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Louise Guthrie

South African botanist (1879-1966)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2025
Entity authorityQ5981521
Source-derived summary

Louise Guthrie (10 October 1879 – 20 February 1966) was a South African botanist and botanical artist.

Early life and education

Isobel Louise Sophie Guthrie was born in Cape Town, Cape Colony in 1879, the daughter of English-born botanist and mathematics professor Francis Guthrie and his wife, Isabella Grisbrook. She attended Rustenburg Girls High School.

Career

Louise Guthrie was a botanical assistant at the Bolus Herbarium, beginning in 1918, until 1927. While there, she developed her skill as a botanical illustrator, best known for a series of 264 depictions of protea species found in South Africa, begun in 1925, with the last dated 1947. She donated the set to Bolus Herbarium in 1948.

The standard author abbreviation L.Guthrie is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Personal life and legacy

The guthriae plant name honors Louise Guthrie.

Her art is archived at the University of Cape Town. The Hermanus Botanical Society held an exhibit of 76 paintings by Guthrie in 2000, at the Fernkloof Nature Reserve.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Louise Guthrie” is south African botanist (1879-1966). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Louise, Guthrie and South, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1879, 1966, 1918, 1927—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1879-10-10. For this dossier, Louise, Guthrie and South is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “south African botanist (1879-1966)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5981521. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1966, 1918 and 1927.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Louise Guthrie primary sources, Louise Guthrie archive and Louise research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Louise Guthrie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.