Maria Cengia-Sambo

Maria Cengia Sambo (23 October 1888 – 29 November 1939) was an Italian botanist, specializing in lichenology. Her work in the early twentieth century on the nature of the lichen symbiosis along with collection of many specimens and records of lichen distributions was particularly significant.

Early life Her father died when she was only three years old. Afterwards she obtained a second degree, this time in the natural sciences, and taught physics and mathematics at a technical school in Vicenza.

Career She collected a vast number of botanical specimens, in particular lichens, from the Italian Alps, Venezia Euganea, Belluno region, Feltra region, Garda, and the Euganean Hills. She produced a large part of the work and research on lichens during the First World War without the help of other scientists specializing in lichens. She also published some papers on extra-European lichens at the time.

She married Ettore Sambo in 1924 and they subsequently had five children together. He worked in the Department of Botany of the University of Florence and lived in Prato. She moved to join him there and also joined the Department of Botany at the University of Florence.

However, she did collaborate with some European lichenologists. In her 1930 study Lichens of Patagonia and other regions of Argentina as told by Salesiani missionaries she worked closely with Alberto De Agostini. He coordinated the collection of lichens from Argentina and Sambo worked to catalogue them.

In the course of her career, she studied 124 different species of lichens. She characterised 11 new genera and species including the genus Tylophoropsis and the species Phylliscidiopsis abissinica, Actinoplaca balboana, Cyphelium kenyanum, Tylophoropsis nyeriana and Usnea epifilla.

She died in 1939 at 51 years of age. Cengia-Sambo, M. (1930) Licheni della Patagonia e di altre regioni dell'Argentina raccolti dai missionarii salesiani. Contributi Scientifici delle Missioni Salesiana del Venerabile Don Bosci, Tornino/Contrib. Sci. Miss. Salesin. 6: 73 pp. 2 maps, 9 pl.. Cengia-Sambo, M. (1940) Casi di parassitismo fra due specie licheniche e di autoparassitismo. Considerazioni sul consorzio lichenico. Annali di botanica.

Legacy Maria Cengia Sambo and her husband had a personal library of publications about flowers, plants and environments. This was donated by their daughter Emilia Sambo to the Fondazione PARSEC, a Natural Science Centre in Prato. In 2017 an urban park of Villa Pisani di Este near Venice, where she was born, was re-named after her.