Biography

South African botanist. Born in Hillcrest in Natal, Amy Jacot Guillarmod (née Hean) obtained an MA in History and English and a BSc in Botany and Zoology from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. After a short time as a teacher, she joined the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria as a plant pathologist in the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, where she met and married the entomologist C.F. Jacot Guillarmod. In 1940 they moved to Lesotho, where she made a study of the regional flora and in 1956 was appointed lecturer and head of the Botany Department at the University of Basutoland. In 1957 her husband accepted the directorship of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown and she was given a lectureship at Rhodes University. She remained as a senior lecturer and curator of the Rhodes University herbarium until her retirement in 1973. In 1962 she won a fellowship to study overseas, which enabled her to complete a PhD at St Andrews for her thesis on the flora of Lesotho. After her retirement she was offered a research position at the CISR Institute of Fresh Water Studies at Rhodes. In 1977, soon after being widowed, she enrolled on the geography course at Rhodes, from which she graduated first in her class. From 1981 she worked in the Albany Museum Herbarium as a part-time research assistant, then as curator of the M.A. Pocock Collection of Marine Algae, and, in her last years, as a research associate. She was the author of almost 200 publications on a wide-range of botanical subjects, from virology to swamp vegetation to floristic studies. Most of the 10,241 plant specimens in her collection were collected in Lesotho, but she also collected in the Albany, Bathurst and the Victoria East districts, in the Port St Johns area of Transkei, and in the George and Knysna areas of the southern Cape. Merxmuellera guillarmodiae Conert, and two species of diatoms, Navicula jacotia and Pinnularia guillarmodiae, are named after her.

Biography

South African botanist. Born in Hillcrest in Natal, Amy Jacot Guillarmod (née Hean) obtained an MA in History and English and a BSc in Botany and Zoology from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. After a short time as a teacher, she joined the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria as a plant pathologist in the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, where she met and married the entomologist C.F. Jacot Guillarmod. In 1940 they moved to Lesotho, where she made a study of the regional flora and in 1956 was appointed lecturer and head of the Botany Department at the University of Basutoland. In 1957 her husband accepted the directorship of the Albany Museum in Grahamstown and she was given a lectureship at Rhodes University. She remained as a senior lecturer and curator of the Rhodes University herbarium until her retirement in 1973. In 1962 she won a fellowship to study overseas, which enabled her to complete a PhD at St Andrews for her thesis on the flora of Lesotho. After her retirement she was offered a research position at the CISR Institute of Fresh Water Studies at Rhodes. In 1977, soon after being widowed, she enrolled on the geography course at Rhodes, from which she graduated first in her class. From 1981 she worked in the Albany Museum Herbarium as a part-time research assistant, then as curator of the M.A. Pocock Collection of Marine Algae, and, in her last years, as a research associate. She was the author of almost 200 publications on a wide-range of botanical subjects, from virology to swamp vegetation to floristic studies. Most of the 10,241 plant specimens in her collection were collected in Lesotho, but she also collected in the Albany, Bathurst and the Victoria East districts, in the Port St Johns area of Transkei, and in the George and Knysna areas of the southern Cape. Merxmuellera guillarmodiae Conert, and two species of diatoms, Navicula jacotia and Pinnularia guillarmodiae, are named after her.