Lucy Katherine (Kathleen) Armitage Chippindall, also known as Chipps and later as Mrs. Albert Oliff Crook (15 February 1913, Pretoria – 4 April 1992) was a South African botanist and agrostologist.

Life

Lucy Katherine Armitage Chippindall was born on 15 February 1913 in Pretoria. She studied at St. Mary's Diocesan School in Pretoria from 1919 to 1929, and then at the

University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

, graduating as a Bachelor of Sciences in 1948. As a teenager Chippindall worked at

haberdasher In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothing, ...

y department of a store in Pretoria and then at the Botanical Research Institute. She was a Technical Assistant in the Division of Botany in Pretoria from 1931 to 1945. She specialized in the taxonomy of the ''

Gramineae Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

''. Chippindall is also considered a specialty author on

spermatophyte A spermatophyte (; ), also known as phanerogam (taxon Phanerogamae) or phaenogam (taxon Phaenogamae), is any plant that produces seeds, hence the alternative name seed plant. Spermatophytes are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. They inc ...

Career

After she married Albert Oliff Crook, Chippindall moved to

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

and started to work on the botanical section of the book published in 1955 - ''The grasses and pastures of South Africa''. Living in Rhodesia Chippindall worked for a time at the Government Herbarium, Salisbury. She had one son. After retirement from the Conservation Department in Rhodesia Chippindall and her husband A. O. Crook continued to collect and identify the grasses mainly in the Umtali area, publishing their work ''240 Grasses of Southern Africa'' in 1976. In the 1980s Chippindall and her husband moved to Cape Town where they cooperated with the

Bolus Herbarium The Bolus Herbarium was established in 1865 from a donation by Harry Bolus of his extensive herbarium and library to the South African College, which later became the University of Cape Town. Its collection of specimens numbers over 320 000, mak ...

and continued their study until the end of their lives. Chippindall also cooperated with Herbarium Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Lucy Katherine Armitage Chippindall died on 4 April 1992. South African plant '' chippindalliae'' is named after her.

Names published by Chippindall

* '' Alloeochaete namuliensis'' Chippind., J. S. African Bot. xi. 101 (1945) * '' Craspedorhachis uniflora'' (Hochst. ex A.Rich.) Chippind., Meredith, Grasses & Pastures S. Afr. 205 (1955) *'' Danthoniopsis acutigluma'' Chippind., Blumea, Suppl. 3: 27 (1946) *''

Hylebates ''Hylebates'' is a genus of African plants in the grass family. ; SpeciesClayton, W.D. (1989). Flora Zambesiaca 10(3): 1-231. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. * '' Hylebates chlorochloe'' (K.Schum.) Napper - - Tanzania, Kenya * '' Hylebates cordatu ...

'' Chippind., J. S. African Bot. xi. 127 (1945) **''

Hylebates cordatus ''Hylebates'' is a genus of African plants in the grass family. ; SpeciesClayton, W.D. (1989). Flora Zambesiaca 10(3): 1-231. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. * '' Hylebates chlorochloe'' (K.Schum.) Napper - - Tanzania, Kenya * '' Hylebates cordatus ...

'' Chippind., J. S. African Bot. xi. 128 (1945) *'' Loudetia pedicellata'' (Stent) Chippind., Meredith, Grasses & Pastures S. Afr. 280 (1955) *'' Tetrapogon mossambicensis'' (K.Schum.) Chippind., Meredith, Grasses & Pastures S. Afr. 198 (1955) *'' Urelytrum henrardii'' Chippind., Blumea, Suppl. 3: 25 (1946) *'' Urochloa stolonifera'' (Goossens) Chippind., Meredith, Grasses & Pastures S. Afr. 381 (1955)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chippindall, Lucy Katherine Armitage 1913 births 1992 deaths South African women botanists 20th-century South African botanists Agrostologists 20th-century South African women scientists