Hilda Geissmann (22 November 1890 - 10 June 1988) was a pioneering Australian botanist, naturalist and photographer whose botanical and ornithological research within the Mount Tamborine area of South East Queensland significantly contributed to the early ecological understanding of the region.
Hilda Geissmann was born in Brisbane in 1890 to Wilhelm Felix Geissmann and Bertha Elfriede Dorothea Geissmann. Her Swiss born father was a grocer by trade and in 1898, when Hilda was eight, he decided to move the family to Tamborine Mountain where he built a guest house called Capo di Monte (which later burnt down in 1930). She grew up with access to 200 acres of bushland and rainforest adjacent to her family home where, from a young age, she was to spend many hours gaining knowledge and experience of the natural world. She undertook art training at the Brisbane Central Technical College from 1913 alongside fellow students including painter Lloyd Rees and sculptor Daphne Mayo who was to remain a life-long friend. In 1926 she married Herbert Curtis, a widower in his 40s. In 1928 Geissmann was to give birth to her only child,Herbert Sydney (Syd) Curtis in 1928 who was to later become a notable ornithologist and conservation figure in Queensland. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Hilda Geissmann’s Natural History research, writing and photography was widely recognised within Australian botanical and ornithological communities in the early to mid-20th century. Her written articles (often accompanied by her photographs) were frequently published in the journal of the Queensland Naturalists Club (Queensland Naturalist) and her research was noted for being an important influence upon the work of Australian naturalist and author Alexander Hugh Chisholm as well as Zoologist and Conservationist Francis Ratcliffe who was to later become the chief of the CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research and founder of the Australian Conservation Foundation. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Geissmann’s work in the field of Orchid identification and collection was also important to the research of Australian botanists such as William Henry Nicholls, Alexander Greenlaw Hamilton, Herman Rupp, Richard Sanders Rogers, Anthony Musgrave (entomologist) and Ferdinand August Weinthal, all of whom she was known to frequently correspond on natural history matters whilst also fulfilling their requests for plant specimen photographs and fresh flower samples for study. Her scientific collaboration in this field with William Henry Nicholls was to later result in Nicholls naming the rainforest greenhood species Pterostylis hildae in her honour. Geissmann's work was also well recognised in the international scientific community and in 1925 Professor Charles Joseph Chamberlain of the University of Chicago sent her the microscope and chemicals necessary for conducting Histological work on Australian cycads, mosses and lichens which was critical to the University’s research in the field. Her photographic study of the 1000 year old Mt. Tambourine Cycad "Great Grandfather Peter" was to later also feature on the cover of the American Journal of Science Newsletter, in 1937 and many of Geissmann’s specimens reside in herbariums and museums in throughout the USA. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
Marian Ellis Rowan, known as Ellis Rowan, was a well-known Australian artist and botanical illustrator. She also did a series of illustrations on birds, butterflies and insects.
Koncordie Amalie Dietrich was a German naturalist who was best known for her work in Australia from 1863 to 1872, collecting specimens for the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg. In Queensland, Australia, Dietrich "actively sought fresh Aboriginal skeletons for her European clients”. While this is most likely part of a local legend that presents Dietrich as the 'Angel of Black Death, it is a proven fact that she did send the human remains of several Indigenous Australians to Hamburg. Her contribution to colonialism – pertaining to both the anthropological as well as the botanical aspect – are the subject of recent academic debates.
Vera Scarth-Johnson was a noted botanist and botanical illustrator who is also remembered for her continual efforts to teach others to treasure the flora and environment of Australia and, in particular, the botanically rich region of Cooktown and the Endeavour River Valley, on Cape York Peninsula, in far northern Queensland.
Tamborine Mountain is a plateau and locality in the Scenic Rim Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Tamborine Mountain had a population of 7,506 people.
The Cape Melville tree frog is a species of frog in the subfamily Pelodryadinae. It is endemic to Australia, and has been found only in Queensland, in Cape Melville National Park. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and rivers.
