Barbara Lynette Rye is an Australian

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

born in 1952. Barbara Rye has been associated with the

Western Australian Herbarium The Western Australian Herbarium is the State Herbarium in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of the State government's Department of Parks and Wildlife, and has responsibility for the description and documentation of the flora of Western Austr ...

, where her work as a taxonomist has been the source of many new descriptions of plants. The number of taxa recorded as described by women authors is historically very low, of the terrestrial plant species this amount is around three percent, yet in analysis published in 2019 Rye is amongst the ten most prolific women taxonomists. Born in Perth, Western Australia, she spent her childhood investigating the local flora and fauna of the

Southwest Australia Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna. The region is also known as the Southwest Aus ...

region, a biodiversity hotspot, and later began studies at the University of Western Australia. Barbara Rye entered the fields of zoology and botany, taking a special interest in genetics and evolutionary biology. The first description of a new species was a '' Darwinia'', a genus of the family

Myrtaceae Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All speci ...

that Rye investigated for her doctoral thesis, separating '' Darwinia capitellata'' from a more widely distributed group. Rye is co-author or major contributor to several standard works of Australian botany, ''Flora of the Perth Region'', ''Flora of the Kimberley'', and in assembling treatments of the

Thymelaeaceae The Thymelaeaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants composed of 50 genera (listed below) and 898 species.Zachary S. Rogers (2009 onwards)A World Checklist of Thymelaeaceae (version 1) Missouri Botanical Garden Website, St. Louis. It ...

for the ''

Flora of Australia The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 30,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, ...

'' series. By early 2019, Barbara Rye was the acknowledged author of over two hundred and thirty new species.

Selected publications

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References

Living people 1952 births 20th-century Australian botanists Australian taxonomists Women taxonomists 21st-century Australian botanists {{Australia-botanist-stub