Birger Kajanus

Birger Kajanus (1882 to 1931), born Birger Nilsson, was a Swedish botanist, geneticist, plant breeder and lichenologist. Born in Malmö, he published pioneering work on lichens as a student at Lund, proposing a new theory of soredia and isidia formation, and in 1903 took charge of the lichen studies in Axel Hamberg's investigation of the Sarek mountains. He then became a central figure at the plant-breeding station Weibullsholm near Landskrona, where he turned to heredity in cultivated plants and carried out Mendelian studies on beet, cabbage, opium poppy and wheat; his 1913 dissertation dealt with inheritance in Beta and Brassica roots, and his 1923 wheat study analysed 150,000 plants from 22 crosses. He bred many crop varieties, the most notable being the wheat Standard, which held its place for at least a decade. In the mid-1920s he went to Egypt as a cotton breeder and spent his final years there.