Hanna Marie Resvoll-Holmsen (''née'' Resvoll) (11 September 1873 in

Vågå Vågå () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vågåmo. Other village areas in Vågå include Lalm and Besshei ...

Oppland Oppland is a former county in Norway which existed from 1781 until its dissolution on 1 January 2020. The old Oppland county bordered the counties of Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The co ...

– 13 March 1943 in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

) was a Norwegian

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

– a female pioneer in Norwegian natural history education and

nature conservation Nature conservation is the moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. A range of values unde ...

together with her sister, Thekla Resvoll.

Life

Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen suffered much from illness in her childhood and school attendance after her 12th year was sporadic. She took a high school exam in 1902, at which time she had also an unhappy marriage behind her. She studied natural history at the Royal Frederik's University in

Kristiania Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and graduated in

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

in 1910. From 1921, she was docent in

plant geography Phytogeography (from Greek language, Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographi ...

at the same university, a position she held until her retirement in 1938. Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen participated as a botanist in the

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

expedition in 1907 led by the

oceanographer Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics ...

Prince Albert. The next year she went to

alone mainly to take photographs, partly in colour. These photographs constitute a unique early documentation of Svalbard’s nature. Her botanical observations were first published as ''Observations botaniques'' in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

, later in

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

as ''Svalbards Flora'' (1927) – the first

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

of this archipelago. Using

Christen C. Raunkiær Christen Christensen Raunkiær (29 March 1860 – 11 March 1938) was a Danish botanist, who was a pioneer of plant ecology. He is mainly remembered for his scheme of plant strategies to survive an unfavourable season ("life forms") and his demons ...

’s quantitative methods,Shimwell, D.W. (1971) The Description and Classification of Vegetation. Sidgwick & Jackson, London. she made a large vegetation survey of Norwegian

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National Pa ...

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

, published as ''Om Fjeldvegetationen i det Østenfjeldske Norge'' (On the mountain vegetation in Norway east of the Scandes; 1920). She was particularly interested in the

subalpine Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

forests. She published an essay ''Om betydningen av det uensartede i våre skoger'' (On the significance of heterogeneity in forests), which made plead for the conservation of natural mountain forest and criticized its replacement by

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

plantations. This pamphlet caused much animosity against her among foresters. Together with the geologist Adolf Hoel, she was behind the first designation of a conservation area in Svalbard. She was a strong advocate for nature conservation in the Norwegian mountains. She is known in Norwegian conservation circles as the country's first ''green stocking''. Resvoll-Holmsen was first married to Hans Dieset (divorced 1901), then from 1909 to state geologist Gunnar Holmsen (1880–1976), brother of her sister's husband. The

buttercup ''Ranunculus'' is a large genus of about almost 1700 to more than 1800 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots. The genus is distributed in Europe, ...

species '' Ranunculus resvoll-holmseniae'' (

Ranunculaceae Ranunculaceae (buttercup or crowfoot family; Latin "little frog", from "frog") is a family of over 2,000 known species of flowering plants in 43 genera, distributed worldwide. The largest genera are ''Ranunculus'' (600 species), ''Delphinium' ...

) has been named to her honour.

Photographs

File:Landskap ved Målselv, 1912 (autochrome) (14751421326).jpg, Research trip in Troms 1912 File:Alkhornet 1907 - no-nb digifoto 20150626 00298 bldsa HR H08 25.jpg, 1 January 1907 File:Dalen ovenfor Sjunkfjorden, Folla - no-nb digifoto 20151209 00060 bldsa HRH09 00014.jpg, Between 1909 and 1912 File:"Finkirkene" ved Kjøllefjord - no-nb digifoto 20160318 00194 bldsa NGU0322.jpg, 15 September 1909. File:Bergsfjell fra Grindaheim. Grindane i Vang? - no-nb digifoto 20151112 00084 bldsa HRH01 400.jpg, Between 15 June 1930 and 15 August 1930 File:Fra Stor-Ula, fossen el. stryket ovenfor broen nær Mysuseter. Dalen ovenfor med Smiubelgene i bakgrunnen. Til høire vestskråningen av Berget, til venstre østskråningen av Kåsi - no-nb digifoto 20150925 00145 bldsa HRH01 146.jpg, 1933 Mysuseter, Sell File:Avlæggergruppe av gran ved trægrensen i Vestre Slidre. Graner døde på vindsiden. Ca. 1050 m. o.h. - no-nb digifoto 20151116 00001 bldsa HRH01 492.jpg, 17 July 1916 File:Berg med bl.a. furu - no-nb digifoto 20151113 00079 bldsa HRH01 556.jpg, 15 June 1923 and 15 August 1923. File:Den store lind i skogen nær prestegaarden, Horten. Fredet. 5,90 m i omkrets 1 m.o.m. fot. 12.4.1927 - no-nb digifoto 20150925 00132 bldsa HRH01 133.jpg, 12 April 1927 File:Landskap Sørlandet, nær Lillesand - no-nb digifoto 20151112 00071 bldsa HRH01 387.jpg, 1920. Klingsund og Jæren File:Lapper fra Adamsfjord, Laksefjord - no-nb digifoto 20160317 00143 bldsa NGU0382.jpg, 21 September 1909 File:Fra Jakobselvvidden paa Varangerhalvøens. Finner kjører fisk fra Ordovand til Næsseby - no-nb digifoto 20160318 00212 bldsa NGU0340.jpg, 21 August 1909

Selected scientific works

*''Les observations botaniques de la campagne scientifique de S.A.S. le Prince Albert 1er de Monaco. La misión Isachsen au Spitzberg 1907''.

, 1910. *Om Fjeldvegetationen i det Østenfjeldske Norge. ''Arkiv for matematik og naturvidenskap'' 1920/No. 2. *''Svalbards Flora - med en del om dens plantevekst i nutid og fortid''. 56 pp. 1927. *Om betydningen av det uensartede i våre skoger. ''Tidsskrift for Skogbruk'' 1932, 40: 270-275.

Sources

*Obituary by Christophersen, E. in ''Blyttia'' 1: 100-102 (1943). *Eckblad, F.-E. (1991) Thekla Resvoll og Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen, to glemte? Pionerer i norsk botanikk. ''Blyttia'' 49: 3-10. *Biography by Bredo Berntsen & Inger Nordal in Norsk biografisk leksikon, Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget (1999–2005) *Berntsen, Bredo (2006) En grønnstrømpe og hennes samtid: Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen: botaniker, Svalbard-forsker, fjellelsker, fotograf og naturvernpioner.

External links

Norwegian biography with photosNorwegian article with photos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Resvoll-Holmsen, Hanna 1873 births 1943 deaths 20th-century Norwegian botanists Norwegian ecologists University of Oslo alumni Academic staff of the University of Oslo Botanists active in the Arctic Norwegian women academics 20th-century Norwegian women scientists Women botanists Women ecologists