Inez Clare Verdoorn (15 June 1896 – 2 April 1989) was a South African botanist and

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

, noted for her major revisions of plant families and genera. She is also a niece of Eugene Nielen Marais, lawyer, naturalist, poet and writer. She matriculated in 1916 from Loreto Convent School in

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

, worked for a while in the office of the Controller and Auditor General before being appointed in 1917 as a

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (calle ...

assistant at the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology. Between 1925 and 1927 she worked at

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

as liaison officer for the National Herbarium. On her return to Pretoria, she assumed charge of the herbarium and was promoted to Senior Professional Officer in 1944. Despite having arrived at retirement age in 1951, Verdoorn opted to work on as a temporary staff member until 1968, and thereafter as an unpaid research worker. She has more than 200 botanical publications to her credit, including major revisions, appearing mainly in ''Bothalia'', ''Flowering Plants of Africa'', ''Flora of Southern Africa'', ''Kew Bulletin'', and the ''Journal of South African Botany''. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation I.Verd. when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the '' Inte ...

Honours and fellowships

*1952 Senior Capt. Scott Medal by the SA Biological Society *1957 President of the SA Biological Society *1964 President of Section B of the SA Association for the Advancement of Science *1967 PhD (honorary) from the

University of Natal The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu- ...

She is commemorated by the Composite genus '' Inezia'' Phill., ''Aloe verdoorniae'' Reynolds, ''Senecio verdoorniae'' R.A.Dyer, ''Teclea verdoorniae'' Exell & Mendonça and Volume 28 of the '' Flowering Plants of Africa'', which was specially dedicated to her. Her collected specimens total some 4 000, many collected with Leslie Edward Wostall Codd, Robert Allen Dyer, Anna Amelia Obermeyer and

Herold Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt Herold Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt (28 February 1903, Schmie, Baden-Württemberg – 21 February 1977, Pretoria) was a German botanist. In 1904 he moved with his parents to Pretoria, where he later studied at Transvaal University. Fro ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verdoorn, Inez Clare Botanists with author abbreviations 20th-century South African botanists South African women botanists South African taxonomists Women taxonomists Scientists from Pretoria Afrikaner people 1896 births 1989 deaths South African people of Dutch descent 20th-century South African women scientists