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Harriet Bolus 'To The Point' Newsletter of CSSA July-August 1998, Vol. 70, No. 4 PRESIDENT'S COMMENTS and preserved for posterity. A short, rather plump, dynamic person, vig• H. M. L. BOLUS, FIRST LADY OF orous in body and mind, she was an early SOUTH AFRICAN SUCCULENTS member of the Mountain Club of South Africa and was never happier than when Harriet Margaret Louisa Bolus, was born 31 climbing mountains in search of new plants. July 1877 at Burghersdorp, Cape Province, South Africa. Her father, William Kensit, One of Harry Bolus' great interests was migrated to South Africa as a child. Louisa, South African orchids. Vol I of his work on one of 13 children, was only two years old orchids was published before Louisa be• when her mother died, leaving William to came his assistant, but she played a major look after his young family. A strong bond role in the preparation of Volume II. During of fondness existed between William and this period Harry's health was failing and Louisa and she devoted herself to his care he died before it was published. He left in• during the later years of his long life. complete notes and illustrations for Volume III which was prepared for publication by Louisa received the early part of her educa• Louisa with help from Frank Bolus, Harry's tion in Port Elizabeth. She graduated from son, whom she married in 1912. high school in 1898 and took a teacher's course the following year. From 1900 to In her early days as a botanist, Louisa con• 1903, Louisa attended South African Col• centrated on the heaths, orchids and Iri- lege (now University of Cape Town). daceae. But she became aware of gaps in Whenever there was an opportunity, she the unwieldy genus Mesembryanthemum, helped her uncle. Harry Bolus (1834-1911), and in the Annals of the Bolus Herbarium in his herbarium. From him she learned the she occasionally described new species.In elements of floral structure and plant classi• 1925 a paper by N. E. Brown of Kew had a fication. Knowledge of Latin, one of the profound influence on her future work. He major subjects studied for her degree, put pointed out that several groups of plants her in good stead for the future. Louisa may were included under Mesembryanthemum, well hold a record among modern botanists and each of them deserved elevation to for the many hundreds of new species she generic rank. Brown quickly proceeded to described in Latin. In 1904. Harry Bolus separate these discordant elements and appointed her as curator of the Bolus name them, a practice he continued for Herbarium. After his death, the herbarium many years. Consequently, Brown appears and library were bequeathed to the Univer• as the author of copious new generic names. sity of Cape Town. Harry's will stipulated that Louisa was to be curator of the herbar• Louisa agreed with splitting Mesembryan• ium during her lifetime or until, for reasons themum into smaller units, but wasn't par• of age or ill health, she wanted to quit the ticularly interested in creating new genera. job. In 1955, Louisa, then 78, relinquished The species themselves—their correct de• her position as curator. The university ap• scriptions and illustrations—were what mat• pointed her an Honorary Reader in plant tered to her. When the gigantic number of taxonomy and, until about a year before her new species described by her is considered, death, she was a steady visitor. Louisa the number of new genera bearing her name worked in a specially reserved area on the as the authority, is surprisingly small. She herbarium's top floor, surrounded by cabi• published her scientific descriptions in inac- nets containing the specimens she described (Continued on page 76jPresidents 75 (Continuedfrom page 75) Presidents cessible journals, which did not set well with her scientific coworkers. Accordingly, she decided to publish all her new species in this specialized field in a new series, Mesembryanthemum and allied Genera. These descriptions began appearing in 1927 and were published in three parts (1928, 1928-1935, and 1936-1958) by the Univer• sity of Cape Town. From 1960 to 1969 the descriptions were continued under the same title in the Journal of South African Botany. In 1919 Louisa published a small booklet, Elementary Lessons in Systematic Botany. This was followed later by two more ambi• tious books, A Book of South African Flow• ers (1925) and A Second Book of South African Flowers (1936), both contained col• ored illustrations. The University of Stel- lenbosch awarded Louisa an honorary D.Sc. degree in 1936. She was a member of the International Organization for Succulent Plant Study (IOS). In May 1969, Louisa was named a Fellow of the CSSA. The in• scription on the award certificate: "Curator of the Bolus Herbarium, University of Cape Town for 43 years; describer of about 1,700 species of succulents, primarily Mesem• bryanthemum; author of many publica• tions." Louisa's last publication, Notes on the Mesembryanthemum and Allied Genera, appeared in the May 1969 issue of the Jour• nal of South African Botany and at the con• clusion of the article appeared the usual "To be continued." She died at age 93 in Cape Town on 5 April 1970. • Larry W. Mitich 2223 Amador Av Davis, CA 95616 76 .
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