The remarkable journey of the Swedish botanist Vivi Laurent-Täckholm

Hamdy, Rim S.; Kapiel, Tarek Y.S.

doi:10.21608/taec.2023.187236.1046

The remarkable journey of the Swedish botanist Vivi Laurent-Täckholm

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

Rim S. Hamdy ¹
Tarek Y.S. Kapiel ²

¹ Faculty of Science, Cairo University

² Biotechnology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University

10.21608/taec.2023.187236.1046

Abstract

This year 2023 marks one hundred and twenty-five years since the birth of Vivi Laurent-Täckholm, a Swedish botanist and children's book writer, and a global star who came to Egypt in the first half of the 20th century and she established the Herbarium at Cairo University with other colleagues. She was a professor of botany at Cairo University who authored a distinctive flora book, Flora of Egypt. She also wrote a series of popular science works on plants and the history of Egypt. This grand old woman had been closely associated with Cairo University for over 50 years, some 32 years as a professor of botany in the Herbarium. She was recognized and respected not only as the 'dean of Egyptian botany', but appreciated by all the researchers who knew her as one of those rare scientist-scholars who is completely selfless. She helped countless students and investigators both in Egypt and abroad by giving freely of her vast experience and deep knowledge on all matters Egyptian, motivated only by a sincere hope that a more carefully planned research project could be launched, or if a project was near completion, that a more mature complete interpretation could be achieved. With the passing of Vivi Laurent-Täckholm, who died in Stockholm on 3 May 1978, at the age of 80, biological sciences in general, and Egyptian botanical science in particular, have suffered a great loss. A brief overview of her life reveals that Vivi Täckholm was a very unconventional woman by reviewing her achievement during her life-long journey.

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