Mary Ann Robb (née Boulton; 1829–1912) was a 19th-century English botanist, horticulturalist and botanical collector. The perennial plant ''

Euphorbia amygdaloides ''Euphorbia amygdaloides'', the wood spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to woodland locations in Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus. It is a bushy evergreen perennial, growing to a height of , with dark green ...

'' var. ''robbiae'' is named in her honour. Robb helped make this plant popular in British gardens. She owned property in London as well as Chiltley Place in

Liphook Liphook is a village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 4.1 miles (6.6 km) west of Haslemere, bypassed by the A3 road, and lies on the Hampshire/West Sussex/Surrey borders. It is in the civil parish of Bramshott an ...

where she designed and created a garden. Robb was also an artist. Her drawings are held in the Library and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Life

Mary Ann Robb was born in 1829, and grew up in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

. Her paternal grandfather was engineer and businessman

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton ( ; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English businessman, inventor, mechanical engineer, and silversmith. He was a business partner of the Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the par ...

, based in Birmingham, but her father Matthew Robinson Boulton moved the family south to the

Tew Park Great Tew is an English village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about north-east of Chipping Norton and south-west of Banbury, close to the Cotswold Hills. The 2011 census gave a parish population of 156. This qualifies it for an annual pari ...

estate in Great Tew, Oxfordshire. Robb was the youngest of six children, and was educated privately. She married Captain John Robb in 1856, and was widowed two years later. They had two sons together. Robb was a botanist, horticulturalist and botanical collector. She was friends with

Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English polymath and the originator of eugenics during the Victorian era; his ideas later became the basis of behavioural genetics. Galton produced over 340 papers and b ...

and Charles Ellis. She purchased 150 acres at Chiltley Place in

where she designed and created a garden. Robb is known for deterring trespassers from her gardens using a sign warning them to beware of the

Lycopodium ''Lycopodium'' (from Ancient Greek ''lykos'', wolf and ''podion'', diminutive of ''pous'', foot) is a genus of clubmosses, also known as ground pines or creeping cedars, in the family Lycopodiaceae. Two very different circumscriptions of the gen ...

, a moss. She donated specimens from her gardens to the collections at Kew, and also collected plant specimens while travelling in Ithaca, learning about the native flora from

Theodor von Heldreich Theodor Heinrich Hermann von Heldreich (3 March 1822 – 7 September 1902) was a German botanist born in Dresden. In 1851, he settled in Greece for the rest of his life. He carried out botanical experiments in the country. He published thirtee ...

, a German botanist who was previously director of the Athens Botanical Garden. The perennial plant ''

'' var. ''robbiae'' is named in her honour. Robb helped make this plant popular in British gardens. It was reported that the plant was originally collected near Istanbul in Turkey, and transported back to England in Robb's hatbox, earning it the common name Mrs. Robb's Bonnet. Robb was also an artist. Her drawings are held in the Library and Archives at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, along with a number of watercolours by a Chinese painter of Chinese conifers, collected on her travels. Robb died in 1912. Her Liphook garden was not maintained during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the estate was broken up and sold in 1929.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robb, Mary Ann 1829 births 1912 deaths English botanists People from Liphook