Winifred Mary Curtis

Winifred Mary Curtis (born June 15, 1905 in London , † October 14, 2005 in Hobart ) was an English-Australian botanist. Your botanical author abbreviation is " WMCurtis ". The focus of her work was on the flora of Tasmania. She was the first to describe numerous plants, the most famous of which is Lomatia tasmanica, which is often incorrectly referred to as the "oldest living plant in the world" .

From 1920 to 1922 she lived with her family in India. In 1924 she began studying science at University College London and graduated in 1927 with a Bachelor of Science . In the early 1930s she worked as a biology teacher before emigrating to Hobart, Tasmania with her parents in 1939 . She began to work there at the University of Tasmania , initially only as a part-time employee, which is why she continued to work as a biology teacher. During this time she wrote the "Biology for Australian Students" published in 1948 , a textbook that was specially tailored to Australian circumstances.

In 1942 she switched to university completely, and in the following year she began work on "Students' Flora of Tasmania", which was published from 1956 to 1994 in four volumes . In 1950 she received her doctorate with the thesis "Studies in experimental taxonomy and variation in certain Tasmanian plants" . In 1966 Curtis retired, but remained active, from 1967 to 1978 she worked on "The Endemic Flora of Tasmania" .

Curtis received numerous honors and prizes, and several plant taxas were named after her:

• Viola hederacea subsp. curtisiae
• Epilobium curtisiae
• Epacris curtisiae
• Winifredia sola

proof

• Winifred Mary Curtis - 100 years of botanical research, teaching and traveling , online exhibition, 2007, online

Web links

• Author entry and list of described plant names for Winifred Mary Curtis at the IPNI