GERTRUDE ELIZABETH LAURENCE

Wax model of Cotyledon barbeyi by Trudy Laurence. Photo: D. de Klerk.

FORGOTTENBOTANICAL

ARTIST.

by Rodney Moffett,Department of Botany,University of the North,

Qwa Qwa Campus

M y knowledge of grasses wasbroadened when writing abook on the grasses of the

eastern Free State in 1997 and thisled to an interest in GertrudeLaurence. However, no one in thebotanical field seemed to knowanything about her except that shemarried a physiotherapist namedJacobs, and I have the telephonedirectories to thank for eventuallygetting on the right track. The eighthLaurence I phoned remembered acousin Trudy 'who was a bit of anartist' at Onderstepoort and it wasanother physiotherapist, MelanieJacobs (no relation) of Pretoria, whogave me her husband, Steve Jacobs'saddress.

Trudy Laurence (or Tootie as shewas known to her close family) wasborn on 271h September 1916, thethird child of George and BessieLaurence of the farm Lokenburg inthe Calvinia District. Lokenburg,situated in an isolated valley southof Niewoudtville and Calvinia, wasone of the earliest settler farms inwhat was then known as the LowerBokkeveld. Famous early botanistsand travellers who visited itincluded Thunberg, Barrow andLichtenstein. Lichtenstein, whospent three days there in 1803, aftergetting lost in the northernCederberg, wrote 'At length, towardsevening, we reached Lokenburg, thedwelling ofJacob Adrian Louw.'

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Today it is still in the Louw family,with Mrs Willie Lock, whosehusband farms it, being the sixthgeneration. Lichtenstein called thevalley 'Dye or Bulb Valley, becauseof the many sorts of Iris and Ixiagrow here, the bulbs of which theHottentots eat'. The farm has aparticularly rich and diverse plant­life, with fynbos in the west andkarroid vegetation in the east, andstill attracts students of botany fromall over the world.

Growing up in this beautiful areamust have had a profound effect onthe young Trudy Laurence, andmany years later she spoke to herhusband of the great sense ofenjoyment and wonderment of thecoming of spring to Lokenburg, withthe 'kalkoentjies' and silky maids,

which she called eschscholzias(Grielum perhaps). All four childrenwere taught at home by theirmother, a qualified teacher untilthey went to high school, where onarrival they were each promoted toa higher grade. While at school inPaarl, Trudy studied art with MissEdie Earp-Jones and later atLokenburg did a correspondencecourse with an overseas interna­tional art school.

Drought and the depression tookits toll and the farm was sold andthe family moved in 1939 toPretoria North. Trudy was employedas assistant artist at the VeterinaryInstitute at Onderstepoort, whereher work was described as'consisting mostly of drawing,painting, and reproduction of a

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Plate 16 of Grasses and Pastures of South Africa. Eulalia geniculata (now E. aurea) andHyparrhenia cymbaria. Water-colour by Trudy Laurence. Published with kindpermission from the National Botanical Institute.

great variety of technical materialand objects, either under the micro­scope or otherwise.' Most of herwork at this time was unsigned, butcan be seen in the Onderstepoortpublications of that time. Trudy,perhaps prompted by a cleaner atOnderstepoort, who when watchingher at work remarked, 'nou juffrou,van watter waarde is dit eintlik virdie volk', decided to do somethingmore public spirited and volun­teered for war service. She was oneof two persons from Pretoriaselected by the Red Cross, and leftfor Europe in 1944. After initialtraining in England she joined 3B.A.D. Royal Army Ordinance Corpsbased at Torhout in Belgium, whereshe became an ambulance driver.

After the war, Trudy returned toOnderstepoort, where, besides theusual drawings, she and Mr e.G.Walker embarked on the huge taskof making true-to-life wax models ofthose poisonous plants responsiblefor severe stock losses in SouthAfrica. By 1949 they had made fiftyof a projected 110 of these models.Thirty-five of her models are ondisplay in the Arnold TheilerMuseum of African Diseases atOnderstepoort today. (See box.)

