One Hundred Years of Botany at Rhodes University
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Rhodes Centenary South African Journal of Science 100, November/December 2004 609 One hundred years of botany at Rhodes University Roy Lubke * and Estelle Brinkb The Botany Department of Rhodes University is located in the historic Schonland Building. An indigenous garden was created in its courtyard, mainly of species of the Eastern Cape province, and its growth in diversity and stature mirrors the changes in the department over the years. Professor Selmar Schonland, the founding father of botany at Rhodes, was also the curator/director of the Albany Museum. Under his leadership, systematics was firmly established as a discipline at Rhodes and research on the flora of the Eastern Cape begun, to be continued to this day. Under professors William Isaac (1949–1951) and Edgar Twyman (1951–1973), plant physiology became an important area of study, and future leaders in physiology at other universities obtained de- grees under them. Phycology and aquatic ecology became notable disciplines with Mary Pocock’s world-class work in the 1940s on freshwater and marine algae, which inspired others such as head of department Professor Stanley Seagrief (1958–1986) to develop these studies further. Mycology and microbiology were established as major subdisciplines under Noel Smith (1926–1948) and Twyman through to the 1960s, when the Department of Microbiology was es- tablished. Early studies in ecology owe their success to TonyMartin (1947–1956) and the link with the Grahamstown Botanical Research Station, when a sound base for plant ecology in the Eastern Cape was established. Coastal ecology became a major focus in the 1970s, when Roy Lubke and Ted Avis concentrated on dunes and the management of coastal regions. This led to the establishment of the Department of Environmental Science in the 1990s. The exper- tise of the botany staff in teaching and research in a variety of fields Fig. 1. A view of the Botany Department’s garden in 2004. is reflected in the careers of its many students around the world. Selmar Schonland: pioneer of botany at Rhodes Professor Selmar Schonland (1860–1940), the founder of botany at Rhodes1, was a German immigrant, who came to the Introduction Eastern Cape in 1889 as curator of the Albany Museum. The local Pass through the main gate of the Schonland Building on the flora fascinated him and he had the good fortune to meet Peter Rhodes campus and you are unmistakably at the entrance to a MacOwan, the rector and head of natural sciences at Gill botany department garden of the Eastern Cape. The thicket College, Somerset East, some 100 km from Grahamstown, who species of the province dominate with giant tree euphorbias, was an ardent explorer and collector of plants. Schonland aloes and cycads (all icons of our flora), which collectively make married MacOwan’s daughter and in 1896 fathered Basil up the conspicuous species of the region’s vegetation. Originally Schonland. Basil later became an internationally renowned a garden of alien eucalypts, these have been replaced in time by physicist who pioneered lightning research and radar in South the efforts of successive staff members, to produce the magnifi- Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was scientific cent garden of today (Fig. 1). adviser to Prime Minister Jan Smuts and later to Field Marshal The historic building was once the military hospital for the Bernard Montgomery, was the founding president of the Drostdy garrison that served the remote outpost of Grahamstown CSIR and knighted for his achievements2. In that respect he in the nineteenth century. Later, in 1864, the Cape House of overshadows his famous father, but in Grahamstown it is Selmar Assembly sat here for a single session. This solid stone structure, Schonland who is remembered for his academic and institu- one of the few former military buildings that remain on the tional feats (Fig. 3). Rhodes campus, almost from the outset became the home of the In 1904 Schonland, as a member of the Rhodes Council, Botany Department (Fig. 2). contributed to the founding of Rhodes University through the Just as the garden has changed and matured over the years, in negotiation of an initial grant of £50 000 from the sale of De Beers this account we will see how the Botany Department has shares, which made the establishment of the university possible.3,4 evolved. Several sub-disciplines of botany have evolved and In 1905 he gave up his seat on council and became the first flourished and sometimes deviated from the core subject, while professor of botany. Schonland was curator of the Albany others have grown in diversity and stature. Museum from 1889, and later was appointed director until 1910. He remained curator of the herbarium, which was part of the aDepartment of Botany and bSelmar Schonland