Vladimir Beliaev
Beliaev, Vladimir Ivanovich
Born Nov. 14 (26), 1855, in the village of Borzetsovo, Moscow Province; died Oct. 4 (17), 1911, in St. Petersburg. Russian botanist and morphologist; student of I. N. Gorozhankin.
Beliaev graduated from Moscow University in 1878. From 1885 to 1891 he was a docent and from 1891 to 1899 a professor at Warsaw University. His primary works are devoted to the comparative-morphological study of the development and structure of male gametophytes of the heterosporous club moss (1885) and marsh fern (1890) and the pollen tubes in conifers (1891, 1893). He proved the unity of structure of gametophytes and antheridia in all vascular spore plants. Beliaev traced the process of simplification of the pollen tube in the phylogeny of gymnosperms. As a result of this process the structure of the pollen tube of the gymnosperms approached that of the angiosperms. He also proved that plant spermatozoids consist of a nucleus and protoplasm. Beliaev discovered blepharoplast (1892–96) and described the morphology and mechanism of mitosis and meiosis in plants.