PT-No28-S. Ducker Vol44 No1 2008

eXtremely difficult and dangerous Lme, and in Phycological Trailblazer 1938, Sophie, her husband, and young son Klaus No. 28 were forced to flee Germany. Sophie, eXpecLng a second child, was iniLally on her own. Her father Sophie C. Ducker had entrusted her with a small but very valuable collecLon of stamps to use as possible collateral (Originally printed in the Phycological Newsle6er. in her escape, but, as she later told me, all the 2008. Vol. 44 No. 1) stamps were taken from her at a border crossing. Another incident, a traumaLc event, that With the death of Sophie Ducker on 20 she also related to me of her escape was that May, 2004, in Melbourne, phycology lost a major when her labor pains began, she was put into a contemporary figure, a person who contributed room all by herself, where she gave birth to a much to our understanding of marine algae, sea- daughter. She received no medical assistance, grasses and their pollinaLon, horLculture, and and the baby died soon aber birth. Separated the history of botany. On April 9, 1909, Sophie from her husband and her son, Sophie traveled Charlo6e von to “Persia” [Iran], Klemperer was born where she was in Berlin into a finally reunited with prominent Jewish her family. She family, in which her happened to be banker father had visiLng her parents sufficient leisure in Rhodesia, where Lme and resources they had escaped to spend much of to, when the War his non-banking fully broke out. She hours in was forced to accumulaLng very remain in Africa for old books. That love some me for books was employed as a passed down to governess on a Sophie. She was remote farm raised in Dresden, Sophie Ducker on a Sphagnum bog near Brighton, Michigan, looking aber 5 August, 1982. but with her father off children. In 1940 she to serve in the was able to book Austrian Army during World War I, normal life passage on an Italian ship headed from was non-eXistent. She was sent off to England to Mozambique to Persia, were her husband and complete her educaLon (at the Cheltenham son were located. But while that journey was Ladies College), upon which she returned to underway, in June of 1940, Italy entered the war, Germany. She had an abiding fascinaLon with and the boat got chased by a BriLsh warship. The plant life and thus started advanced studies in ship that Sophie was on took refuge in botany, first with the freshwater phycologist R. southeastern Persia, and from that remote point H. Chodat in Geneva. This was pivotal training Sophie made a risky journey, partly on that opened up to her the world of algae. She camelback through bandit country, to reach the also studied in Stu6gart. But this educaLon was relaLve safety of Tehran. In 1941, with the three interrupted in 1931, when she married Dr. Duckers sLll in Persia, the Soviet Army invaded Johann Friedrich Ducker, an eXecuLve officer the northern part of the country, and the BriLsh with the Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg. forces invaded the south. Sophie‘s husband was With the emergence of the Nazi regime placed under arrest by the Soviet Army, but in Germany, the decade of the 1930s was an !1 first, Sophie did menial tasks such as washing glassware and preparing media, but gradually she was given more and more responsibiliLes, eventually becoming a co-author to several publicaLons with Dr. McLennan. Sophie’s innate abiliLes and her enthusiasm for botany became obvious to everyone, and she was now even entrusted with academic responsibiliLes such as mentoring her own PhD students. She also transferred her a6enLon more to the marine algae as well as to sea-grasses Fig. 1. Sophie Ducker (second from leb), with Murray Parsons, Irené despite the constant Novaczek, and Francis Magne, on foray to Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia, discouragement and carping of her August, 1988 Department Head that there was no presLge, future or road to according to son Klaus’ story (Ducker, 2004), his advancement in the study of such Mother was able to cajole the BriLsh authoriLes inconsequenLal organisms. Her interests were [she had a knack for that] in Tehran into very broad: systemaLcs, ecology, the relaLonship arranging her husband’s release. Once set free of host and epiphyte or parasite, pollinaLon from the Russians, Dr. Ducker, his wife Sophie ecology in sea-grasses, and eventually history. and young Klaus soon leb on a boat, with very She was allowed to advise several graduate few possessions, headed for an unknown students over the years. These included Ian desLnaLon. They arrived in Australia just before Price, Robert King, Peter Saenger, Margaret Japan entered the War. It was in Australia, more Clayton, Vicki Brown, Serena Canterford, and specifically Melbourne, where they se6led, Cameron McKonchie. She had fruimul established roots, and were later to become collaboraLons on such diverse topics