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Agnes Arber FRS ( Robertson; 23 February 1879 – 22 March 1960) was a British people plant morphology and plant anatomy, historian of botany and philosopher of biology. She was born in London but lived most of her life in Cambridge, including the last 51 years of her life. She was the first woman botanist to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (21 March 1946, at the age of 67) and the third woman overall. She was the first woman to receive the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London.
Her scientific research focused on the monocotyledon group of flowering plants. She also contributed to development of morphological studies in botany during the early part of the 20th century. Her later work concentrated on the topic of philosophy in botany, particularly on the nature of biological research.
At the age of eight Robertson began attending the North London Collegiate School founded and run by Frances Buss, one of the leading proponents for girls' education. Under the direction of the school's science teacher Edith Aitken, Robertson discovered a fascination with botany, publishing her first piece of research in 1894 in the school's magazine and later coming first in the school's botany examinations, winning a scholarship.Packer, K. (1997) Notes and records on the Royal Society of London Vol. 51, No. 1
It was here that Robertson first met Ethel Sargant, a plant morphologist who gave regular presentations to the school science club. Sargant would later become her mentor and colleague, having a profound influence on Arber's research interests and methods.
In 1897, Robertson began studying at University College, London, gaining her BSc in 1899. After gaining an entrance scholarship Arber became a member of Newnham College, Cambridge and took a further degree in Natural Sciences. She gained first class results in every examination at both universities, along with several prizes and medals from University College, London.
After finishing her Cambridge degree in 1902 Robertson worked in the private laboratory of Ethel Sargant for a year, before returning to University College, London as holder of the Quain Studentship in Biology. She was awarded a Doctorate of Science in 1905.
Robertson met Edward Alexander Newell Arber (1870–1918) while studying at Newnham College. They married on August 5, 1909 and moved back to Cambridge, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Her only child, Muriel Agnes Arber, was born in 1913, became a geologist, and died in 2004.
Arber and her husband had many interests in common, and her marriage was described as 'happy'. Arber was awarded a Research Fellowship from Newnham College in 1912 and published her first book in the same year. Her husband Newall Arber died in 1918 following a period of ill health. Arber never remarried, but continued with her research. She studied in the Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women from her marriage until the laboratory's closure in 1927. Arber maintained a small laboratory in a back room of her house from then until she stopped performing bench research in the 1940s and turned to philosophical study.
In 1921, the "botanical establishment" denied Arber the 1921 presidency of British association for the advancement of science (BAAS)'s Botany section (Section K). This process was initiated by Frederick Orpen Bower, based on the premise that Arber should not follow Saunders immediately as president as both were women from Cambridge and that there were more senior male botanists up for the presidency. This reflected an antipathy against Arber not only as a female botanist but also as a Cambridge botanist. He claimed that Edinburgh (where the meeting was held) "has the right to expect better than this... To ask Balfour of to sit under the Presidency of Mrs. Arber is ridiculous!" Albert Seward met with Arber, who withdrew her candidacy and resigned as the secretary of the BAAS.
In 1925 Arber published her third book The Monocotyledons. The Editors of the Cambridge Botanical Handbooks series had asked Ethel Sargant in 1910 to prepare a volume on the monocots for this series. However ill-health and advancing years made it almost impossible for Sargant to complete the book, and in 1918 she suggested Arber to complete the work. The Monocotyledons continues Arber's morphological methods of analysis she presented in Water Plants. She provides a detailed study of the monocot plants from comparing their internal and external anatomy. However her discussion of the general principles she uses in her analysis are more explicit in this volume, as she discusses the methods and philosophy of morphological study. Although comparative anatomical analysis as demonstrated in The Monocotyledons and Water Plants: A Study of Aquatic Angiosperms was central to botanical investigation in the early 20th century, there were distinct differences between British and European researchers concerning the aims of morphological study. Arber addressed this by creating a distinction between "pure" and "applied" morphology, with her work focusing on comparative anatomy to investigate questions concerning significant topics such as constructing phylogenies, instead of using traditional views of plant structure. This view was further developed in her later work.
