Johan Wilhelm Heinrich Giess

[2] Giess arrived in South West Africa with his parents on 4 February 1926 and was drawn into farming by being one of the first students to attend the Agricultural College of Neudamm near Windhoek.

[3] As an ancillary activity Volk taught the students practical botany, assembling a herbarium from plants growing within the confines of the camp.

The students also produced a booklet, a key to the genera of grasses, entitled "Bestimmungschlüssel für Südwest-Afrikanische Grasgattungen", illustrated with engravings on pieces of wood and typeset with lead from toothpaste tubes.

When the South West African Administration assumed management of the herbarium in 1957 they offered Giess the curatorship on a permanent basis, a post in which he served until his retirement in 1975.

His field trips ranged over most of Namibia, visiting remote regions such as the Okavango River, Brandberg, Lüderitz, Erongo Mountains and Kaokoveld.