Vasilii Vasilevich Alekhin

Born Jan. 5 (17), 1882; died Apr. 3, 1946. Soviet botanist. Founder of the Moscow Geobotanical School.

After Alekhin graduated from Moscow University in 1907, he worked at the same university, becoming a professor in 1918. In 1923 he set up the department of geobotany and was its chairman until his death. He made an important contribution to phytosociology, the study of plant communities. He worked out a classification system for steppes and drew up survey maps of vegetation in the different regions of the USSR. His main works are Plant Geography (1938, 3rd ed., 1950) and Vegetation in the Major Zones of the USSR (2nd ed., Moscow, 1951).