as Australian ciLzens, although husband Fritz’s pollinaLon in sea-grasses and disLncLve red qualificaLons and doctorate were never algal pigments with colleagues in the School of recognized in that country and he never Botany such as Bruce KnoX, Kingsley Rowan, and achieved the status there that he would have John Pet. Like many of the talented Australian had he elected to remain in Germany and woman botanists of her era, such as Isabelle abandon his “Jewish” wife as he was ordered to Cookson, Ethel McLennan, Margaret Blackwood, do by the Nazis. and Gretna Weste, Sophie was a vicLm of a It was only aber Sophie’s son was raised repressive “glass ceiling” at Melbourne that she made the decision to resume the University for none of these talented scienLsts pursuit of a botanical career, even though she were ever elevated to full professorships and had no graduate degree. Her first employment indeed were granted only the rank of reader was in the Botany School at ‘Melbourne Uni’, (i.e., Associate Professor) in their last year before where she worked in the fungal lab of Dr. Ethel reLrement. Her interest in green algae McLennan, who proved to be an encouraging resulted in several papers, including not just a mentor (Ducker, 1988b 1995a). The focus of monograph of Chlorodesmis (Ducker, 1967) but McLennan’s lab was to establish and maintain also the first publicaLon on the use of numerical cultures of fungi, especially Penicillium, as a taXonomy in an algal genus (Ducker et al., 1965). resource for obtaining anLbioLcs in Australia. At !2 She had several solo-authored and co-authored me a small vial of a wet-preserved papers on various green algal genera and also on delesseriacean alga that she had “secreted” out species of mostly arLculated Corallinaceae, of Madagascar in 1974. It was just a fragment, including a monograph of the Australian but in studying that small scrap I was able to endemic genus Metagoniolithon (Ducker, determine that it was the totally obscure species 1979b). Her fluency in several languages gave Delesseria ferlusii Hariot, the original 18th her a facility to carry out her research in the Century collecLon having been made at Fort history of phycology, with an emphasis on Dauphin, Madagascar. But I also later realized Australia. She dealt with contribuLons by the that it had to be an undescribed genus that I was French (1979a), the Germans (1981, b, c), and pleased to name Duckerella. Her Madagscar trip the Austrians (1990a), as well as producing more also resulted in the descripLon of a totally new general historical treatments (1981a, 1990b). But genus and species of gigarLnalean algae of the it was William Harvey, of Trinity College, Dublin, obscure family Acrotylaceae which Gerry Krab Ireland, that she was especially drawn to (1972, named Ranavalona (aber both the collecLon 1977, 1992, 2002). A visit to Harvard University locality, Cape Ranavalona, and a famous early resulted in her discovering a treasure-trove of queen of the southern region) duckerae (Kra, le6ers wri6en by Harvey to Asa Gray and his wife 1977). Sophie’s Madagascar trip was not without Emma Gray (and to others), allowing Sophie to considerable personal dangers. Madagascar was edit a handsome volume of these then governed by a series of unstable leb-wing correspondences (Ducker, 1988a). Her chapter dictatorships. Life and safety for the very few on the history of Australia phycology (done with intrepid visiLng westerners could be very Roberta Cowan) in the recent book “Algae of uncertain. AwaiLng departure with a large Australia: IntroducLon” is a very rich source of collecLon of marine algae, she was told that all informaLon and a fing final contribuLon from would have to be leb behind and that the her (Cowan & Ducker, 2007). penalLes for a6empLng to smuggle out even the I first met Sophie Ducker as a grad smallest amount of natural resources would be student in the mid-1960s, when she spent some severe. ReLring to the ladies’ room, Sophie Lme in the Dept of Botany and Herbarium of the picked out the cream of her collecLons University of California, Berkeley, consulLng with (including the “Delesseria” and Ranavalona), Drs G. F. Papenfuss and P. C. Silva. Some Lme secreted the specimens in her brazier, and later (in 1981) I spent a sabbaLcal at Melbourne returned inLmidaLon for inLmidaLon as she Uni interacLng much with her and with old sailed majesLcally through customs. friends and colleagues such as Gerry Krab, Rick A year later, in 1982, on her way to Wetherbee, Carrick Chambers, and Tim Entwisle. a6end the First InternaLonal Phycological I was housed in a rather spartan “faculty flat” at Congress in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, one of the “colleges” (student resident halls), Sophie came through Ann Arbor and stayed with and Sophie oben checked to make sure that I me.

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