Nancy Adams

"[1]Her interest was fostered at primary school, where her principal William Martin was an amateur botanist who taught students to draw from nature and took them on trips at Wellington Botanical Gardens.

Adams joined the Botany Division of New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in Wellington as a technician in 1943 when she was 16 years old.

[2] The DSIR was looking for staff to replace men serving in World War II,[1] allowing her to work closely on seaweeds with botanist Lucy Moore.

[5] Although she was not listed as a co-author on the resulting 1946 publication in Nature, Adams played a critical role in that research project by "examining hundreds of specimens and determining their reproductive characters.

"[2] Adams handled and processed the many specimens of algae being sent to Moore at DSIR from across the country, including mounting, registering, labelling, identifying and illustrating the material.

As technician, she learned by doing, increasing her knowledge of the New Zealand flora (especially algae) as well as her skills in collection management, specimen preparation, herbarium curation, and scientific illustration.

[2] In the summer of 1967–68, she went on "an ambitious caravan expedition from Fiordland to north-west Nelson" with Alan Mark and his family to perform field work for their book, New Zealand Alpine Plants, published in 1973, which contained 450 of Adams' watercolour illustrations that she painted from fresh material during the trip.

Included in these publications is an article written by Ella Orr Campbell, a fellow New Zealander, for whom Adams drew Thallus of Marchasta bearing archegoniophores.

[8] She comprehensively researched a number of early New Zealand biologist, and published articles on James Adams, Bernard Aston, and especially fellow botanical illustrator, John Buchanan.