Anna Vickers (28 June 1852 – 1 August 1906) was a marine algologist and plant collector known principally for her work on

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

of the

Antilles The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...

and the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

Biography

Anna Vickers was born on 28 June 1852 in Bordeaux, France, though it is likely that her father was British. In 1879–80, she visited Australia and New Zealand with her family, traveling widely and becoming interested in the Maori language. In 1883 she published a monograph about these travels, ''Voyage en Australie et en Novelle-Zélande''. Topics she touched on range from word derivations in the Maori language to the ferns and algae of south Australia. She illustrated the book with sketches from her own photographs. She died on 1 August 1906 in

Roscoff Roscoff (; br, Rosko) is a commune in the Finistère département of Brittany in northwestern France. Roscoff is renowned for its picturesque architecture, labelled (small town of character) since 2009. Roscoff is also a traditional departure ...

, France.

Scientific work

Vickers carried out research into marine flora around Roscoff, Naples (Italy), Antibes (France), the Canary Islands, and the Antilles. She published major papers in French journals on the algae of the Canary islands and

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

, reporting results of field work done in the Canaries in 1895–96 and in the West Indies in 1898–99 and 1902–03. Her work in the Canaries led to the identification of over 30 new species on the island of

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that co ...

alone, while her work in the Antilles led to descriptions of over two dozen new species. When Vickers died at the age of 54, she left a planned book on Barbadian algae unfinished. It was completed by her colleague Mary Shaw and published posthumously in 1908 as ''Phycologia Barbadensis'', with 93 plates of anatomical drawings by Vickers and other illustrations in color by a Mlle Trottet. It included descriptions of five new species. Along the way, Vickers collected numerous specimens that went into the collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

as well as to other museums in Europe and the United States. Vickers is commemorated in the name of the red algae genus '' Vickersia'' (Karsakoff, 1896) of the family Wrangeliaceae.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vickers, Anna 1852 births 1906 deaths Phycologists Women phycologists French women scientists Women botanists 19th-century British women scientists