Navashin was born in Tsarevshin in the
Saratov Governorate of the
Russian Empire. The son of a physician, he graduated from the Saratov Gymnasium in 1874 and entered the Medical-Surgical Academy in
Saint Petersburg. He initially studied chemistry in the laboratory of
Alexander Borodin. In 1878 he transferred to
Moscow University and received a Candidate degree in biology in 1881. Influenced by
Kliment Timiryazev and V. Zinger, he turned to the study of botany. He later served as a laboratory assistant in the chair of plant physiology at the
Petrovskaya Agricultural Academy. After the closure of the academy in 1888 he worked at
St. Petersburg University as an assistant to
Alexander Borodin. In 1894 Navashin defended his master's thesis in botany and was appointed professor of botany at
Kiev University, where he also directed the
university botanical garden. During his years in Kiev he carried out his most important research in plant cytology and embryology, including the discovery of
chalazogamy in several tree species and, in 1898, the discovery of
double fertilization in flowering plants. In 1915 illness forced him to leave Kiev for the warmer climate of
Tbilisi, where he later served as professor at
Tbilisi University from 1918 to 1923. In 1923 he founded the Timiryazev Biological Institute in Moscow, which he directed until 1929. His son,
Mikhail Sergeevich Navashin (1896–1973), was also a cytologist and geneticist. ==References==