Herbarium, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa. museum, until his retirement in 1926. From some of Schonland’s *Author for correspondence. E-mail: [email protected] early lecture notes,5 it was obvious that in those days systematics 610 South African Journal of Science 100, November/December 2004 Rhodes Centenary Fig. 2. The setting of the Botany Department in the 1980s, from a drawing by Michael Ginn. of the entire plant kingdom was the major focus of botany. For many botanists of the day, knowledge of the plant kingdom from the minutest algae to the higher plants was their identify- ing mark. It is not surprising that Schonland, as a systematist, had many new species of plants named after him, such as Rhus schonlandii and Aloe schonlandii. He collected, described and re-classified many of the difficult groups in the region, such as the sedges, the Cyperaceae in 1922,6 and the woody trees and shrubs of the genus Rhus in 1930.7 Schonland’s path to Grahamstown had come via a doctorate at the University of Hamburg and an appointment at Oxford University (1886–1889), where, as the curator of the Fielding Herbarium, he became interested in the Crassulaceae. His appointment to the museum in Grahamstown gave him the opportunity to expand upon his interests and enlarge and develop the second largest herbarium in South Africa (founded by W.G.Atherstone in 1860). His father-in-law, Peter MacOwan, had been its honorary curator from 1862 to 1869 before moving to Somerset East. When MacOwen retired from his subsequent post as director of the Cape Town Botanical Garden and curator of the Cape Government Herbarium, he returned to Grahams- town and no doubt played a role in assisting Schonland in the Fig.3.Professor Selmar Schonland at the wagon, on a collecting trip in Botswana. development of the local herbarium. By the time Schonland retired, the Botany Department and Rhodes University had returned to Rhodes University College as a lecturer in botany; become an established centre of taxonomic research and after a lifetime’s career, she retired in 1941 as senior lecturer. learning in South Africa. Britten was an avid collector, with over 7000 specimens to her credit; her knowledge of the local flora was such that no less a Taxonomy and systematics person than Rudolf Marloth credited her with being the botanist Plant exploration was a major feature of the nineteenth who knew more about the Eastern Cape flora than anyone else century in the Cape and southern Africa in general. Many of in South Africa. Besides lecturing, she focused her research on the specimens were sent abroad to institutions like the Royal the genus Streptocarpus, a study that was not completed, Botanic Gardens at Kew, and to Paris and Berlin. With the although she left a body of work for later researchers to draw on. establishment of the Albany Museum Herbarium, there was She was one of the founders of the Old Rhodian Union and for now a well-kept collection on which taxonomic studies and the first 30 years of its existence was honorary secretary. During revisions could be based. Although the university had an early this time she took great care to build up a complete card index of beginning in systematics, there were few notable taxonomists all past students and was meticulous in keeping contact with who studied under Schonland and promoted the discipline them. In 1932 the Nature Reserve Society was formed to protect in southern Africa. Three women nevertheless made large the flora of Mountain Drive. Together with Lady Annye Graham contributions to the Botany Department, to systematics and to (president), Beatrice E. Rennie, Professor J.V.L. Rennie, the study of the ecology of the region during this period. System- D.V. Kannemeyer and others, she was a founder member and atics thus became an important discipline and remains so today. for many years served as its honorary secretary. In 1945 the Lilian Britten (1886–1952) was one of Schonland’s early responsibility for this area was ceded to the Department of students of botany at Rhodes and gained distinction in this Agriculture and the care of the reserve was entrusted to subject in the final honours examination for the B.Sc. degree.1 the Grahamstown Botanical Station at the Albany Museum Thus qualified, she taught at various schools for some years Herbarium.8 before continuing her botanical studies overseas. In 1918 she Although it had always been Selmar Schonland’s intention Rhodes Centenary South African Journal of Science 100, November/December 2004 611 that the Albany Museum Herbarium should serve as the herbar- searcher, whose breadth of knowledge and interest spanned all ium for the Botany Department, by 1942 things were not working things botanical, from fungi and algae to flowering plants. Dur- out so well in practice as the Albany Herbarium was a research ing this time she was the curator of the Rhodes University Her- herbarium that was not treated well by the students.