Shiv Ram Kashyap

Shiv Ram Kashyap (6 November 1882 – 26 November 1934) was a botanist in British India. He was a specialist on the bryophytes especially from the Himalayan region. He has been called the father of Indian bryology.

Kashyap came from Jhelum in a family that had members in the army. He studied at the Punjab University receiving a medical diploma from Agra in 1904. He worked briefly in the medical service of the United Provinces during which time he privately appeared and qualified for the B.Sc. In 1909 he obtained a M.Sc. in botany. Obtaining the Arnold and Maclagan Gold medals, he went to Cambridge University in 1910 and passed the Natural Science Tripos in 1912. He then joined the government college at Lahore as a professor of biology founding the botany department in 1919. He was a founding member of the Indian Botanical Society in 1920 and edited its journal.

Kashyap studied the liverworts of the western Himalayas and the Punjab region. He published a flora of the Lahore District in 1936. He travelled widely across the Himalayan region and being a friend of the family, was an unofficial mentor for Birbal Sahni. He was a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 1934. A moss genus Kashyapia (family Calymperaceae) was named in his honour by Ram Saran Chopra but this is considered an illegitimate name and a possible synonym of Syrrhopodon.

His daughter Kamini Kaushal became a movie actress.

The standard author abbreviation Kashyap is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.