Frances Margaret Leighton

Frances Margaret Leighton (8 March 1909 – 8 January 2006) was a South African botanist and educator. After graduating from Rhodes University with her M.Sc degree in 1931, she worked at the Bolus Herbarium until 1947. Her primary research interests were focused on monocots, and her work impacted the Ornithogalum and Agapanthus.

Leighton married fellow botanist William Edwyn Isaac in 1936, and the couple had three children. In the 1950s, Leighton was politically active in the Black Sash movement, protesting against Apartheid. After moving to Nairobi in 1961, she studied sea grasses along the East African coast. Leighton and her husband eventually retired to Mornington Peninsula in Australia, where Leighton became involved with community environmental movements and was elected an honorary botanist by the 'Society for the Protection of Indigenous Flora and Fauna of Australia'.