The art of wax flower modelsarose as a teaching medium incertain European museums andreached its height in the lateeighteenth century. In Italy, theMuseo della Specola had a specialoffice, the Officina di Ceroplastica,where hundreds of wax flowerswere made, and 184 of these survivein the botanical museum of theUniversity of Florence. As far as weknow, the collection at Onderste­poort is unique in South Africa.

After mastering the technique, ittook Trudy and Mr Walker abouttwo weeks to complete a model.First, plaster-of-Paris imprints of thevarious parts were made, and filledwith pure white beeswax. Theframework was then made up offine wire and the beeswax added toit. Various materials, such as cottonthrea,ds and glasswool were used forthe more delicate parts, such asstamens. Apparently the mostdifficult part of the work was toaccurately depict the colour shades,and for this oil paints and wax­soluble colour powders were used.Some flowers, such as Scadoxuspuniceus, have hundreds of stamensand their completion required verydelicate brushwork and testify togreat craftsmanship.

It was at this time that Trudy wasseconded to the Division of Botany

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and Plant Pathology. Here she beganthe work for which she is remem­bered by the botanical fraternity,and for which she is owed a hugedebt of gratitude: illustrating thenumerous grasses of South Africa.In this task she was guided by LucyChippendal, who was writing thefirst and major part of The Grassesand Pastures of South Africa, abook which came to be most soughtafter by botanists and farmers alike.The Chairman of the Board ofTrustees of the Grasses and Pasturesof South Africa Book Fund, JohnVoelcker, stated that 'The Board wasfortunate in obtaining the servicesof Miss G. E. Laurence, who hasbeen responsible for the majority ofthe black and white drawings andcoloured plates. Her clear illustra-

tions and artistic talent have addedgreatly to the value of the book.'

In Part 1, 'A Guide to theIdentification of Grasses in SouthAfrica', Lucy K. A. Chippendalstated: 'Anyone who can imaginethis section of the book withoutillustrations will realise how greatlythe artist's share in it is appreciatedand valued. Miss Gertrude E.Laurence in particular has playedan important part in helping tomake the book what we hope willprove a practical and interestingcontribution to our knowledge ofgrasses and pastures in SouthAfrica; and I thank her mostsincerely for the patience, compe­tence and artistic skill with whichshe has carried out a long andarduous task.'

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LIST OF WAX MODELS IN THE ARNOLD THEILER MUSEUM OFAFRICAN DISEASES, ONDERSTEPOORT VETERINARY INSTITUTE

(Photo in the possession of Mrs Pat Cilliers, Pretoria.)

Dipcadi glaucumDichapetalum cymosumEquisetum mmosis simumGeigeria aspemGloriosa superbaHomeria WacinaHomeria miniataHomeria pallidaKalanchoe rotundifoliaKalanchoe thyrsiflomMelia azedamchMomea polystachya

Nerium oleanderNicotiana glaucaOmithogalum saundersiaeOrnithogalum tenuifoliumOmithogalum thyrsoidesPachystigma zeyheriScadoxus puniceusScilla sp.Senecio latifoliusSenecio longiflorusSenecio tamoidesUrginea burkei

Further readingBeard, J.S. 1959. Pratea gazensis.

Flowering Plants of Africa.Plate 1299.

Chippendal,1. K. A. 1955. A Guideto the Identification of Grasses inSouth Africa, in MerediLh, O.B,O.ed. Grasses and Pastures of SouthAfrica. Central News Agency.Johannesburg.

Gibbs Russell, G. E. et a], 1990.Grasses of southern Africa.Memoirs of the Botanical Surreyof South Africa No. 58.

Lichtenstein, H. 1812. 7Tovels inSouthern Africa, in the years

1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806.(Translation from the originalGerman by Anne Plumplre.)Vol. la, Van Rlebeeck Societv.Cape Town. .

