Jean Rasmussen formerly Jean Kingdon-Ward née Macklin (27 January 1921 – 3 December 2011) was a

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

, botanical collector, explorer and writer who participated in five major expeditions in India and

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

, backed by the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Biography

Rasmussen was born as Jean Macklin on 27 January 1921 in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

. She was the daughter of an English High Court judge. During her expeditions to India and Burma, backed by the Royal Horticultural Society, Rasmussen collected numerous scientific specimens of plants, some of which were new to science. The species ''

Lilium mackliniae ''Lilium mackliniae'', the Shirui lily or Shirui Kashong Timrawon, is a rare Indian species of plant found only in the upper reaches of the Shirui hill ranges in the Ukhrul district of Manipur, India, at an elevation of above sea level. It is l ...

'' was named in her honour. Rasmussen wrote about her expedition to the Lohit river valley on the border of

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and her experiences with the

1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake The 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake, also known as the Assam earthquake, occurred on 15 August and had a moment magnitude of 8.7. The epicentre was located in the Mishmi Hills. It is one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded on land. Occu ...

during that expedition in her book ''My Hill So Strong''.

Personal life

On 12 November 1947, Rasmussen married botanist

Frank Kingdon-Ward Francis Kingdon-Ward, born Francis Kingdon Ward OBE, (6 November 1885 in Manchester – 8 April 1958) was an English botanist, explorer, plant collector and author. He published most of his books as Frank Kingdon-Ward and this hyphenated form ...

, after they met in India. At the time of the marriage she was 26 and he was 62. Immediately after their marriage, they went on a plant collecting expedition to

Manipur Manipur () is a state in northeastern India with Imphal as its capital. It borders the Indian states of Assam to the west, Mizoram to the south, and Nagaland to the north and shares the international border with Myanmar, specifically t ...

in Northern India. Rasmussen's husband Frank Kingdon-Ward died on 8 April 1958, aged 72. She was married a second time to a Norwegian man, after which her surname became Rasmussen and moved to

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) 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 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

, Norway. She later retired to live in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...

, Sussex. Rasmussen died on 3 December 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasmussen, Jean 1921 births 2011 deaths English botanists English explorers Plant collectors 20th-century English women writers British women botanists