Amy Frances May Gordon Jacot Guillarmod , was a South African botanist and limnologist, noted for her work on the flora of Basutoland and some 200 publications, including numerous papers on wetlands, bogs and sponges.
Education
Jacot Guillarmod was awarded an Master of Arts in English and History at the University of Street Andrews, but inspired by Doctorate"Arcy Wentworth Thompson, switched interests and started an Master of Science degree in Botany and Zoology at the same university.
Career
She matriculated at the Durban Girls" High School, leaving for Edinburgh shortly after. On her return to South Africa, she taught briefly in Durban and was then appointed plant pathologist in the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology of the Department of Agriculture in Pretoria. Her first papers dealt with the viral diseases of tobacco and other crops.
She spent the years between 1940 and 1957 in Basutoland.
In 1956/7 she became Head of the Botany Department of the Pius XII College in Roma. Jacot Guillarmod founded the Roma Herbarium in 1956.
In 1958 she and her family moved to Grahamstown when she took up an appointment as lecturer in the Botany Department of Rhodes University. Her links with Basutoland were not forgotten, and in 1967 she received a Doctor of Science from the University of Street Andrews for her research on the flora of Basutoland.
She is commemorated in Merxmuellera guillarmodiae Conert, Navicula jacotiae F.R. Schoeman, Pinnularia guillarmodiae F.R. Schoeman and a number of other organisms.
Volume 50, part 1 (1988) of The Flowering Plants of Africa was dedicated to her. Her specimens number some 10 000 and are mainly from Lesotho and the Eastern Cape, housed at the following herbaria: PREM, PRE, RUH, GRA, MASE, K and Missouri.
During her stay in Pretoria in the 1930s when working for the Department of Agriculture, she found time to play hockey, and represented Northern Transvaal. She shared Linnaeus"s birthday and was noted for a joint annual celebration.
Membership
Despite the other members of her family hyphenating their name, she insisted on not doing southern