Betty Molesworth Allen

Betty Eleanor Gosset Molesworth Allen ( Molesworth, 21 July 1913 – 11 October 2002) was a New Zealand botanist. She researched and published extensively on Southeast Asian ferns, and in her retirement she discovered a fern in southern Spain that had previously been thought to be an exclusively tropical species.

Early life Molesworth Allen was born on 21 July 1913 in Ōpōtiki, a small town in the North Island of New Zealand. Her father, Arthur Ernest Parnell Molesworth, a farmer, was the Paris-born younger son of a Cornwall rector, the 8th Viscount Molesworth. Her mother, born Nellie Maud Banks, was a friend of the suffragist Pankhurst family.

Molesworth Allen suffered tuberculosis, polio and cancer as a child and spent most of her childhood in hospitals and unable to attend schools. However, both her parents were passionate about nature and wildlife, particularly birds, and as a result she grew up with a love of flora and fauna.

Career Molesworth Allen became interested in botany through Lucy Cranwell, a botanist at the Auckland Museum. Cranwell introduced her to systematic biology and encouraged her interest in natural history. She was also influenced by John Holloway who inspired her interest in ferns. In 1939, Molesworth Allen was involved in the establishment of the Auckland Botanical Society and was its inaugural secretary. In these years she made important additions to the museum's collections, including mosses and sedges and the field notebooks of T.F. Cheeseman. declining the scholarship in Switzerland, she instead settled in Malaya where she trained in tropical botany and worked in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. As a result of her discovery, the area was extensively studied and eventually protected as a national park, Los Alcornocales Natural Park. Malayan Fruits: An Introduction to the Cultivated Species (1967) D. Moore Press A Selection of Wildflowers of Southern Spain (1993) Santana Books

Articles Some conservation problems of Malaya's hill stations in Nature Conservation in Western Malaysia (1961) Malayan Nature Society Limestone hills near Ipoh in Nature Conservation in Western Malaysia (1961) Malayan Nature Society Ferns of the Quartz Ridges in The Malayan Nature Journal Vol. 17 No. 1, April 1963 Jelatang and Pulutus: stinging trees of Malaysia in The Malayan Nature Journal Vol. 18 No. 1, April 1964 Descriptions of the Malayan species of Laportea in Singapore Botanic Gardens Garden Bulletin Vol. 20 (4), 1964 Psilotum Nudum in Europe in The British Fern Gazette Vol. 9 Part 6, 1965 Malayan Fern Notes V in Singapore Botanic Gardens Garden Bulletin Vol. 22 (1&2), 1967 Notes on some Malayan ferns (Adiantum) in The Malayan Nature Journal Vol. 22 Part 2, March 1969 Notes on two species of Arisarum in south-west Spain in Kew Bulletin Vol. 26 No. 1, 1971 Observations on Spanish ferns in The British Fern Gazette Vol. 10 Part 4, 1971

Honours and recognition In 1988, Molesworth was made an adopted daughter of the town of Los Barrios, and a botanical park in the town was named in her honour – the Betty Molesworth Memorial Park. In 1995 she was awarded the H.H. Bloomer Award by the Linnean Society of London for her discovery of Psilotum nudum in Europe. In the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to botany.

The hybrid plants Narcissus x alleniae and Centaurea molesworthiae were named after Molesworth Allen.

Personal life In 1948 Molesworth Allen married Geoffrey Allen, a pilot, wildlife photographer and amateur ornithologist. They were married until his death in 1985.

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