Bengaluru Gundappa Lakshminarayana Swamy (5 February 1916 – 2 November 1980)[1] was an Indian botanist and Kannada writer who was professor, head of the botany department and principal of Presidency College, Chennai.

After this, and at the suggestion of his father, he began to study the embryology of orchids at home after obtaining a second-hand microscope, a microtome and some basic laboratory tools.

A few of his books cover plants used in everyday life in a scientific manner, such as Namma Hotteyalli Dakshina Amerika (South America in Our Stomach).

According to N. K. Ramasheshan, Dr. Swamy authored more than 300 research articles in English, Spanish, German, Latin and French that were published in well-known papers of international repute.

Swamy was a gifted man of letters with an observant eye, a sense of humour and, at the same time, a deep interest in history and the fine arts such as music, painting and architecture.

[8] The book thus unfolds before the reader the abundant riches and the endless variety of the botanical world, as well as the hundreds of ways it helps humans.

The human variety and the different characters, all memorably visualized, provide ample scope for portraying dramatic situations of all kinds, from the comic to the romantic.