Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 171

Botanist Dr. Olga Lakela ofUSF has found the xvorld to be a big garden. any, adding to her collection of plant specimens and compiling data for a book she planned to write. There was not time, as and since, for romance. "I have not had time.

My work is my life. I would go on field trips with my students and the Campfire Girls and Boy Scouts. I was never lonely." Her love is still directed to plant life. "Please don't write about me. Write about the plants.

They are much more important than Dr. Lakela remained at Duluth until 1958, when she reached Minnesota's compulsory retirement age of (8. After a year at the University of North Dakota, she came to Florida in 1960. "There Is a colony of retired Minnestla educators near Lake Wales and I have some property there. Just a large lot, really." But a life of retirement wasn't to the liking of this energetic woman.

She fretted under the bonds of inactivity. This restlessness brought her to the University of South Florida, where she became and still is a research associate. She has worked at building USF's herbari two years. What, when this work is finished, will be her next project? The question brings a smile. "After that? I might not live that long.

But if I do, I would like to do a similar survey of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. I think that would be important." After that? "Oh, then 1 11 just sit high and look pretty." It is difficult to think that Olga Lakela, in whom Mother Nature has found a devoted friend, and whose every fiber radiates the beauty she has seen, will not always walk streams, looking grandly awkward in boots and heavy clothes, carrying a knapsack and garden hoe. But there is the inevitable. "The shores of Lake Superior are steep and rocky. There are ledges in the rocks and growing there are beautiful ferns and flowers and trees.

The air is pure and the sky is crystal clear. It is very beautiful. "I would hope that in the hereafter there a place like that for me." One can't help but believe that hope will be realized. um, partly with some of the more man 6,000 different plant specimens she has collected since coming to Florida, and has "publish-, ed a few notes" on a survey of Dade, Collier and Monroe counties. The book on which she began work in 1935 was published last year by the University of Minnesota.

Entitled "Flora of Northeast Minnesota," it is a compilation of plant life in an area encompassing 9,229.71 square miles, an area roughly the size of Florida's Panhandle. Dr. Lakela did all of the work herself. Almost every weekend found her out lone in the forests, collecting and cataloging plants. Quite often she-would rise early and make short field trips before meeting her first class.

She takes great pride in the result. "Isn't it beautiful. You will see it is in maroon and gold. Those are Minnesota's colors. When they asked me what colors I wanted, I told them maroon and gold.

I am a loyal alumnus." Another book will come from the survey in Dade, Collier and Monroe counties. Dr. Lakela is making the survey with Dr. Robert W. Long, chairman of USF's Botany Dept.

It is being made under a three-year National Science Foundation grant, and they have been working.