AcknowledgementsI am particularly grateful to those membersof Trudy's family who so graciouslyresponded to my requests for information.These included her husband, Steve Jacobs.now practising in Witbank, her sister HelenYoung and sister-in-law Margie Laurence[both of Hermanus), her cousin JeanLombard of Huguenot and her niece Pat

Cilliers of Pretoria. Laura Brain ofIrene and Helmien Lock ofLokenburg. CaJvinia provideduseful information. At Onderste­poort, Erna Klopper, Heloise Heyneand Danie de Klerk were mosthelpful. Gill Condy, resident arti tat the National Botanical Institute,Pretoria, accompanied me to see thewax models and also provided mewith information on the Europeanmodels. She also provided thetransparencies of the two graspaintings. The information on hall'the wax models were made wastaken from an article by M.M.S. inDie Huisgenoot of 8th April, 1949.

In 1980 she underwent a majoroperation to remove a benigntumour from her brain, and thisunfortunately left her with a speech,hearing and walking impediment.By 1990 she had made a splendidrecovery, only to meet a tragic endat the hands of assailants who brokeinto their home on 27 th July. Herashes were interred in her parent'double grave at Pretoria North.\YJ

drawing initialled C L, perhapsCythna Letty?

Having finished the grass project,Trudy decided on a completechange, and embarked on a career inphysiotherapy. She studied at thePretoria College of Physiotherapy,then worked at the Pretoria GeneralHospital, becoming Head ofPhysiotherapy in 1964. In 1965 shemarried Steve Jacobs, a blindphysiotherapist and they moved toOrkney where he worked for themines. During this time she didrandom illustrations for publica­tions, including a book on nursing,and illustrated her husband's thesison goldmine-related hand injuries.In 1971 they established a jointpractice in Carletonville.

Acokanthera oblongifoliaAcokanthem oppositifoliaAdenium boehmianumCestJ"Um elegansChrysocoma tenuifoliaCotyledon barbeyiCotyledon orbiculataCotyledon orbiculata

var. oblongaCrotalaria damarensisDimorphotheca ecklonisDimorphotheca zeyheri

Gertrude Elizabeth Laurence.

A brief enumeration of the illus­trations in Part 1 emphasises thelarge part G.E.L. (which is how sheusually signed her work) played inthe book. To begin with, seven ofthe fifteen drawings illustrating themorphology of grasses in the intro­duction are initialled by G.E.L.(Judging by the style, some of theothers are also probably by her, witha few by the author of the writtenwork herself, Lucy Chippendal).There are 420 black and whitefigures of individual species, and ofthese, 287 have G.E.L.'s initials withanother fifty-three unsigned (at leastin the book plate), most of whichwere probably also done by her.The balance is made up of fifty-one by Cythna Letty, five by BettyConnell, three by LucyChippendal and twenty-onephotographs. Thephotographs includecommercialized species suchas Sorghum and Saccharum,which were possibly toolarge to draw, and herbariumsheets of seven Digitariaspecies. There are alsotwenty-six colour plates ofgrass species. Twelve ofthese are by Trudy, four byJohn Acocks, five by BettyConnell, one by ananonymous artist repre­sented by the initials CB?and four by Jean Murray.Working in most cases fromdried herbarium specimens,her accuracy and use ofcolour testify to remarkableskill (see accompanyingillustration). Many of theblack and white drawingswere subsequently also usedin the next major book onSouth African grasses,Grasses of southern Africa,edited by G. E. Gibbs-Russellet al. Trudy's original colourdrawings are in the possessionof the National BotanicalInstitute, but the whereaboutsof the black and whitedrawings remains a mystery.

In her file at the NationalBotanical Institute are a water­colour of Protea gazensis,drawn in 1951 and publishedin 1959 in Flowering plants ofAfrica, and an unsigned water­colour of a small mesemb. Theprotea, which according to DrJohn Rourke of the ComptonHerbarium is now regarded asa Zimbabwean subspecies ofProtea caffra, is interesting inthat it includes a small habit

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