Hertha Bokelmann

Spanish-born South African botanical illustrator
The basics

Quick Facts

IntroSpanish-born South African botanical illustrator
PlacesSouth Africa
wasIllustrator Botanical illustrator Scientist Botanist
Work fieldArts Creativity Science
Gender
Female
Birth22 August 1915
Death10 February 2005 (aged 89 years)
Star signLeo
The details

Biography

Streptocarpus rexii

Hertha Ludovica Bokelmann (née Faekle) (22 August 1915 Barcelona - 10 February 2005) was a Spanish-born South African botanist and botanical illustrator.

She was trained in horticulture and botany at the Technical High School in Ulm, Germany. Arriving in South Africa in June 1937, she worked for a year at the Botanical Garden of Stellenbosch University. She collected plant specimens which were passed on to the British Museum, while some 600 specimens, mainly from the Eastern Cape and Tsitsikama, are housed at the Compton Herbarium of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden.

Bokelmann is best known for sharing the illustrating with her cousin by marriage, Auriol Batten, of 'Wild Flowers of the Eastern Cape Province' (1966) and 'Flowering Plants of the Tsitsikama Forest and Coastal National Park' (1967). Work on the latter book resulted in a close friendship with co-author Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, who had retired to a farm in the Tsitsikama and had become interested in botany.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article on 23 Feb 2020. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.