Betty Molesworth Allen facts for kids

Betty Eleanor Gosset Molesworth Allen OBE (born Molesworth, 21 July 1913 – 11 October 2002) was a famous botanist from New Zealand. She spent a lot of time researching and writing about ferns in Southeast Asia. After she retired, she even found a special fern in southern Spain. People thought this fern only grew in tropical places before her discovery.

Early Life and Challenges

Betty Molesworth Allen was born on July 21, 1913, in Ōpōtiki, a small town in New Zealand. Her father, Arthur, was a farmer. Her mother, Nellie Maud Banks, was a friend of the famous suffragists, the Pankhursts.

Betty faced many health problems when she was a child. She had tuberculosis, polio, and cancer. Because of this, she spent most of her childhood in hospitals and could not go to school. However, both her parents loved nature and wildlife, especially birds. This helped Betty grow up with a deep love for plants and animals.

Her Amazing Career

Betty became interested in botany thanks to Lucy Cranwell, a botanist at the Auckland Museum. Lucy taught her about how to study living things in a scientific way. She also encouraged Betty's interest in nature. Another botanist, John Holloway, inspired her love for ferns.

In 1939, Betty helped start the Auckland Botanical Society. She was its first secretary. During World War II, Betty volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. After the war, she took over from Lucy Cranwell as the botanist at Auckland Museum from 1944 to 1947. During this time, she added many important plants to the museum's collections. These included mosses and sedges. She also added the field notebooks of another famous botanist, T.F. Cheeseman.

In 1947, Betty received a scholarship to study in Basel, Switzerland. On her way there, she stopped in Malaya (now Malaysia). There, she met and married Geoffrey Allen. She decided not to go to Switzerland. Instead, she stayed in Malaya. She trained in tropical botany and worked at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

From 1948, Betty traveled a lot in Southeast Asia. She visited Malaysia, Borneo, and Thailand. She observed many plants and collected samples from the jungles. However, her work became dangerous during the State of Emergency from 1948 to 1960. Communist fighters had set up camps in the jungles.

In 1963, Betty retired to Los Barrios in Andalusia, Spain. Even in retirement, she kept collecting and studying plants, especially ferns. In January 1965, she made an amazing discovery. She found the fern Psilotum nudum growing in Algeciras, southern Spain. Before this, people thought this fern only grew in tropical areas. Because of her discovery, the area was studied carefully. It was later protected as a national park, called Los Alcornocales Natural Park.

Her Books and Articles

Betty Molesworth Allen wrote many books and articles about plants.

Books

• Some Common Trees of Malaya (1957)
• Malayan Fruits: An Introduction to the Cultivated Species (1967)
• A Selection of Wildflowers of Southern Spain (1993)

Articles

• Some conservation problems of Malaya's hill stations (1961)
• Limestone hills near Ipoh (1961)
• Ferns of the Quartz Ridges (1963)
• Jelatang and Pulutus: stinging trees of Malaysia (1964)
• Descriptions of the Malayan species of Laportea (1964)
• Psilotum Nudum in Europe (1965)
• Malayan Fern Notes V (1967)
• Notes on some Malayan ferns (Adiantum) (1969)
• Notes on two species of Arisarum in south-west Spain (1971)
• Observations on Spanish ferns (1971)

Awards and Recognition

Betty Molesworth Allen received many honors for her work.

• In 1988, the town of Los Barrios in Spain made her an "adopted daughter." They also named a botanical park after her, called the Betty Molesworth Memorial Park.
• In 1995, she received the H. H. Bloomer Award from the Linnean Society of London. This was for her discovery of Psilotum nudum in Europe.
• In 1997, she was given the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This was a high honor for her services to botany.

Some plants were also named after her. These include the hybrid plants Narcissus x alleniae and Centaurea molesworthiae. A part of Gua Tempurung, a large limestone cave in Malaysia, is named the Molesworth Allen Tunnel in her honor.

Personal Life

In 1948, Betty married Geoffrey Allen. He was a pilot, a wildlife photographer, and loved studying birds. They were married until Geoffrey passed away in 1985.

Betty Molesworth Allen died in Marbella, Spain, on October 11, 2002.

See also

In Spanish: Betty Molesworth para niños