Palaeobotanist who enchanted the world with interesting tidbits, Birbal Sahni was bom on November 14, 1891 at Bhera village, in the Shahpur District. He is the founder of Palaeobotanical research in India. Among st a large number of fossil plants described by him from Rajmahal Hills of Bihar, was his most remarkable discovery of a new group of fossils Gymnosperms, to which he gave the name ” Pentoxylae”. Sahni was greatly interested in archaeology and he published a number of papers in this filed. His work “on the Technique of Casting coins in the ancient India” set a new standard in archaeological research in India. He founded the institute of Paleobotany at Lucknow, which was later renamed as Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany after his death.
