The Department of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry of St. Petersburg State University is one of the oldest in the Faculty of Biology, and has just recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. Here we present a short overview of its history, from its establishment in 1867 to the current date. The history of the department is comprised of individual paths of scientists who worked here over the course of fifteen decades. We highlight the major breakthroughs and scientific discoveries made by the remarkable scholars who chaired the department and co-authored research, starting with Famintsyn, Neljubow, Palladin and Kostychev in the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century, then through the Soviet times to the present; we also give an overview of the department’s current scientific and educational activities.