Elizabeth Jill Cowley (born 1940) is a British botanist, who has worked at the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

. Her interests have included the tropical flora of East Africa and the genus ''

Roscoea ''Roscoea'' is a genus of perennial plants of the family (biology), family Zingiberaceae (the ginger family). Most members of the family are tropical, whereas ''Roscoea'' species are native to mountainous regions of the Himalayas, China and its ...

''. After working at a nursery at Tadworth, Surrey, she took a horticultural course at Merrist Wood Farm Institute (1958), then worked at Elm Garden Nurseries, Claygate for eight years. She then worked in Geneva, Switzerland, and Millers of Send, near Guildford. She started working at Kew Gardens in 1968 in the Temperate House, Himalaya section. In 1972 she moved to work in the

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

, working on

petaloid monocots Lilioid monocots (lilioids, liliid monocots, petaloid monocots, petaloid lilioid monocots) is an informal name used for a grade (biology), grade (grouping of taxa with common characteristics) of five monocot order (biology), orders (Petrosavial ...

, retiring in 2000. She took part in collecting trips to Korea, Turkey and China. She remained an Honorary Research Associate. Born Elizabeth Jill Bedwell, she married Richard Cowley, a Kew student, in 1970.

Some publications

Books

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Others

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowley, Elizabeth Jill English botanists 1940 births Living people Women botanists Place of birth missing (living people) Botanists active in Africa Botanists active in Asia Botanists with author abbreviations 20th-century British botanists 21st-century British botanists 20th-century British women scientists 21st-century British women scientists Botanists active in Kew Gardens