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Ella Campbell

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Ella Orr Campbell
DNZM
File:Ella Orr Campbell.png
Born28 October 1910
Dunedin, New Zealand
Died24 July 2003
Palmerston North, New Zealand
OccupationBotanist
Parent(s)Orr Campbell and Agnes Campbell née Kinder

Dame Ella Orr Campbell Lua error: expandTemplate: template "post-nominals/NZL-cats" does not exist. (28 October 1910 – 24 July 2003) was a New Zealand botanist.

Early life

Campbell was born in Dunedin on 28 October 1910 to Agnes Campbell née Kinder and her husband Orr. Her mother studied pharmacy at Otago University and her mother's sister Jane, was one of the first four women in New Zealand to graduate as a medical doctor. This interest in science and botany proved a lasting influence on Campbell.[1] Campbell attended a local kindergarten, George St Primary School then Otago Girls High School. While there, Campbell's interest in botany was fuelled by close family friend and botanist Helen Kirkland Dalrymple.[2] Campbell attributed her botanical interest to walking with her father as a child.[3]

Education

In 1929 Campbell began a two-year teaching course at Dunedin Training College, jointly studying at Otago University where she had enrolled in her first arts papers in 1928. She obtained her Diploma in Teaching in 1930. In 1931 she returned to the University of Otago where she joined the Botany Department to study under John Ernest Holloway adding geology, chemistry, and botany to her earlier arts papers.[1]

Histiopteris incisa fern
Equisetum arvense foliage

Campbell then undertook a masters degree, graduating in 1934.[3] That work was the source of her first publication[1] published in Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1936 – "The embryo and stelar development of Histiopteris incisa".[4]

Career

Upon graduation, Campbell taught at Waitaki Girls' School in Oamaru for one year and then became an assistant botany lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. The following year she returned to the University of Otago, now working alongside Holloway, where she remained until 1944. She learned to speak German[3] and was sufficiently fluent to deliver a lecture at the Berlin botanical garden.[5]

Campbell became the first woman on the staff of Massey Agricultural College (now Massey University) when she joined their Department of Agricultural Botany in 1945.[6] She lectured on plant morphology and anatomy and led research field trips to Himatangi Beach, Kapiti Island, and Tongariro National Park.[3] Research projects included investigating mycorrhiza related to orchids and the morphology and taxonomy of thalloid liverworts and hornworts.[3] She co-authored the textbook Agricultural Botany (first published in 1954; second edition in 1960 and reprinted most recently in 1997).[7]

In 1976 the University of Otago awarded Campbell the degree Doctor of Science and she officially retired the same year. However, she remained at the university in an honorary capacity and continued her research. Major publications in this period included work on the Metzgeriales and marchantiales orders of liverwort and several works on New Zealand hornworts that included an examination of details visible under scanning and transmission electron microscopes.[3] Campbell was the first to correctly identify Equisetum arvense (field horsetail) in Palmerston North as an invasive species.[8]

By her 80th birthday had published many academic articles on liverworts (37), orchids (14), wetlands (5), and other topics (10).[9] Campbell also wrote internationally acclaimed papers on the "mycorrhizal associations of New Zealand's achlorophyllous mycotrophic terrestrial orchids, Gastrodia cunninghamii, G. aff. sesamoides, G. minor, Molloybas cryptanthus and Danhatchia australis".[10] She continued to research and publish as a research associate for more than two decades, retiring in 2000 at age 90.[11]

Death

Campbell died in Palmerston North in her retirement home on 24 July 2003. Her ashes are interred with her family at Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.[1]

Awards

Her most prominent awards included being: appointed a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture (1976); awarded the Massey Medal from Massey University (1992); and appointed Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) (1997) for "a pioneer in the field of university botanic research".[5]

She was also made an Honorary Life Member of Soroptimists International having been inaugural president of the Palmerston North chapter.[1] A keen field hockey player, she was captain of the Otago Women's Hockey Team and the New Zealand University Team (for which she won three university blues) and served on the New Zealand Women's Hockey Council.[1] The Massey University herbarium was named in her honour in 2003[5] in a ceremony which Campbell attended.[8]

The standard author abbreviation E.O.Campb. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Rapson, G. L. (September 2004). "Obituary". New Zealand Journal of Botany. 42 (4): 695–708. doi:10.1080/0028825X.2004.9512921. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
  2. ^ Thomson, A. D. (September 2001). "Two notable pioneer women botanists in teaching: Olga Adams and Helen Dalrymple" (PDF). New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter. 65: 30. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Campbell, Ella Orr (1910–2003)". http://plants.jstor.org/. Natural History Museum (BM). Retrieved 14 March 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  4. ^ "Botany Department Publications, 2009 to 1930" (PDF). Otago University. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  5. ^ a b c "Dame Ella Campbell Herbarium". Massey University. 19 June 2014. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  6. ^ "Women at Massey University". Massey University. 16 August 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  7. ^ "All editions of Agricultural Botany". WorldCat. OCLC. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  8. ^ a b Clemens, J (2003). "In Memory of Ella O. Campbell, DNZM, FRIH" (PDF). Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture. 6 (1): 2. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
  9. ^ Rapson, Jill (December 1990). "Birthday Celebrations – Ella Campbell". New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter. 22: 13–16.
  10. ^ St George, Ian (December 2003). "Vale Ella Campbell". New Zealand Native Orchid Journal (89). Retrieved 14 March 2015.
  11. ^ "The resolute Dame Ella". http://www.massey.ac.nz/. Retrieved 14 March 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  12. ^ International Plant Names Index.  E.O.Campb.

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