Kirstenbosch is an important botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The garden is one of 10 National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes and administered by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Prior to 1 September 2004, the institute was known as the National Botanical Institute.
Francis Guthrie was a South African mathematician and botanist who first posed the Four Colour Problem in 1852. He studied mathematics under Augustus De Morgan, and botany under John Lindley at University College London. Guthrie obtained his B.A. in 1850, and LL.B. in 1852 with first class honours. While colouring a map of the counties of England, he noticed that at least four colours were required so that no two regions sharing a common border were the same colour. He postulated that four colours would be sufficient to colour any map. This became known as the Four Color Problem, and remained one of the most famous unsolved problems in topology for more than a century until it was eventually proven in 1976 using a lengthy computer-aided proof.
Harry Bolus was a South African botanist, botanical artist, businessman and philanthropist. He advanced botany in South Africa by establishing bursaries, founding the Bolus Herbarium and bequeathing his library and a large part of his fortune to the South African College. Active in scientific circles, he was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, member and president of the South African Philosophical Society, the SA Medal and Grant by the SA Association for the Advancement of Science and an honorary D.Sc. from the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
Peter MacOwan was a British colonial botanist and teacher in South Africa.
Selmar Schonland, originally spelt Schönland, the founder of the Department of Botany at Rhodes University, was a German immigrant, who came to the Eastern part of the Cape Colony in 1889 to take up an appointment as curator of the Albany Museum. He came to Grahamstown via a doctorate at the University of Hamburg and a post at Oxford University. Working under Prof. Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour and Prof. Sydney Howard Vines, he developed an interest in the family Crassulaceae and contributed an account of this group to Engler & Prantl's Natürl. Pflanzenfamilien.
Ernest Edward Galpin (1858–1941), was a botanist and banker born in the Cape Colony. He left some 16,000 sheets to the National Herbarium in Pretoria and was dubbed "the Prince of Collectors" by General Smuts. Galpin discovered half a dozen genera and many hundreds of new species. Numerous species are named after him such as Acacia galpinii, Bauhinia galpinii, Cyrtanthus galpinii, Kleinia galpinii, Kniphofia galpinii, Streptocarpus galpinii and Watsonia galpinii. He is commemorated in the genus Galpinia N.E.Br. as is his farm in the genus Mosdenia Stent.
Robert Allen Dyer was a South African botanist and taxonomist, working particularly on Amaryllidaceae and succulent plants, contributing to and editing of Bothalia and Flowering Plants of Africa and holding the office of Director of the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria from 1944 to 1963.
Margaret Rutherford Bryan Levyns was an eminent South African phytogeographer, botanist and taxonomist.
Edwin Percy Phillips was a South African botanist and taxonomist, noted for his monumental work The Genera of South African Flowering Plants first published in 1926.
The Venerable Fr George Merwyn Lawson (1865–1945) served as archdeacon of Kuruman, 1913–1941, in the Anglican Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman, and as Director of Missions for Griqualand West from 1903 until his death.
Edith Layard Stephens (1884-1966) was a South African botanist, a leading authority on algae and fungi, particularly edible and poisonous mushrooms.
Anna Amelia Mauve was a South African botanist who worked at the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria. She catalogued more than 4,000 plant specimens from the Kalahari and Soutpansberg regions. She made major contributions to the journals Flowering Plants of Africa and Bothalia.
Harriet Margaret Louisa BolusnéeKensit was a South African botanist and taxonomist, and the longtime curator of the Bolus Herbarium, from 1903. Bolus also has the legacy of authoring more land plant species than any other female scientist, in total naming 1,494 species.
Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen was a South African botanist. She was described as "the most outstanding collector ever of South African flora", amassing 36,000 herbarium specimens.
Frances Margaret Leighton was a South African botanist and educator. After graduating from Rhodes University with her M.Sc degree in 1931, she worked at the Bolus Herbarium until 1947. Her primary research interests were focused on monocots, and her work impacted the Ornithogalum and Agapanthus.
Henry George Flanagan was a Cape Colony-born plant collector, traveller, botanist and farmer. He developed a renowned garden for native South African trees and rare exotic plants. A rare endemic of Eastern Cape, Greyia flanaganii is one of several plants named in his honour.
Edmund André Charles Louis Eloi Schelpe aka Ted Schelpe was a South African botanist, phytogeographer and taxonomist, specialising in pteridophytes, bryophytes and orchids.
Mary Maud Page was an English-born South African botanical illustrator, botanical collector and explorer. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Page, a former mayor of Croydon.
Lillian Louisa Britten (1886-1952) was a South African botanist considered the leading expert of Eastern Cape flora in her time. Britten studied at Rhodes University College in Grahamstown as a student of Selmar Schonland, and after studying in the UK, returned in 1918 to Grahamstown to be a lecturer in botany at the Rhodes University College. The standard author abbreviation L.L.Britten is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Florence Mary Paterson, née Hallack, also known as Mrs. T.V. Paterson, was a South African plant collector. Her specimens are kept in the herbarium of Albany Museum and the Bolus Herbarium of the University of Cape Town. She is honored in the plant name patersoniae and genus name Neopatersonia.
