Margaret Moss (born Heatley), botanist, was the daughter of David Heatley. She moved to the United States with her parents in 1893. She studied at Wellesley College, a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, qualifying as Bachelor of Arts (A.B. 1908) and Master of Arts (A.M., 1910). She was also employed by the college, first as a graduate assistant and later as an instructor in botany. A few years later she submitted a dissertation, Studies on the life history of Trillium Cernuum L. (1913) but apparently was not awarded a doctoral degree at this time. In 1916 she published "A study of the life history of Trillium Cernuum L.", presumably based on her dissertation, in the Botanical Gazette. She came to South Africa in 1919 as a lecturer in botany at Huguenot College, Wellington, where she remained until 1921. After visiting the United States for a few months she was appointed as a senior lecturer in the Department of Botany of the University of the Witwatersrand, under Professor C. E. Moss*. They were married the next year and had a son and a daughter.

When her husband died in 1930 Margaret was appointed curator of the Moss Herbarium of the University of the Witwatersrand, a position she held until her retirement in 1950. During these years she was mainly interested in the genera Gnidia and Lasiosiphon and in marine Angiosperms. In 1929 she delivered a paper on "A revision of the genus Gnidia" at the joint meeting of the British and South African Associations for the Advancement of Science, held in South Africa. During the nineteen-thirties she had a heavy teaching load, but sometimes took students to Inhaca Island, Mozambique. As a result she published "A preliminary account of the 'sea grasses' of Delagoa Bay" (South African Journal of Science, 1936).The plant specimens she collected were kept in the Moss Herbarium.

List of sources:

British Association for the Advancement of Science. South Africa, 1929. Journal of Scientific Transactions (pp. 74-75). London: British Association, 1929.

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

Directory of British and Irish Botanists. Retrieved on 10 February 2022 from https://books.google.co.za/books?id=thmPzIltAV8C&pg=PA503&lpg=PA503&dq=Margaret Moss botanist&source=bl&ots=9Iq2gNk9OZ&sig=ACfU3U0fNEy4CFKO7IzASwpi4egtGmrM9w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijg-mSy_T1AhXjmFwKHWI2CGoQ6AF6BAgcEAM#v=onepage&q=Margaret Moss botanist&f=false

Gilliland, H. B. On the history of plant study upon the Witwatersrand. Journal of South African Botany, 1953, Vol. 19, pp. 93-104.

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za/ , publications by M. Heatley.

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

Murray, B. K. Wits - the early years. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1982.

National Archives, Pretoria. Source MHG, Volume 0, Reference 6683/53. Death notice, Margaret Moss.

Wellesley College Alumni Association. The Wellesley Alumni Quarterly, Vol. 5. Retrieved on 12 February 2022 from https://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/wellesley-college-alumnae-association/the-wellesley-alumnae-quarterly-volume-5-goo/page-18-the-wellesley-alumnae-quarterly-volume-5-goo.shtml

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2022-07-15 11:50:54