Marietta Pallis (1882–1963) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

-Briton

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and

botanical 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 ...

artist. She is noted for research in aquatic botany, especially the

Norfolk Broads Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North ...

and the Danube Delta as well as her creation of devotional landscapes.

Biography

Pallis was born in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

, the daughter of the

poet and language reformer Alexandros Pallis. She moved to England when she was 12 and was brought up in Liverpool. Her younger brother was

Marco Pallis Marco may refer to: People * Marco (given name), people with the given name Marco * Marco (actor) (born 1977), South Korean model and actor * Georg Marco (1863–1923), Romanian chess player of German origin * Tomás Marco (born 1942), Spanish ...

, an author and mountaineer who wrote about Tibet. From 1904 to 1907 she studied botany at

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

and attended

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

from 1910 to 1912. Pallis rented and later owned Long Gores farm, marshland property in Hickling, Norfolk. Pallis studied the plav, floating reed systems of the Danube Delta; writing a paper for the journal of the Linnaean Society in 1916. Following her father's death in 1935, Pallis travelled the eastern Mediterranean with her partner Phyllis Clark. She purchased the Long Gores property in 1935, planted specimens that she had acquired during her travel, and constructed a studio and garage. Pallis created in Long Gores a devotional symbolic Greek landscape, featuring the Double Headed Eagle Pool, a pool with an island shaped in the form of a crowned, double-headed

Byzantine eagle In heraldry and vexillology, the double-headed eagle (or double-eagle) is a charge associated with the concept of Empire. Most modern uses of the symbol are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originall ...

featuring the

Papal Cross The papal cross is a Christian cross, which serves as an emblem for the office of the Pope in ecclesiastical heraldry. It is depicted as a staff with three horizontal bars near the top, in diminishing order of length as the top is approached. ...

, the cross of the patriarch of Constantinople and her own Greek initials. She continued to write on Greek history and created pamphlets in the late 1950s and early 1960s concerning what she referred to as "philosophical biology". Pallis died in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, aged 81. She is buried with her companion Clark near the

on the central island of the Double Headed Eagle Pool. The tree ''

Fraxinus pallisiae ''Fraxinus pallisiae'' is a species of flowering plant belonging to the family Oleaceae. Its native range is Southeastern Europe to Moldova, Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mai ...

'' is named for her.

Works

* 'The river-valleys of East Norfolk: their aquatic and fen formations', in A. G. Tansley, ed., ''Types of British vegetation'', Cambridge University Press, 1911, pp. 214–45 * 'On the causes of the salinity of the Broads of the River Thume', 'Geographical Journal'', Vol. 27 (1911), pp. 284–91 * 'The structure and history of plav: the floating fens of the delta of the Danube', ''Journal of the Linnean Society: Botany'', Vol. 43, No. 291 (1916), pp. 233–90 * ''The general aspects of the vegetation of Europe'', 1939 * ''Tableaux in Greek history'', 1952 * ''The impermeability of peat and the origin of the Norfolk Broads'', 1956 * ''An attempt at a statement concerning a vital unit as shown by the reed in the Delta of the Danube'', 1958 * ''The species unit, and archetypal, primeval and primitive vegetation'', 1960 * ''The status of fen and the origin of the Norfolk Broads'', 1961 * ''The species unit, Unit III'', 1963

References

External links

Marietta Pallis Films: 1926 Hickling, Norfolk
East Anglian Film Archive. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pallis, Marietta 1882 births 1963 deaths Botanical illustrators Emigrants from British India to the United Kingdom British people of Greek descent British ecologists Women ecologists 20th-century Greek painters People from Mumbai People from Liverpool