Reino Pott

Reino Pott née Leendertz (2 January 1869 – 14 June 1965) was a Dutch-born South African botanist and chemist. She was the first woman to be appointed as a botanist in the civil service of the South African Republic, and greatly expanded the plant collection of the Transvaal Museum. expanding it to over 4,000 in 1920.

Biography

Academics Pott first studied as a pharmacist, but would go on to study botany in Amsterdam under Hugo de Vries. By 1898, she had completed her studies and traveled to Pretoria.

Career in South Africa In the same year she arrived in Pretoria, 1898, Pott was appointed to the post of botanical assistant at the Transvaal Museum, then called the Staatsmuseum, as the first exception to the established rule at the time of employing only men as scientists in the South African Republic. and Stapelia gettleffii, which she discovered in 1913. She retired in 1925.