Marie-Anne Libert

Marie-Anne Libert (born 7 April 1782 in Malmedy, province of Liège, died 14 January 1865 in Malmedy) was a Belgian botanist and mycologist. She was one of the first women plant pathologists. She is sometimes referred to as "Anne-Marie Libert".

Early life Marie-Anne Libert was born in Malmedy in April 1782, twelfth of the thirteen children of Henri-Joseph Libert and his wife Marie-Jeanne-Bernadine Libert (née Dubois). The parents, educated members of the middle class who ran a tanning business, recognised her intellectual potential. She was initially a pupil of the Sépulcrines of Malmedy. At the age of eleven her parents sent her to stay in Prüm in Germany to learn German and the violin, both of which she quickly mastered. Her father recognised his daughter's emerging interest in the exact sciences and taught her algebra and geometry, so that she could follow him into the business. She was enthusiastic and pushed the education well beyond the needs of commerce.

At an age when some girls only wanted to amuse themselves, Marie-Anne Libert was motivated by a thirst for knowledge: everything interested her, she wanted to know everything. Nature drew her in particular; she spent long hours walking in the area of Malmedy, particularly in the High Fens. She observed, gathered many minerals and plants then identified them in her father's office, cataloguing and classifying them. As most reference works were written in Latin, she began to teach herself Latin. The German mycologist Anton de Bary built on this discovery, among other work, when he showed in 1876 that the oomycete, Phytophthora infestans as he renamed it, was the cause of late blight, and not the consequence as was still believed at the time.

She also described several plant pathogenic Ascomycetes, including Alternaria cheiranthi (Lib.) PC Bolle (basionym: Helminthosporium cheiranthi Lib.) a pathogen of wallflower, and Fusarium coeruleum Lib. ex Sacc., the causative agent of dry rot of potato. In total, she described over 200 new taxa. Libertiella and Myxolibertella (genera of ascomycete fungi), were all named after her.

The "Cercle naturaliste de la région de Malmedy", founded in 1951, which later became "Cercle Royal Marie-Anne Libert", took its name in her honour. In 1965, the centenary of her death, a stele decorated with a medallion bearing her likeness was erected in the Tanneries Park (Parc Marie-Anne Libert) in Malmedy. A street in Malmedy (Rue Marie-Anne Libert) was named after her in 1925.

Felix von Thümen issued several fascicles of his exsiccata series Mycotheca universalis with the subtitle Reliquiae Libertianae and distributed specimens collected by M.-A. Libert.