Lucy May Cranwell

Lucy May Cranwell (7 August 1907 – 8 June 2000) was a New Zealand botanist responsible for groundbreaking work in palynology. Cranwell was appointed curator of botany at Auckland Museum in 1929, when she was 21 years old. As well as her work on ancient pollen samples she was responsible for encouraging a love of botany in a generation of Auckland children.

Early life and education Cranwell was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1907. She grew up in Henderson, on an orchard at the conjunction of the Ōpanuku and Oratia streams. Swan states her initial interest in science and botany was supported by Henry Charles Swan. Swan had a small orchard in Henderson and experimented with propagation to combat orchard pests. She was strongly influenced by her conservation-minded and artistic mother. It has been suggested that Cranwell inherited the unpredictable aspects of her fearless and adventuresome spirit from her mother's Cornish roots. Her father was a trained nurseryman who had planted an extensive orchard in the family property. She attended Henderson public school, and attended Epsom Girls Grammar School from 1921 to 1923. She entered the University of Auckland in 1925 where she undertook an initial BA degree that was a mixture of English and botany, followed by a master's in botany with a thesis on the epiphytes of the Waitākere Ranges. She graduated in 1929.

During her university studies she developed a love of tramping and gained a reputation as talented, in the University Field Club.

Field trips in the 1920s and 1930s were tough assignments. Cranwell and her botanical companion Lucy Moore often slept out in the open in canvas sleeping bags, occasionally waking up covered in frost. Her field experience led her to be a conservationist recognising early that possums and wallabies represented a serious threat to the biodiversity of New Zealand forests. In 1940, Cranwell published The Botany of Auckland, the first definitive work of flora in the Auckland Region. It detailed, with illustrations, what fish and foods the downed pilots with could eat. The booklet proved extremely popular and five facsimile impressions followed the initial print run of 5,000 copies. Cranwell also recommended to the Ministry of Works that wattle trees, pampas grass and nasturtiums should be planted across New Zealand as emergency rations and stock feed.

Marriage and later life

On 30 September 1943, Cranwell married Captain (later Major) Samuel Watson Smith (1897–1993) of the United States 13th Air Force, a lawyer and later eminent researcher in archaeology, at St Andrew's First Presbyterian Church. and in 1973 became one of the first patrons of the Waitākere Ranges Protection Society. In 1992, Cranwell was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Auckland, and in 1999 became a Fellow of Auckland War Memorial Museum.

In 2017, Cranwell was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.

Legacy The New Zealand Association of Scientists Cranwell Medal is awarded to a practising scientist for excellence in communicating science to the general public in any area of science or technology. In 2017 this medal was renamed from the Science Communicator Medal to honour Cranwell, a remarkable communicator of science – in a time when this was essentially unheard of. The inaugural winner was the physicist Ocean Mercier.

Cranwell's childhood home in Henderson, which was bought by her father from Thomas Henderson, was donated to Waitakere City by the Cranwell family, and is now the location of Cranwell Park. A tramping track at Anawhata on the west coast of the Waitākere Ranges, which Cranwell was a passionate advocate for, is named after Cranwell.

Numerous species have been named after Cranwell, including New Zealand native species such as Libertia cranwelliae, the seaweed Codium cranwelliae, and the lichen Buellia cranwelliae, the binomial name for the New Zealand sand diver (Tewara cranwellae), and the Hawaiian endemic plant Stenogyne cranwelliae. The New Zealand native grass species Festuca luciarum was named after both her and Lucy Moore. In addition, several fossil pollen genera and species have been named in Cranwell's honour, including Cranwellia, Cranwellipollis and Nothofagidites cranwellae.

Selected bibliography