After the publication of The Monocotyledons Arber continued her research into this group, concentrating her research into the Gramineae family of plants, especially cereals, grasses and bamboo. This led to the publication of her final book concerning plant morphology, The Gramineae in 1934. In this book Arber described the life cycles, embryology and reproductive and vegetative cycles of cereals, grasses and bamboo using comparative anatomical analysis of these plants. Recognising the importance of these plants to the development of human societies, Arber begins this study with the history of these plants in relation to humans, with "the more strictly botanical aspect is treated as developing out of the humanistic".Arber, A. (1934) The Gramineae The book was preceded by 10 papers in The Annals of Botany detailing the results of her research.
Between 1930 and 1942 Arber conducted research into the structure of flowers, where she investigated the structure of many different forms and used morphological information to interpret other flower structures. Her results were published in 10 review papers spanning this period. In 1937 she published a summary of the morphological ideas which had been discussed concerning floral structure, which was considered an important review article for morphological studies.
In January 1942 Arber published her last paper involving original botanical research. All of her subsequent publications were entirely concerned with historical and philosophical topics. [1]
Arber had been introduced to the work of Goethe while at school and remained fascinated by his ideas about botany. In 1946 she published Goethe's Botany, a translation of Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants (1790) and Georg Christoph Tobler's (1757–1812) Die Natur with an introduction and interpretation of the texts.
The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form, published in 1950 has been considered the most important of Arber's books. It has been described as "a magisterial survey of two thousand years of biological tradition". Arber discusses the processes behind forming a concept from research and examines the philosophy of plant morphology. Arber uses this to examine the structure of flowering plants, and proposes the partial-shoot theory of the leaf. According to this theory, each element of the plant is a shoot or a partial shoot. Leaves are partial shoots that show reduced growth capacity. She mentions: "the leaf is a partial-shoot, revealing an inherent urge towards becoming a whole shoot, but never actually attaining this goal, since radial symmetry and the capacity for apical growth suffer inhibition".Agnes, A. (1950) 'The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form' The parallelism of leaf and shoot dates back to Goethe, who first described compound leaves as in "reality branches, the buds of which cannot develop, since the common stalk is too frail". For Arber, compound leaves are clusters of united partial-shoots. Recent developmental genetic evidence has supported aspects of the partial shoot-theory of the leaf, especially in the case of compound leaves.Hofer, et al (2001) 'Genetic Control of Leaf Morphology: A Partial View' Annals of Botany Vol. 88
Her studies on the philosophy of plant morphology led her to take a broader view of the links between science and philosophy. The Mind and the Eye: A Biologist's Standpoint published in 1954 provides an introduction to biological research and develops a methodology for performing this research. Arber describes research as taking place in six stages: the identification of research question or topic; the collection of data through experiments or observation; the interpretation of the data; testing the validity of the interpretation; communicating the results; and considering the research in context. For Arber, the context includes interpreting the result in terms of history and philosophy and covers half of the book. Arber's book is distinctive in that it was written before Thomas Kuhn demonstrated that scientist's views are influenced by the views of others in their field and before Ernst Mayr's criticism of describing the philosophy of biology in the same way as the philosophy of physics.
Her final book, The Manifold and the One published in 1957 is concerned with wider philosophical questions. The book is a wide-ranging and syncretic survey, drawing on literary, scientific, religious, mystical and philosophical traditions, incorporating Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist philosophy with European philosophy., in pursuit of a discussion of the mystical experience which Arber defines as "that direct and unmediated contemplation which is characterised by a peculiarly intense awareness of a Whole as the Unity of all things".Arber, A. (1957). The Manifold and the One, p. 14
A Blue Plaque was installed on her childhood home (9 Elsworthy Terrace, Primrose Hill, London) in 2018. In 2024 one was attached to her Cambridge home where she also carried out much of her research.
There is also a brand of gin named in her honour.
In May 2024, a new sponsored Agnes Arber PhD thesis prize in comparative biology at the University of Cambridge was created. Professor Sam Brockington, of Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, said that he hoped the prize "will support the next generation of pioneering botanists, following in the footsteps of Agnes".
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