Edgar, Elizabeth   (1929 - 2019)

Born 27 December 1929 in Christchurch, NZ; died at age 89 on 1 January 2019 in Christchurch, NZ.

She was educated at Rangi Ruru Girls' School and Canterbury College of University of New Zealand (now University of Canterbury). After completing a B.A. degree in classics in 1950 Elizabeth started as a library assistant at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) Crop Research Division in 1952.

A meeting with Lucy Moore in 1953 set her on a course to becoming a plant systematist. Elizabeth undertook a B.Sc. in botany in 1953 and obtained leave without pay in 1955 and 1957-59 to study again at Canterbury College, where she completed an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. Her Master's thesis was on the floret morphology and floral biology of the genus Cotula and her Ph.D. was completed in 1960 and published as a book in 1961, titled Fluctuations in Mitotic Index in the Shoot Apex of Lonicera nitida.

On her return to the DSIR on 1 December 1959 Elizabeth transferred from Crop Division to Botany Division at their new headquarters in Lincoln. The headquarters (officially opened in 1960) included laboratories, a brand-new herbarium, a library, and an experimental garden.

A notable event in her second year at Botany Division was the publication of Flora of New Zealand, Volume 1, Indigenous Tracheophyta (incl., lycopods, ferns, gymnosperms and dicotyledons) by Harry H. Allan, and brought to completion and to press by Lucy Moore in 1961. Elizabeth on arrival started working under the direction of Lucy Moore on the second volume of this new flora series, the indigenous monocotyledons except for grasses.

Her first task was to revise the difficult genus Juncus; this genus and Luzula of the rush family (Juncaceae) and numerous genera of Cyperaceae were to occupy much of her time in the coming two decades in preparation for Volumes 2 and 3 of the Flora of New Zealand series.

After completing Flora of New Zealand Volume 2, Lucy Moore retired from Botany Division and Elizabeth joined Arthur Healy in working towards a new adventive flora of monocotyledons, again with the grasses absent. Elizabeth spent time overseas visiting European herbaria to study type specimens.

She also visited the National Herbarium of New South Wales in Sydney to study collections of Australian Luzula, and carried out field work in that genus with Drs Barbara Briggs and Lawrie Johnson towards a new revision of Luzula that included both Australian and New Zealand species, published in 1975.

Arthur Healy and Elizabeth's productive collaboration resulted in the publication of Volume 3 of Flora of New Zealand. Significantly this was the first Flora of New Zealand volume that included both native and naturalised species where they occurred in the same genus.

Since the grasses had so far not been included in the flora series, Elizabeth, along with her colleague Henry Connor, a specialist in grass breeding systems, started working towards the first fully integrated flora of all indigenous and adventive grasses of New Zealand. The exacting, preliminary work of revision took a great deal of effort and time and continued into both their retirements. Throughout the 1980s and 90s they published an impressive number of generic revisions, papers on nomenclature, and checklists of adventive species.

Volume 5 Gramineae brought to completion the first modern flora series of New Zealand vascular plants, planned for by Harry H. Allan, the first Director of DSIR Botany Division and author of Volume 1, published 39 years previously.

As well as writing revisions and producing floras, Elizabeth contributed enormously to the background activities of a working research herbarium.

Elizabeth's official retirement date from DSIR was in 1988, a year early due to family responsibilities, but she didn't really retire from plant systematics until the second edition of the grass flora was published in 2010.

In her real retirement years Elizabeth enjoyed music and took up learning to play the trumpet.

Source: Extracted from: Ford, Kerry (2019) Obituary: 'Dr Elizabeth Edgar B.A., B.Sc., Ph.D.,..., 27 December 1929 - 1 January 2019'
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0028825X.2019.1676796
Portrait Photo: from above.

Collecting localities for 'Edgar, E.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 433 specimens in Australian herbaria