Boris A. Krukoff records

Boris Alexander Krukoff (1898-1983), systematic botanist, botanical consultant, and a leading private benefactor of botanical research, was an honorary curator at the New York Botanical Garden from 1940 to 1948 and from 1970 until his death in 1983.

Krukoff was born on July 20, 1898 in Kasan province, Russia. After emigrating to the United States in 1923, he attended Syracuse University, graduating in 1928 with a degree in forestry.

From 1928 to 1934, Krukoff served simultaneously as consultant forester with the Intercontinental Rubber Company, the Insular Lumber Company, and the U.S. Rubber Company. From 1935-1936, he served as vice-president and project manager for Caffco Drugs. Between 1941 and 1948, Krukoff served as a consultant for the Chicle Development Company in its search for sources of gum.

While working as a botanical consultant for Merck and Company from 1935 until his death, Krukoff devoted his scientific studies to searching for new plant sources of drugs, including anaesthetics, anti-malarials, anthelmintics, and cortisone. From 1948 to 1960 he was vice-president and general manager of Merck's Guatemala cinchona plantations entitled Experimental Plantations, Inc. After buying this property from Merck in 1960, he served as its president until 1983.

Between 1928 and 1950, Krukoff conducted eight expeditions to the Amazon, two to Africa and two to Sumatra in search of potentially useful plants. He collected some l1,000 numbers over 100,000 sheets and 4,000 wood samples.

Krukoff's extensive research in systematic botany concentrated on the genus Strychnos, for which he described twenty-five new species and the family Menispermaceae, for which he described four genera and eleven species, but it was the genus Erythrina, of which he described twenty-eight species, which he loved most of all. The genus Krukovella in the Ochnaceae family was named for Krukoff.

Krukoff wrote over seventy papers on economic botany and taxonomy. His collections have been the basis for numerous papers by others in the fields of plant chemistry, pharmacology, cytology, wood anatomy and systematic botany. His scientific contributions were widely recognized. In 1970 he received a Distinguished Service Award from the New York Botanical Garden. In 1981 he was awarded both the Henry Shaw Medal from the Missouri Botanical Garden and an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York.

Krukoff used his considerable wealth to support various botanical projects. He generously endowed research facilities at the New York Botanical Garden, the Missouri Botanical Garden, The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and the Rijksherbarium in Leiden. At the NYBG, Krukoff provided funds to support an endowed curatorship. At the Missouri Botanical Garden, Krukoff supported three projects: a curatorship of African Botany, a fund to maintain the Flora of Nicaragua project, and The Legume Fund. At Kew, Krukoff endowed a Curatorship of African Botany; and at the Rijksherbarium, he provided funds to support the Foundation for the Promotion of Malaysian Botany. He also organized four symposia on the genus Erythrina. He died at the age of 84 on January 19, 1983 at Smithtown, New York.

In addition to the NYBG collection, Krukoff materials can be found at three other institutions. At the Hoover Institution of Stanford University are documents and memorabilia collected by Krukoff while serving in the Russian Civil War, and donated to Hoover in 1931. Files on his personal life, at the Missouri Botanical Garden, include passports, correspondence and an unpublished manuscript, History of the Cinchona project 1944-1960. The Smithsonian Institution holds files on his expeditions, plant and animal collections, wood samples and wood anatomy projects, research on gum yielding trees for the Chicle Development Company and work done for the U.S. Rubber Company and Ford Rubber Plantation at Boa Vista.

Dr. Leslie R. Landrum, B.A. Krukoff Curator at the New York Botanical Garden from 1980 to 1983, wrote a biography of Krukoff entitled The Life and Botanical Accomplishments of Boris Alexander Krukoff. It was published jointly by the New York Botanical Garden and the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1986.