Olive Mary Hilliard

Olive Mary Hilliard (née Hillary, 4 July 1925 – 30 November 2022) was a South African botanist and taxonomist. Hilliard authored 372 land plant species names, the fifth-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist.^[1]

Hilliard was born in Durban on 4 July 1925.^[2] She attended Natal University from 1943 to 1947, where she obtained an MSc and later a PhD. She worked at the National Herbarium in Pretoria in 1947-48 and was a lecturer in botany at Natal University from 1954 to 1962. In 1963 she became curator of the herbarium at Natal University and a research fellow. Her special fields of interest were the flora of Natal and the taxonomy of Streptocarpus, Compositae and Scrophulariaceae.

In 1964 she formed a professional and personal collaboration with Brian Laurence Burtt (1913-2008) who played a large part in the revitalising of a moribund Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Their collaboration resulted in numerous papers and three books, Streptocarpus: an African Plant Study (1971), The Botany of the Southern Natal Drakensberg (1987), and Dierama: The Hairbells of Africa (1991).^[3][4]

Hilliard died on 30 November 2022, at the age of 97.^[5][6][7]

Legacy

Hilliard collected specimens, mostly from the Natal Drakensberg and Malawi, number some 8000 (of which 5000 were collected with B. L. Burtt). She is commemorated in the 2 genera of Hilliardia and Hilliardiella (both in the Asteraceae family).^[8] She is also honoured in Plectranthus hilliardiae Codd, Schizoglossum hilliardiae Kupicha, Cymbopappus hilliardiae B.Nord., Agalmyla hilliardiae D.J.Middleton & S.M.Scott and Helichrysum hilliardiae Wild.

Works

• Hilliard, OM, BL Burtt 1971. Streptocarpus: an African Plant Study
• Hilliard, OM. 1983. Flora of Southern Africa Series. Ed. Balogh Scientific Books. 325 pp. ISBN 0-621-07943-X
• Hilliard, OM, BL Burtt 1985. A Revision of Geranium in Africa south of the Limpopo. (Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
• Hilliard, OM. 1987. The Botany of the Southern Natal Drakensberg (Annals of Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens) Ed. National Botanic Gardens. 253 pp. ISBN 0-620-10625-5
• Hilliard, OM, BL Burtt 1991. Dierama: The Hairbells of Africa. Ed. Timber Press, Inc. 152 pp. ISBN 1-874802-01-7
• Hilliard, OM. 1995. The Manuleae: A Tribe of Scrophulariaceae. Ed. Edinburgh University Press. 600 pp. ISBN 0-7486-0489-8
• Hilliard, OM, LS Davis (illustrator). 1997. Trees & Shrubs of Natal (Ukhahlamba). Ed. Univ. of Kwazulu Natal Press; 2ª ed. 48 pp. ISBN 0-86980-882-6
• Hilliard, OM. 1997. Flowers of the Natal Drakensberg: The Lily, Iris And Orchid Family And Their Allies (Ukhahlamba S.) Ed. Univ. of Kwazulu Natal Press. 85 pp. ISBN 0-86980-702-1

References

1. Lindon, Heather L.; Gardiner, Lauren M.; Brady, Abigail; Vorontsova, Maria S. (5 May 2015). "Fewer than three percent of land plant species named by women: Author gender over 260 years". Taxon. 64 (2): 209–215. doi:10.12705/642.4.
2. Mary Gunn; L. E. W. Codd (June 1981). Botanical Exploration Southern Africa. Taylor & Francis. p. 188. ISBN 9780869611296. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
3. "Botanical Electronic News - 396". www.ou.edu. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
4. "B. L. Burtt: Plant taxonomist". The Independent. 13 June 2008. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
5. "Hilliard, Olive Mary". Harvard University. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
6. "Olive Mary Hilliard". Bionomia. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
7. "Olive Hilliard obituary". The Guardian. 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
8. Burkhardt, Lotte (2018). Verzeichnis eponymischer Pflanzennamen – Erweiterte Edition [Index of Eponymic Plant Names – Extended Edition] (pdf) (in German). Berlin: Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin. doi:10.3372/epolist2018. ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5. S2CID 187926901. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
9. International Plant Names Index.  Hilliard.