Nancy Adams (1926–2007) was one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most prolific botanists and a talented artist. She produced many botanical illustrations, which were included in widely distributed and well-regarded books about the New Zealand flora. During her botanical career at the Dominion Museum (predecessor to Te Papa Tongarewa), she went on a number of field trips and expeditions all over Aotearoa, collecting specimens and making drawings of flora that were often included as plates in her many field guide publications.
Earlier this year, the Botany team uncovered an innocuous-looking brown box in their collection, which turned out to be a treasure trove: journals filled with field notes from Adams’ trips, as well as a collection of original drawings and plates. Several of the sketches and field notes we found in Nancy’s box were made during her trips to Rakiura Stewart Island in 1971 and 1972, and over summer, Researchers Lucia Adams and Margo Montes de Oca decided to investigate these particular trips in detail.
Rakiura and its algal ecology
With its unique topography and population of endemic and endangered species, Rakiura has always been an area of intrigue and fascination for naturalists and scientists. Botanist Leonard Cockayne wrote in 1909 that the island ‘is an actual piece of the primeval world’[1]. At that time, many of the forest and coastal ecosystems had not been interfered with by settlers, and to this day most of the island remains protected as Rakiura National Park and Te Wharawhara Marine Reserve. Kelp forests and meadows of red algae in the reserves help to provide shelter, habitat and food for diverse marine life.
Nancy Adams was one of many botanists and phycologists to be fascinated by Rakiura, and made several trips there over the years to collect specimens and produce illustrations for her books. In her notebooks from her trips to Rakiura in 1971 and 1972, she wrote lists of all the algae species she saw or collected on her outings. In between these lists are snippets of her days: picnic lunches in secluded coves, shag colony sightings, and even a ride on a sea plane!
The Rakiura seaweed sisters: Adams, Willa, and Conway
Nancy was often accompanied on her trips by a group of friends and colleagues. A regular Rakiura friend of Nancy’s was fellow phycologist Eileen Willa (1905–1999). Eileen was based on the island for most of her life. Her grandmother had settled with her family in Lonnekers Bay in the late 19th century, and almost a hundred years later Eileen moved to Halfmoon Bay, only a few bays over.
She developed a keen interest in botany after a commission from New Zealand phycologist and schoolteacher Victor Lindauer to collect seaweed in 1943: during her lifetime, she would send about 6,000 algae specimens out from the island to mainland New Zealand for research purposes[2]. She would often host friends and colleagues when they came to visit Rakiura, and was likely to have hosted Nancy during her field trips – they would often go collecting together.
Eileen was the curator of Rakiura Museum from 1963–85, continuing her contributions to algae collection, conservation and science. These contributions to phycology were acknowledged when, like Nancy, she had three species of algae named in her honour: Ptilonia willana, Durvillaea willana, and Crouania willae, all of which can be found at Rakiura.
Eileen was one of three phycologists who co-authored The Marine Algae of Stewart Island (1974) with Nancy Adams. Another was Elsie Conway – another remarkable woman, seaweed sister, and “strong personality”[3] in the botany space. Elsie received her PhD from the University of Liverpool in 1925 and, despite having to give up her lectureship after getting married, returned to academic life ten years later and went on to great success.
She was elected president of the British Phycological Society in the late 1960s and was made one of the few female fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1967. Elsie came to New Zealand on a fellowship at the University of Otago between 1970 and 1972 – she joined Nancy during her 1971 collecting expeditions on the island. Nancy would have been familiar with her work as a pioneering phycologist, and was no doubt a match for both Elsie’s enthusiasm and her “decisive, powerful voice”[4]!
Lonnekers Nugget
In 1971, Nancy and Elsie explored what was to become a source of ongoing fascination for Nancy – Lonnekers Nugget at Lonnekers Bay, named after an early settler who arrived there in the mid-1800s and kept a hotel above the beach which was a base for whalers at the time. The Nugget is a boulder a little way out from the shore that holds a diverse, interconnected habitat of plants and algae.
Among the treasures we discovered in Nancy’s box of field notes and original prints were several detailed sketches of the Nugget, drawn from different angles to showcase the huge variety of algae growing in patches and concentric rings around it.
These sketches were likely made on the same day of her expedition, giving us an insight into the types of questions she may have been asking herself at the time. For example, if this boulder is its own ecosystem, why have these plants arranged themselves in this order? What environmental conditions might be acting on them? What relationships do these species share with each other?
To help further research, Nancy and Elsie collected around 35 species of algae on Lonnekers Nugget on 26 May 1971. Nancy and her colleagues, among them Eileen Willa, would go on to visit and collect from the Nugget later that year, and again on multiple trips over the years up to 1976. During this time the number of specimens collected here increased to 98, depicting 66 different species of algae. These specimens are still stored in Te Papa’s herbarium and Nancy went on to render several of these species in watercolour for her 1980 monograph Seaweeds of New Zealand.
Notable species
Reflection
As well as illustrating her important contributions to phycology, Nancy’s record-keeping from her field trips represents the way in which botanical collecting for her was often as much about friendship and pleasure as it was about scientific progress.
We loved seeing photos and notes depicting Nancy with her friends and colleagues clambering over rocks, fishing, sharing food, proudly displaying their seaweed finds and enjoying each other’s company.
The Marine Algae of Stewart Island and the notebooks and sketches that informed its creation are a testament to Nancy’s approach to her work: both detail-oriented and collaborative, observant and full of delight.
References and further reading
- Plants and animals – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Bonin, D. R., & Hawkes, M. W. (2011). Systematics and life histories of New Zealand Bonnemaisoniaceae (Bonnemaisoniales, Rhodophyta): III. The genus Ptilonia. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 26(4), 633-644. DOI: 10.1080/0028825X.1988.10410665.
- Hay, C. H. (2019). Seashore uplift and the distribution of the bull kelp Durvillaea willana Lindauer in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 58(2), 94-117. DOI: 10.1080/0028825X.2019.1679842
- Norris, R. E. (2019). Studies on Crouania franciscii (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta) from South Africa and C. willae sp. nov. from New Zealand. Phycologia, 25(2), 133-143. DOI: 10.2216/i0031-8884-25-2-133.1
- [1] L. Cockayne, Report on a botanical survey of Stewart Island. Wellington: Government Printer, 1909, p. 41.
- [2] Smith, V. (2010). “Biographical Sketches: Eileen Alice Willa (1905–1999)” (PDF). New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter. 99: 18–19. NZBotSoc No 99 March 2010
- [3] Reid, G. In focus: Elsie Conway, Phycologist | National Museums Liverpool
- [4] Ibid.
