The last century – especially the last half-century has belonged to, without doubt to biological science, which became irretrievably intermeshed with the fabric of our existence. Available scientific evidence fits a polyphonic origin and development of life just as well as it does the monophyletic evolution. Thus the various life forms show remarkable unity as well as diversity.

The plant life forms being uniquely autophytic and mostly sedentary show response to the variety of environmental and biological interference distinct from other life forms. Study of plant life processes started its sojourn with many dynamic disciplines, which address the problems of plant growth and development. With the advances of our knowledge in cellular and molecular biology and at the same time development of a wide array of powerful tools, researches in plant science have now established new linkages within itself and with areas that were at times considered apart from or beyond biology.

Today we realize that anatomy could be as important as molecular biology, generation of electrical potential could be as important response to various stresses and so on. We are thus talking today on the problems of biology of plants, which integrate the various processes at different levels of organization, molecular to cellular through whole plant, to plant community.

India is proud of producing many excellent plant physiologists in the last century, who eloquently furthered the legacy of Acharya J. C. Bose, the pioneer in plant biology research in India. Since India’s Independence one of the most prominent physiologists was Prof. S. M. Sircar who literally bridged the classical plant physiology with modern biological research. Prof. Sircar as the Head of the Botany department of the University of Calcutta was the first person to organize an international symposium on Plant Growth Substances, one of the most challenging problems of plant physiology in the year 1967. Then, as the Director of Bose Institute, Kolkata he was instrumental in organizing a World Conference in 1971 on the Control of Transciption – one of the frontline research problems in biology.

It is thus befitting to organize a symposium on the proposed topic to commemorate the birth centenary of Prof. S. M. Sircar. A brief biography and profile of Prof. Sircar’s contribution to plant science is appended.