Elsa Pooley

Elsa Pooley (born Elsa Susanna Bond; 1947 in Johannesburg), is a South African botanist, landscaper, tour guide, and artist.

Biography

She lived in and explored the game reserves Ndumu and Mkuzi for about 20 years, where she became inspired by the flora of the region. She collected and identified plants, painted them, wrote about them, and gardened with them.

She founded the Natal Flora Trust to raise funds and organise a series of field guides on the indigenous flora of the eastern region of South Africa, focused on the hitherto neglected KwaZulu-Natal region. Through the trust she published The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Natal, Zululand and Transkei (1993, updated by Richard Boon as Pooley's Trees of Eastern South Africa in 2010), A Field Guide to Wild Flowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region (1998), Mountain Flowers: A Field Guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho (2003), and Forest Plants, in the forest and in the garden (2006).

Her contributions to rectifying this situation have been recognised through several honours (full list below). Elsa was the KZN Wildlife and Environment Society’s Conservationist of the Year in 1996, she won the prestigious Marloth Medal of the Botanical Society of South Africa in 2004, and she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2008.

Pooley's botanical art work has been exhibited throughout South Africa which has led to commissions, both local and abroad. Her paintings have appeared in the series Flowering Plants of Africa and her limited edition portfolio 'Palms of Africa' (1988) has been sold worldwide. She was commissioned to do paintings for the Blue Train in 1999. ^[1] She is a founder member of BAASA, the Botanical Artists' Association of Southern Africa.

Pooley has lived at Clansthal on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast since 1984, and spends her time painting, writing and conducting painting tours of KwaZulu-Natal and Lesotho. She is involved in landscaping gardens with indigenous plants including private gardens as well as large projects including the redevelopment of the eThekwini Durban seafront, and retirement home complexes on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast. Her latest publication is the large-format illustrated South African Indigenous Garden Plants: A gardener's Guide (2024), co-produced with Geoff Nicols and Andrew Hankey. [2]

Elsa Pooley was married to Tony Pooley (1938-2004), a game ranger and renowned authority on crocodiles. She had three sons from the marriage - Simon, Justin and Thomas.

Books

• Flowers, Grasses, Ferns & Fungi. Southern Book Publishers. 1999. ISBN   978-1-86812-748-1. with Vincent Carruthers
• Mashesha - The Making of a Game Ranger. 1992 with Tony Pooley
• The Complete Field Guide to Trees of Natal, Zululand & Transkei. Natal Flora Publications Trust. 1993. ISBN   978-0-620-17612-5.
• Field Guide - Natuurlewe Van Suider-afrika. Struik. 2000. ISBN   978-1-86872-452-9.^{[ permanent dead link ]} with Vincent Carruthers
• The Wildlife of Southern Africa: A Field Guide to the Animals and Plants of the Region. Struik. 2005. ISBN   978-1-86872-451-2.^{[ permanent dead link ]} with Vincent Carruthers
• A Field Guide to Wild Flowers: KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region. Natal Flora Publications Trust. 1998. ISBN   978-0-620-21500-8.
• Sasol Trees of Southern Africa: A First Field Guide. Struik Publishers. 1999. ISBN   978-1-86872-291-4.
• Mountain Flowers: A Field Guide to the Flora of the Drakensberg and Lesotho. Natal Flora Publications Trust. 2003. ISBN   978-0-620-30221-0.
• Forest Plants: In the Forest and in the Garden. Flora Publications Trust. 2006. ISBN   978-0-620-37012-7. with Geoff Nichols
• South African Indigenous Garden Plants - The Gardeners' Guide | Penguin Random House South Africa

Papers

• Pooley, A.C.; Pooley, E.S.; Hadley, Wayne F.; Gans, Carl (1973). "Ecological aspects of the subsoil herpetofauna in Ndumu Game Reserve". Annals of Carnegie Museum. 44 Article 8.
• Anderson, J.L.; Pooley, E.S. (1977). "Some plants identified in the rumina of Nyala antelope Tragelaphus angasi in Ndumu Game Reserve". Lammergeyer. 23. Natal Parks Board: 40–45.
• De Moor, P.P.; Pooley, E.S.; Neville, G.; Barichievy, J. (1977). "Vegetation of Ndumu Game Reserve, Natal. A Quantitative Physiognomic Survey". Annals of the Natal Museum. 23 (1): 239–272.
• Pooley, E. S. (1978). "A checklist of the plants of Ndumu Game Reserve, North-eastern Zululand". J. S. Afr. Bot. 44 (1): 1–54. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
• Pooley, E.S. (1980) "A report on a study of Smilax kraussiana in the St Lucia Resort Game Park". Internal report, Natal Parks Board.
• Pooley, E.S. (1980). "Some notes on the utilization of natural resources by the tribal people of Maputaland". In Bruton, Michael N.; Cooper, Keith H. (eds.). Studies on the Ecology of Maputaland. Rhodes University. pp. 467–479. ISBN   978-0-86810-035-7.
• Pooley, E.S. (1989). "Palms of Southern Africa". Veld and Flora. Botanical Society of SA.
• Smedley, Linda N.; Ribeiro-Torres, J. L. (1979). Man and the Pongolo Floodplain; a Preliminary Study. The Council.

Awards

• 1996 Conservationist of the Year from the Wildlife & Environment Society (Natal Branch)
• 1999 Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Contribution to Botany from the South African Association of Botanists
• 2000 Bronze Medal at the Inaugural Kirstenbosch Exhibition of Botanical Art
• 2004 Marloth Medal from the Botanical Society of Southern Africa
• 2008 Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of KwaZulu-Natal

References

1. "Elsa Pooley". Botanical Artists' Association of Southern Africa. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
2. "South African Indigenous Garden Plants - The Gardeners' Guide". www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za. Retrieved 27 August 2025.

External links

• Official website
• Botanical Art Courses in the Drakensberg at the Wayback Machine (archived October 16, 2008)
• Biography on Flora & Fauna Publications Trust website Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• An interview with Elsa Pooley