Helena Madelain (or Madeleine) Lamont (or Lamond) Forbes, botanist, was the daughter of David Lamont Forbes and his wife Jessie Petrie Forbes. She came to South Africa with her parents as a child and grew up in Durban. In July 1919 she started work as junior assistant in the Natal Herbarium in Durban. She soon proved her keen interest and ability in botany, gradually took over the maintenance of the herbarium and its plant identification service and became involved in research. During her career she collected over 1400 specimens, mainly in Natal, and in due course became an authority of the Natal flora. During 1936-1937 she spent eighteen months as a South African scientific liaison officer in the herbarium at Kew Gardens, near London, and upon her return was stationed at the National Herbarium in Pretoria from 1938 to the end of 1940. In 1941 she was appointed as curator of the Natal Herbarium, a post that she held until her early retirement in September 1955 as a result of rheumatoid arthritis.

Forbes' first contributions to science were "An account of the flora of Malvern District" (South African Journal of Natural History, Vol. 2, pp. 195-208) and two papers that she delivered at the annual congress of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Durban in 1921, dealing with "The flora of Isipingo" (South African Journal of Science, 1922) and "Natal species of the genus Cassia" (Ibid, 1922). However, her main contributions to the flora of Natal were her revisions of the genera Psoralea (Bothalia, 1930) and Tephrosia (Bothalia, 1951), both in the family Leguminosae.

Forbes was not married.

List of sources:

Bullock, A. A. Bibliography of South African botany (up to 1951). Department of Agricultural Technical Services, 1978.

Forbes, Helena Madelain Lamond (1900-1959). Retrieved on 9 September 2021 from https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000002648

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

Helena Madeleine Lamont Forbes. Geni. Retrieved on 10 September 2021 from https://www.geni.com/people/Helena-Madeleine-Lamont-Forbes/6000000071633763374

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to Helena Madeleine Lamont Forbes.

Obituary: Miss Helena M. L. Forbes. South African Journal of Science, 1959, Vol. 55, p. 317.

Phillips, E. P. Memories of South African botanists. South African Journal of Science, 1965, Vol. 61, pp. 291-296.

Schrire, B. D. Centenary of the Natal Herbarium, Durban, 1882-1982. Bothalia, 1983, Vol. 14 (2), pp. 223-236.

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2024-05-13 10:18:04