Species Erica guthriei
Pictures from Observations
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For Francis Guthrie (1831–1899), English lawyer, mathematician and botanist. He studied at London University, getting a BA degree (1850) and an LLB (1852) before coming to South Africa in 1861 to teach mathematics at Graaff-Reinet College. His extensive collections of flora from the Cape Peninsula are honoured by the Guthrie Herbarium within the Bolus Herbarium at UCT.
Francis Guthrie attended lectures by the botanist John Lindley. Guthrie's subsequent lectures inspired Harry Bolus who would later become a celebrated botanist. Bolus named the monotypic genus Guthriea after him after Bolus discovered the plant in the Nardousberg mountains near Graaff-Reinet in 1873. Guthrie and Bolus worked together on the genus Erica, the work being incorporated into Flora Capensis. By his death, Guthrie had accumulated a significant collection of specimens from the Cape Peninsula, and these were bequeathed by his widow to the South African College herbarium.