Olga Fedchenko

Olga Aleksandrovna Fedchenko or Fedtschenko (; Armfeld; 30 October 1845 – 24 April 1921) was a Russian botanist. Rosa fedtschenkoana, which is found in Asia, was named in her honour (with a German transliteration of her name).

Early life Ol'ga (Olga) Armfeld was born in Moscow in 1845. Her father was Alexandre Armfeldt who was a professor at the University of Moscow. She was educated at home until she was eleven when she went to school where she showed an interest in Botany. She began collecting plants and from about 1861 she was using her art and language skills to translate academic descriptions from English, French and German naturalists. She was preparing illustrations, communicating with foreign naturalists and visiting the University's Zoological Museum. She worked for several years before she met the geologist, Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko. The Fedchenkos did not set out immediately for Turkestan but they went on preparatory visits to Italy, France and Sweden to study their collections. Olga also went on solo trips to Russian Museums. During all this travelling she used the opportunity to make notes and gather exhibits. where he had gone to compare the glaciers with those he had seen in Turkestan. Olga buried her husband at Chamonix and returned to Moscow.

In 1878, Eduard August von Regel named and published Rosa fedtschenkoana after her. Her son Boris also took an interest in botany. In the Memoirs of the Kazan Society of Naturalists Vol.32 and 33, Olga and Boris described 43 endemic species in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae found in Russian Turkestan.

In 1901, Olga and Boris visited the Pamir ranges together. On their return they jointly published Flora of the Pamirs in 1901. Later in 1913 they again published Conspectus Florae Turkestanicae together. She also published several works in 'Trudy Imp. S.-Peterburgsk. Bot. Sada' (Proceedings of the Petersburg Botanical Garden); including for Draba korshinskyi in 1914.

She described three Juno irises, Iris baldshuanica (in Russk. Bot. Zhurn. 5: 77. 1909, ), Iris degerensis (now classed as a synonym of Iris narbutii) and Iris narynensis (in Bulletin of the Jardin of St Peterburg's Botanic Garden 159 in 1905, ). In 1906, she became the second female corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

She named one species of plant, Fritillaria seravschanica but she never published it (to validate the name). Later, another Russian botanist Alexei Vvedensky, a monocot specialist, appears to have changed Olga’s temporary epithet to Fritillaria olgae and formally described it in her son Boris Fedtschenko's book, Flora Turkmenistan.

Death She died on 24 April 1921, aged 75, in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg).

Legacy In 1922, Modest Mikhaĭlovich Iljin (a botanist from the Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of Soviet Russia) named a genus of Asteraceae (from Central Asia) in her honour Olgaea.