Margaret Levyns

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Margaret Levyns (born Margaret Michell) was a South African botanist, plant geographer and taxonomist who lived from 24 August 1890 to 11 November 1975. She grew up in Cape Town, was educated at home and then at Ellerslie Girls’ School, and later studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and the University of Cape Town. Although she planned to study math and science, a professor encouraged her to major in botany. She earned two scholarships and studied genetics at the John Innes Institute.

Back in South Africa, she became a lecturer in the Botany Department at the South African College, which later became the University of Cape Town. She was the first woman to earn a Doctor of Science from the university, in 1932, for her thesis “A taxonomic study of Lobostemon and Echiostachys.” Her other work includes the 1929 book “A Guide to the Flora of the Cape Peninsula” and parts of “Flora of the Cape Peninsula” (1950). After retiring in 1945, she continued to publish on taxonomy and plant geography and revised several South African plant groups, such as Muraltia.

In 1923 she married John Levyns. She is honored in plant names like Thamnochortus levynsiae, Nivenia levynsiae and Crassula levynsiae. About 12,000 of her plant specimens are kept in major herbaria, including the Bolus Herbarium in Cape Town, the National Herbarium in Pretoria and Kew Gardens. Her author abbreviation in botanical names is Levyns. She died in Cape Town in 1975 at the age of 85.