowdhury, eminent botanist, pioneering plant taxonomist and teacher, died on September 25, 2026, at the age of 90, a significant loss to the botanical science community of Assam and Northeast India.
Born on November 3, 1935, Chowdhury began his career in 1959 as a Herbarium Assistant at the Botanical Survey of India, Eastern Circle, Shillong. He joined the Department of Botany at Gauhati University in 1967, obtained his PhD there in 1978, and retired as Head of the Department in 1995. He also served as an adviser to ASTEC.
He played a key role in establishing Plant Taxonomy as a special subject at Gauhati University in 1975 and guided numerous MPhil and PhD scholars. Generations of students remembered him as "Chowdhury Sir".
He authored around 60 research papers and worked on projects with institutions including ASTEC and IASST, contributing significantly to the documentation of Northeast India's flora. Plants associated with his work include Dendrobium assamicum Chowdhury (Kew Bulletin, 1988) and Larsenianthus assamensis (Phytokeys, 2010, jointly with S. Day).
His works included Ethno Medico Botany of Arunachal Pradesh (1998), Assam's Flora, and Plantes Assam (2021, published at age 86). He received the Botanical Society of Assam's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 and the first Lifetime Achievement Award of the Orchid Society of Eastern Himalaya, Kalimpong, in 2022. He had been associated with the Botanical Society of Assam since its inception. He is survived by two sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and a large circle of students, colleagues, friends and admirers.
Dr. Saumya Shankar Chowdhury
Dr. Amartya Shankar Chowdhury.
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