Martinus Stuart ('Tutsie') Allison (or Alison), farmer and soldier, was the son of Captain Albert Bidden Allison, a magistrate. He grew up on his father's farm "Rosenstein" near Oliviershoek Pass in the Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1891 he collected plants in that area and about 70 species collected by him are in the herbarium of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, near London. He is commemorated in the names of the orchid species Brachycorythis allisonii and Eulophia allisonii.

In 1898, under the name M. S. Alison, he contributed a paper, "On the origin and formation of pans", to the Transactions of the Geological Society of South Africa (Vol. 4(7), pp. 159-161), in which he ascribed the origin of pans to animal trampling near water holes. His views were commented upon by August Prister* and David Draper* (pp. 167-170), with Draper supporting Allison's hypothesis particularly for pans formed on Karoo strata. Allison was a member of the Geological Society of South Africa at this time, his address being "Witkoppie", Rietfontein Station (presumably in Johannesburg). He served as a lieutenant in the Intelligence Department during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and was killed in action.

List of sources:

Allison, Martinus Stuart. JSTOR Global Plants. https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000045681 as on 2022/12/7.

Carter, M. and Woodman, T. We wander the battlefields (2015). chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://battlefieldwanderers.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/We-Wander-the-Battlefields.pdf as on 2022/12/7.

Geological Society of South Africa. Transactions, 1898-9, Vol. 4.

Gunn, M. & Codd, L.E. Botanical exploration of southern Africa. Cape Town: Balkema, 1981.

The eponym dictionary of southern African plants. www.calflora.net/southafrica/1A-B.html

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2022-12-07 12:56:04