Helena Madelain Lamond Forbes was born on 11 September 1900 in Forfar, Scotland.

[1] When she was a young child, her parents emigrated to Durban and Forbes childhood was spent there.

[1] On 1 July 1919, she joined Natal Herbarium in Durban as a Junior Assistant in the Botany Division.

[2] Forbes was recognised as an authority on the flora of the Natal and, whilst she did not publish widely, she did contribute major revisions of two genera: Psoralea and Tephrosia.

[3] During her lifetime she published thirty-two plant names,[5] some of which include: the taxon Ophrestia;[6] Kalanchoe albiflora.