Mary Douglas Tindale (19 September 1920 – 31 March 2011) was an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Australian botanist. She was an Australian

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

specialising in pteridology (ferns) and the genera ''

Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

'' and ''

Glycine Glycine (symbol Gly or G; ) is an amino acid that has a single hydrogen atom as its side chain. It is the simplest stable amino acid. Glycine is one of the proteinogenic amino acids. It is encoded by all the codons starting with GG (G ...

''. She devoted her life to the study of ferns, and her name is widely associated with the group of flowerless plants.

Early life and career

Tindale was born in Randwick, New South Wales, the only child of George Harold Tindale and Grace Matilda Tindale. She attended primary school in New York while her father served as British Ambassador to the United States. She returned to Sydney, Australia to attend high school at Abbotsleigh. Tindale earned a B.Sc. in botany with Honours from

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

, as well as a master's degree from the same university. She became Assistant Botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney in 1944 and later served as the Australian Botanical Liaison Officer 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 1,10 ...

from 1949 to 1951. After completing her Doctor of Science at Sydney University in 1964, she was appointed the first principal research scientist at

NSW Public Works NSW Public Works (or New South Wales Public Works) is a statutory agency of the Government of New South Wales that is responsible for providing expert advice to government and professional services, as well as government agency clients in New ...

. She retired from the Gardens in Sydney in 1983 after 39 years of service there. Tindale died in 2011.

Research

Tindale worked on the genera Glycine and Acacia. She was the first officer within NSW in the public service to be given the position of a Principal Research Scientist. She was an authority on both wattles and the native soya bean, known as Glycine. Tindale was an author of the 4th edition of the book called ''Flora of the Sydney Region'' (1994). She served on numerous international committees for ferns, and was a member of the Special Committee for Pteridophytes in the International Bureau of Plant Taxonomy and Nomenclature from the years of 1965 to 2005. In addition she was the secretary of the Systematic Botany Committee of ANZAAS. 49 taxon names have been authored by Mary Douglas Tindale and she contributed to ten books on botany.

Gender

Tindale was reported to attend 'as many international botanical congresses as possible'.

"She lived through the era of elegant gowns and romantic dances and confessed she loved dancing the tango. She seemed proud of never having married - in those days, ''one had to give up work as soon as one married'' - and was proud to be a woman with an important academic career." ... "Tindale's assistants at the Botanic Gardens were mostly men. She was an exacting boss who kept them on their toes, toughening them up for their botanical careers."

Reporting on her career and also preparation, the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria Australian National Herbarium - Biographical Notes, states that,

"She was slapdash with her lipstick but prepared for every eventuality - on one occasion at a grand function, where there wasn't enough light to read the menu, she reached into her bag and got out a magnifying glass and a large torch."

Publications

* Tindale, M.D. 1962. A new species of the ''Acacia decurrens'' group from New South Wales. ''Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium'' 3(3): 127. Reference page. * Tindale, M.D. 1963. Studies in Australian Pteridophytes. No. 4. ''Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium'' 3(4): 245–248. * Tindale, M.D. 1975. Notes on Australian taxa of ''Acacia'' No. 4. ''Telopea'' 1(1): 68–83. DOI:10.7751/telopea19753110 * Tindale, M.D. & Kodela, P.G. 1992. New species of ''Acacia'' (Fabaceae : Mimosoideae) from tropical Australia. ''Telopea'' 5(1) 53–66. DOI: 10.7751/telopea19924961 * Tindale, M.D. & Kodela, P.G. 1996. ''Acacia valida'' (Fabaceae, Mimosoideae), a new species from Western Australia and the Northern Territory, as well as the typification and revision of ''A. pachyphloia''. ''Australian Systematic Botany'' 9(3): 307–317. DOI
10.1071/SB9960307
* Tindale, M.D., Bedward, M. & Kodela, P.G. 1996. ''Acacia multistipulosa'' and ''A. rigescens'' (Fabaceae: Mimosoideae, ''Acacia'' sect. ''Juliflorae''), two new species from the Northern Territory, Australia. ''Australian Systematic Botany'' 9(6): 859–866. DOI
10.1071/SB9960859
* Pfeil, B.E. & Tindale, M.D. 2001. A review of the ''Glycine clandestina'' species complex (Fabaceae: Phaseolae) reveals two new species. ''Australian Systematic Botany'' 14: 891–900. DOI
10.1071/SB00041.

Awards and recognition

* 1948 - Linnean Macleay Fellowship (Botany), for study at the University of Sydney * 1968-1983 - Editor, ''Contributions from the New South Wales National Herbarium''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tindale, Mary Botanists with author abbreviations Botanists active in Australia Australian women botanists Australian Botanical Liaison Officers 1920 births 2011 deaths University of Sydney alumni 20th-century British women scientists People educated at Abbotsleigh