Marie Vogts, botanist and pioneer of the Protea industry, dies in Stellenbosch

Marie Vogts was a botanist who specialised in the Protea plant. She obtained a PhD in 1971 with a thesis on autecology and a variation of the King Protea (Protea Cynaroides). She did extensive research on the Proteas in the Paarl Mountain Garden in her days as a lecturer at the Paarl Teachers’ College. Vogts moved to Pretoria after meeting her husband, Bernard Vogts.  In her years in Gauteng, she pioneered Protea growing in the province. After her husband’s death, Vogts and her son moved to Betty’s Bay where she established the experimental protea farm. The farm was later relocated to Tygerhoek . She moved to Stellenbosch where she died on 29 June 1998.