Ethel McLennan was Associate Professor of Botany at the University of Melbourne from 1931 to 1955, after having joined the staff in 1915. She specialized in mycology and plant pathology, being widely recognised and one of Australia’s leaders in these fields.
Isabel Cookson was Research Fellow in Botany, University of Melbourne 1952-1959. She was world renowned for her research which included fossil plant studies.
Eileen Ramsay was an enthusiastic Australian plant collector who for 20 years from 1949 collected specimens in the Mallee in north-western Victoria.
Fanny Charsley was an English botanical artist and collector who spent a decade in Australia (1856 – 1866). Shortly after she returned to England she published a book of her work on Australian wild flowers titled “The Wild Flowers around Melbourne” (1867).
Hilda Gladys Geissmann was a self-taught naturalist and nature photographer. Many of her specimens were greatly prized because of their rarity, beauty or quality and are housed in museums and herbariums throughout Australia and in the USA.
Edith Coleman was a naturalist who wrote prolifically on a wide range of animals and published in both scientific journals and the popular press.
Geraldine Sewell collected plant specimens in Western Australia between 1886 and 1891 around Mount Caroline ; over 300 specimens are in the National Herbarium of Victoria.
Wildflower enthusiast and environmental activist
Sarah Carter collected botanical specimens largely from the Upper Hunter River region of New South Wales. Over 300 of Carter’s specimens are in the National Herbarium of Victoria.
In 1893, she published the first Australian Garden Guide written by a woman, “The Flower Garden in Australia. A book for Ladies and Amateurs”.