A botanical rural dean

This text is drawn from chapter 6 of my book, Curious Minds, because Woolls emerged in the midst of a Facebook discussion on the flower Woollsia pungens.

William Woolls (1814 – 1893)

You get a sense for the way the old botanists worked, when you read William Woolls adding extra comments like the following, wherein you will recognise two recent acquaintances of ours [mentioned earlier in the book]:

There also I noticed the remarkable shrub Atkinsonia ligustrina, of the Loranthus family, which is very dissimilar to the other species of the order. This plant, at my request, was named by Dr. F. Von Mueller, in honour of my friend Miss Atkinson (now Mrs. Calvert), who collected many interesting specimens during her residence at the Kurrajong, and to whom the compliment was especially due.

Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1871, 2. 

As we have already met the baron and Ms Calvert (née Atkinson), let us now consider these three masters of 19th century Australian botany: Louisa Atkinson (Beata Ludovica Calvert), Ferdinand von Mueller (who referred to Louisa in that way) and William Woolls, but mainly the latter.

Woollsia pungens was always the first plant collected by Botany II students in the 1960s, when we were sent off at the end of Lent term to collect “70 native species”. Back before the glaciers started tumbling, Woollsia was one of the few plants flowering in chilly May.

Prior to my diversion at 14 into the science stream, I had acquired a smattering of Latin before I was told ex cathedra by Wally the Deadmaster: “Boys who do Physics don't do Latin!”. This dictum was probably delivered at the urging of the dragon lady who taught us Latin, but I digress. The point is, I could make sense of most of the Latin names, but having collected and pressed my specimens, I wondered “why Woollsia?”.

On the left, Dr, William Woolls, as he appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal, 5 October 1872, on the right, Woollsia pungens.

I asked Professor Roger Carolin, who said it was named by von Mueller for William Woolls. Jump forward to the twenty-noughts when I was a Trove-fiend, working through old newspapers, and I either deduced or was told that Woolls used to write about botany and nature as ‘W.’ for the Sydney Morning Herald, so one lazy night, I searched out and tagged most of his articles with his name.

I still didn’t know what the plant was first called, but as I am doing this second edition, I dug deeper. Antonio Cavanilles called it Epacris pungens in 1797, but Robert Brown later moved the species to a Western Australian genus, Lysinema, something I had deduced from a pencilled note in my copy of Florence Sulman’s little book, The Wildflowers of New South Wales. Some prior owner had noticed the error and corrected it (while getting the spelling wrong).

The correction that set me on the right track.

As an avid reader of old Herald copies, I knew von Mueller had named Atkinsonia after Louisa Atkinson, later Mrs Calvert, and here is how Woolls explained why von Mueller did so:

This plant, at my request, was named by Dr. F. Von Mueller, in honour of my friend Miss Atkinson (now Mrs. Calvert), who collected many interesting specimens during her residence at the Kurrajong, and to whom the compliment was especially due.
— Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1871, 2.

Now you are ready to tackle a mix of abbreviations and odd Latin: the first line below tells us Antonio Cavanilles named it Epacris pungens, the second says Robert Brown moved it to Lysinema. Line 6 tells us Louisa Calvert (her married name) collected it in the Blue Mountains, and the author of the treatises (auctori opusculorum) in line 7 is William Woolls.

Ferdinand von Mueller, Fragmenta phytographiæ Australiæ, 8. 1873, 55.

Woolls’ article was mainly about his Species Plantarum Parramattensium, or Plants of Parramatta, and that was the key, when you burrow into von Mueller’s Latin. Keep in mind that in those days, scientists mainly learned “on the job”.

Born in 1814, Woolls was his parents’ 19^th child, and shortly after his father’s death in 1830, the 16-year-old William emigrated to Australia, where he soon became a teacher, and spent a generation educating the sons of prominent colonists. While he was a staunch Anglican, Woolls resisted ordination, but in 1873 became a deacon, and six months later a priest at Richmond, and in 1877, became a rural dean.

In 1871, he received a Ph. D, from the University of Göttingen for his work that we have already met as Plants of Parramatta, but they said of Christopher Wren, si monumentum requiris circumspice: to see his monument, look around. Woolls’ monument is all over Australia’s east coast.

Woollsia pungens, without a doubt one of the hardest heath flowers to photograph.

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