Darwin was always a jealous god:
Extract: This essay aims to reappraise Agnes Arber’s contribution to the history of science with reference to her work in the history of botany and biology. Both her first and her last books (Herbals, 1912; The Mind and the Eye, 1954) are classics: the former in the history of botany, the latter in that of biology. As such, they are still cited today, albeit with increasing criticism. Her very last book was rejected by Cambridge University Press because it did not meet the publisher’s academic standards – we shall return to it in due course. Despite Kathryn Packer’s two essays about Arber’s life in context, much remains to be done toward a just appreciation of her research. We need such a reappraisal in order to avoid anachronistic criticisms of her contributions to the historiography of botany, or, on the other hand, uncritical applause for her studies in plant morphology.…
Arber was excluded not just on account of her sex, but because her beliefs, as reflected in her publications, became increasingly out of fashion, and therefore out of touch, with current scientific practices. Arber’s anti-evolutionary stance continued to shape her work from her student days until her very last book. Her scientific premises did not evolve. While they were perfectly in tune with the times in the late 1890s and early 1900s, they had morphed into minority thinking by the 1940s and 1950s. (paywall)
Vittoria Feola, “Agnes Arber, historian of botany and Darwinian sceptic” at The British Journal for the History of Science, 2018, 52(3) (September 2019): 515-523.
We should find out when her birthday is and declare that Arber Day.