Biography

South African botanist born in Jamestown, Cape Province. Buddy Barker joined the staff of the National Botanical Garden in 1933 as its first botanical assistant, and worked in the garden's Compton Herbarium from its beginnings in 1939 until her retirement as Curator in 1972. The herbarium holds an impressive research collection of petaloid monocotyledons from her tenure as curator. She is remembered there for perfecting a dissection technique to display the full characters and dimensions of floral parts and for instituting a practice of collecting leaves, inflorescences, capsules and seeds at intervals throughout the year to provide comprehensive records of genera whose full sets of characters had previously seldom been preserved. Barker's research reflected a life-long interest in Cape bulbs and was focused on South African Amaryllidaceae and Liliaceae, especially the genus Lachenalia. Many of her publications are illustrated with her own botanical paintings. Acrostemon barkerae Compton, Conophytum barkerae L. Bolus, and Othonna barkerae Compton, are named in her honour.