Lucy Cranwell
New Zealand botanist (1907 - 2000)
Lucy May Cranwell (7 August 1907 – 8 June 2000) was a New Zealand botanist responsible for groundbreaking work in palynology. Cranwell was appointed curator of botany at Auckland Museum in 1929, when she was 21 years old. As well as her work on ancient pollen samples she was responsible for encouraging a love of botany in a generation of Auckland children.
Early life and education
Cranwell was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1907. She grew up in Henderson, on an orchard at the conjunction of the Ōpanuku and Oratia streams. Cranwell states her initial interest in science and botany was supported by Henry Charles Swan. Swan had a small orchard in Henderson and experimented with propagation to combat orchard pests. She was strongly influenced by her conservation-minded and artistic mother. It has been suggested that Cranwell inherited the unpredictable aspects of her fearless and adventuresome spirit from her mother's Cornish roots. Her father was a trained nurseryman who had planted an extensive orchard in the family property.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lucy Cranwell” 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.