Dr Marie Beatrice Schol-Schwarz (1898-1969) was the Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 phytopathologist

Phytopathology

Plant pathology is the scientific study of plant diseases caused by pathogens and environmental conditions . Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses, viroids, virus-like organisms, phytoplasmas, protozoa, nematodes and parasitic plants...

, better known simply as Bea Schwarz, who discovered the causal fungus of Dutch elm disease

Dutch elm disease

Dutch elm disease is a disease caused by a member of the sac fungi category, affecting elm trees which is spread by the elm bark beetle. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease has been accidentally introduced into America and Europe, where it has devastated native...

 whilst studying for her doctorate at the University of Utrecht in 1922, where she was Johanna Westerdijk's first PhD student.
Born in Batavia, Dutch East Indies in 1898, most of her early professional life was spent studying pathogens afflicting the groundnut Arachis hypogaea at the agricultural research station in Bogor

Bogor

Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. The city is located in the center of the Bogor Regency , 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta...

. Marrying in 1926, Dr Schwarz retired from research to raise a family. When the East Indies were invaded by the Japanese army in 1942, Schwarz and her husband were interned in separate camps, her husband dying soon afterwards. After liberation, Schwarz and her two sons returned to the Netherlands, where she joined the Centraal Bureau voor Schimmelcultures at Baarn

Baarn

Baarn is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.-The municipality Baarn :The municipality of Baarn consists of the following towns: Baarn, Eembrugge, Lage Vuursche.- The town Baarn :...

, studying various fungi and writing a monograph on the genus Epicoccum.

After her second retirement, she continued to study the genus Phialophora

Phialophora

Phialophora is a form genus of fungus with short conidiophores, sometimes reduced to phialides; their conidia are unicellular. They may be parasites, or saprophitic.Genetic analysis of Phialophora shows that it is a paraphyletic grouping....

despite her rapidly failing health. Shortly before her death in 1969, she was made an Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau in recognition of her contribution to phytopathology

Eponymy

The elm

Elm

Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The dozens of species are found in temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ranging southward into Indonesia. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests...

 cultivar 'Bea Schwarz'

Ulmus 'Bea Schwarz'

The elm cultivar Bea Schwarz was cloned at Wageningen, the Netherlands ostensibly from a selection of Ulmus minor found in France in 1939...

was named for Dr. Schwarz.