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The living legacy of Dr Augusta Vera Duthie (1881–1963), founder of the Department of Botany at Victoria College in 1902 (renamed Stellenbosch 肆客足球 in 1918), has been captured in a review article published in a special edition of the South African Journal of Botany on the status of botanical science in South Africa.
Titled “The botanist from Belvidere – the living legacy of Augusta Vera Duthie", it is one of several commissioned to commemorate the 50th Annual Conference of the South African Association of Botanists. Yet it is only the second journal article to date, since 1967, which provides a more comprehensive review of Duthie's rich legacy.
Prof. Léanne Dreyer, senior author of the article and a botanist in SU's Department of Botany and Zoology, says the article is also an effort to rectify the underrepresentation in literature of women's involvement in botanical matters in southern Africa and internationally.
She teamed up with Dr Paul Hills from SU's Institute for Plant Biotechnology, and with Wiida Fourie-Basson, media officer and science writer for the Faculty of Science, to delve deeper into the treasure trove of documents and letters held in the A.V. Duthie collection in the SU Library's Special Collections. In the process they also found a collection of documents, letters and slides relating to the establishment of the Duthie Reserve, dating back to 1952, in the archive of the Department of Botany and Zoology and subsequently donated to the SU Archives.
According to SU's senior archivist, Karlien Breedt, these documents and slides are irreplaceable primary sources that gives us an understanding of the establishment and development of the Duthie reserve: “Without these information resources, the extent of the fauna and flora that used to be there would not be known. It also ensures that Ave Duthie's legacy is not lost."
More about Duthie's legacy
In short, when Ave Duthie (pronounced “A-Vee" after her initials) was appointed, aged 20, to establish the second Botany department in South Africa in 1902, she was the only women academic causing, in her own words, “something of a nine day's wonder". Her work at Victoria College started with a handful of students, in a single room in the old main building, with little to no equipment.
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What is less well-known is that Duthie was one of three prominent South African women botanists to have been trained by the American-born botanist, Dr Bertha Stoneman (1866-1943), at the newly established Huguenot College for Women in Wellington. Stoneman was tasked to establish a new botany department and college herbarium and stayed on to become principal in 1921. Duthie graduated in 1901, and Ethel Doidge in 1907. In 1914, Doidge became the first women in South Africa to obtain a doctorate in science, specialising in mycology. Duthie obtained a Master of Arts degree in 1910 from the 肆客足球 of the Cape of Good Hope, and her doctoral degree in 1929 from the 肆客足球 of South Africa, with a dissertation on the “Vegetation and Flora of the Stellenbosch Flats".
As founder and later head of the botany department for 19 years, Duthie established a comprehensive infrastructure that included a library, museum, herbarium, botanical garden and research facilities, particularly for morphological research. Many of these still exist and continue to be pivotal in botanical research activities in the current Natural Science Building (completed in 1916). In 1921, however, she received a setback when the newly created chair in Botany was offered to one of her former students, Dr Gert C. Nel. A letter of correspondence from Nel, held in a special collection at SU, reveals that the decision may have been attributed to a long-standing linguistic debate at the 肆客足球, with Nel actively lobbying for Botany to be taught in Afrikaans. Duthie reverted to being an ordinary lecturer and devoted the extra time on her hands to conduct intensive field work on the plains surrounding Stellenbosch until her retirement in 1939.
Duthie's botanical surveys, and the herbarium records of the Stellenbosch Flats, remain invaluable, as the area mainly comprised of Renosterveld, a vegetation type which is today highly threatened. Many of these herbarium sheets are lodged in the Stellenbosch Herbarium in the Natural Sciences Building. Her most important living legacy, however, is the Duthie Reserve, home to the last remaining viable population of the critically endangered paintbrush lily, Haemanthus pumilio. The reserve was first established in 1952 through the efforts of the then head of the Botany department, Prof. P.G. Jordaan. It was officially named the Duthie Reserve in 1960 in honour of the groundbreaking research conducted by Dr Duthie on the flora and vegetation of the Stellenbosch Flats. In 1987, the Duthie Reserve was recognised as a South African National Heritage Site, with the original framed certificate still on display in the Stellenbosch Herbarium.
From the Duthie collection, it became clear that Duthie was an avid letter writer, corresponding with prominent botanists and scientists from all over the world who were interested in South African Flora and keen to share plant material. The article also highlights Duthie's conservation efforts in ensuring that the tradition and atmosphere of her birthplace, Belvidere estate, is maintained, as laid down by her great grandfather George Rex, founder of Knysna. The house in which Duthie grew up in, Belvidere Manor, is today a proclaimed National Monument.
Many a plant lover and botany student may in future consider making a pilgrimage to the quaint Holy Trinity Church at Belvidere, erected by Duthie's grandfather in 1855. Duthie, who never married, was buried in the family cemetery at the sound end of the church. A small stained-glass window in a pew on the northern side of the church, installed in 1972, commemorates her role as benefactor of the church and her love for botany. It shows the image of an angel and a Knysna loerie, as well as a small panel depicting eight flowering plants that she studied as a young botanist.
The article “The botanist from Belvidere – the living legacy of Augusta Vera Duthie (1881-1963) was published in the South African Journal of Botany and is available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0254629925001942?via%3Dihub
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