Botanist Margaret Lewis Passes Away at the age of 98
Botanist Margaret Lewis, wife of the late UCLA plant evolutionary biologist and Life Science Dean Harlan Lewis, died quietly in November at the age of 98. Harlan passed away in 2008. A researcher herself with an undergraduate degree from Pomona College and a masters degree from UC Berkeley, Margaret joined the UCLA Herbarium staff in 1945, and it was there that she and Harlan met. Many of us were privileged over the years to visit the remarkable garden oasis they created at their home in Rustic Canyon, Pacific Palisades, where they grew hundreds of species of plants from all over the world. Thanks to the kindness of the Lewis family, many of these rare species have been moved to a new life in the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at UCLA.