Lilian Suzette Gibbs (1870–1925) was a British botanist who worked for the British Museum in London and an authority on mountain ecosystems.

Education

She studied initially at

Swanley Horticultural College Swanley Horticultural College, founded in , was a college of horticulture in Hextable, Kent, England. It originally took only male students but by 1894 the majority of students were female and it became a women-only institution in 1903. Early hi ...

in Kent, UK (1899-1901) and then specialised in botany at the Royal College of Science in London, studying under J. B. Farmer. Her postgraduate research was into seeds of the Alsinoideae ( Caryophyllaceae). While a student, she collected plants from the European Alps and developed her identification skills with help from the Botanical Department at the Natural History Museum.

Career

Gibbs was employed by the Natural History section of the British Museum in London for her entire career but also collaborated with the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and undertook histological and plant development work at the Royal College of Science. Expeditions between 1905 and 1915 to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Iceland, Indonesia, Malaysia, South America, the US and Zimbabwe allowed her to see plant life worldwide, and mountain plants were her particular interest. In 1905, she was part of a British Association visit to

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

(Zimbabwe) and also collected plant material. She visited Fiji in 1907,Ray Desmond (Editor) and explored the flora on the northern slopes of the Mount Victoria range, and then studied the bryophyte flora of New Zealand on her way home, identifying four new species of liverwort in the Waitākere Ranges. She also reported on the destruction of the New Zealand forests to permit grazing on her return to the UK in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1908 and 1909. She was the first woman and the first botanist to ascend Mount Kinabalu in February 1910 while leading an expedition for three months that recorded 15 new plant species. Phillipps, A. & F. Liew 2000. ''Globetrotter Visitor's Guide – Kinabalu Park''. New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd. One outcome of this expedition was to show the importance of New Guinea as a centre for subsequent radiation of plants to south and east. In 1912, she collected in Iceland. 1913 found her in the Arfak Mountains in Dutch New Guinea and she continued to the Bellenden-Ker Range in Queensland, Australia in 1914 and then returned to London from Tasmania in 1915. Her final visit was to South America. Her travels were limited after 1921 due to ill-health and she died on 30 January 1925 at Santa Cruz, on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Gibbs collected many plants new to science. Her specimens are in the collections at the British Museum. Others have named genera and species in her honour. These include the genus '' Gibbsia'' , ''

Racemobambos gibbsiae ''Racemobambos'' is a genus of bamboo (tribe Bambuseae within the Poaceae) and the sole genus of its subtribe, the Racemobambodinae. The genus is native to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papuasia Papuasia is a Level 2 botanical region defined in ...

'' or Miss Gibbs' Bamboo, ( Urticaceae) and the moss species ''Calobryum gibbsiae'' (now called ''

Haplomitrium gibbsiae ''Haplomitrium gibbsiae'' is a species of liverwort from New Zealand. The specific Latin epithet of ''gibbsiae'' is in honour of Lilian Gibbs Lilian Suzette Gibbs (1870–1925) was a British botanist who worked for the British Museum in Lo ...

'' and ''Lepidozia gibbsiana'' Gibbs had the personality and ability to organise and carry out her expeditions successfully but was also remembered for her skill as a hostess at afternoon tea-parties.

Awards

Gibbs was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1905. In 1910 she was awarded the Huxley medal and prize for research in natural science and also joined the Microscopial Society. She became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1919.

Publications

Her publications include: *(1904) Notes on Floral Anomalies in species of ''Cerastium'' ''New Phytologist'' 3 243-247 *(1906) A contribution to the botany of Southern Rhodesia. ''Botanical J. Linnean Society'' 38 425-494 *(1907) Notes on the development and structure of the seed in the Alsinoideae. ''Annals of Botany'' 21 25-55 *(1908) Bio-histological notes on some new Rhodesian species of ''Fuirena'', ''Hesperantha'' and ''Justicia'' ''Annals of Botany'' 22 187-206 *(1909) A contribution to the montane flora of Fiji (including crypograms). ''Botanical J. Linnean Society'' 39 130-212 *(1911) The Hepatics of New Zealand. ''Journal of Botany'' 49 261-266 *(1912) On the development of the female strobilus in Podocarpus. ''Annals of Botany'' 24 515-571 *(1914) A contribution to the flora and plant formations of Mount Kinabalu and the Highlands of British North Borneo. ''Botanical J. Linnean Society'' 42 1-240 *(1917) ''Dutch N. W. New Guinea: a contribution to the phytogeography and flora of the Arfak Mountains, etc''. Octavo Taylor and Francis, London *(1917) A contribution to the phyto-geography of Bellenden-Ker. ''Journal of Botany'' 55 297-310 *(1920) Notes on the phyto-geography and flora of the mountain summit plateaux of Tasmania. ''J Ecology'' 8 1-17 *(1920) The genus ''Calobryum''. ''Journal of Botany'' 58 275

References

* Vickery, R. (December 1999)
Field Notes: Lilian Suzette Gibbs
''Plant Cuttings'', issue 3. *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbs, Lilian 1870 births 1925 deaths Botanists active in Kew Gardens Women botanists British women scientists Employees of the British Museum British mountain climbers Female climbers