Margaret Grace Thorsborne was an Australian naturalist, conservationist and environmental activist. She was notable for her efforts, with her husband Arthur Thorsborne, in initiating the long-term monitoring and protection of the Torresian imperial-pigeon on the Brook Islands, north east of Hinchinbrook Island, Far North Queensland. Toward the end of her life, she was involved in the struggle to protect Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and animals such as the southern cassowary, mahogany glider and dugong.
Mary Julia Wade was an Australian palaeontologist, known for her role as the Deputy Director of the Queensland Museum. Some of her most renowned work was on the Precambrian Ediacaran Biota in South Australia.
Bernard Hyland, known as Bernie Hyland, is an Australian botanist.
Elizabeth Frances Coxen née Isaac (1825–1906) was an Australian naturalist and meteorologist. Born in Gloucestershire, England, she emigrated to with her family to Sydney, Australia in 1839. She was a collector of shells, insects and birds, as was her husband, Charles Coxen, and they donated many specimens to the Queensland Museum, where Elizabeth worked as curator. After her husband's death she became the first female elected a member of the Royal Society of Queensland.
Patricia Mather was an Australian zoologist and taxonomist known for her research into sea squirts. She became a leader in Australian marine science and internationally achieved status through her work on the Ascidiacea. She has published more than 150 papers including her major monograph on the "Australian Ascidiacea".
Tamborine Mountain Road is a continuous 24.1 kilometres (15.0 mi) road route in the Scenic Rim local government area of Queensland, Australia. Part of the route is designated as State Route 95. It is a state-controlled district road, rated as a local road of regional significance (LRRS).
James Percy Owen Cowlishaw (1867—1925) was an architect in Queensland, Australia. He is best known for his Commercial Bank of Australia buildings.
Valerie Todd Davies was an arachnologist who described many species of spider.
Pterostylis hildae, commonly known as the rainforest greenhood, is a species of orchid found in eastern Australia. It has a rosette of leaves and when flowering a rosette at the base of a flowering stem with a single green, white and brown flower. It is found in wet forests, including rainforest in New South Wales and Queensland.
Jim Gasteen (1922–2017) was an Australian farmer and conservationist, responsible for the establishment of a number of National Parks in Queensland and New South Wales.
James Peter Stanton is an Australian landscape ecologist, fire ecologist, botanist and biogeographer who individually conducted systematic environmental resource surveys throughout Queensland whilst working for the National Parks department of Forestry (Qld.) from 1967–1974. He carried out his assessments in a range of dissimilar landscapes leading to the identification and protection of many critically threatened ecosystems across the state during a period of rapid and widespread land development under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government. For this work he became the first Australian to receive the IUCN Fred M. Packard Award in 1982.
John Geoffrey Tracey was an Australian ecologist and botanist whose pioneering research work in partnership with Dr. Leonard Webb within the Rainforest Ecology Unit of the CSIRO in the 1950s led to the publication of the first systematic classification of Australian rainforest vegetation in the Journal of Ecology in 1959. By the early 80's, after decades of ongoing research, Tracey and Webb had accumulated a significant corpus of scientific evidence in support of the theory that Australian tropical rainforests had evolved in Gondwana over 100 million years ago and were not, as previously believed, relatively recent arrivals from South East Asia. This evidence, in combination with Tracey and Webb's 1975 publication of a collection of 15 vegetation maps entitled "Vegetation of the Humid Tropical Region of North Queensland", and Tracey's 1982 paper "The Vegetation of the Humid Tropical Region of North Queensland", helped to establish the scientific basis for a number of major conservation campaigns across Queensland and paved the way for the subsequent successful World Heritage nomination of the Wet Tropics of Queensland by Aila Keto in 1988.
Leonard James Webb was a widely awarded Australian ecologist and ethnobotanist who was the author or joint-author of over 112 scientific papers throughout the course of his professional career. His pioneering work as Senior Principal Research Scientist alongside Geoff Tracey in the CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit in the 1950s led to the publication of the first systematic classification of Australian rainforest vegetation in the Journal of Ecology in 1959.
James Keys was a school teacher and pioneering 19th century Queensland botanist who was globally recognised for the diverse collections of plant specimens which he assembled from locations of floristic significance throughout his home state including Mt Perry, Bundaberg, Bustard Heads, Burrum River, Eurimbula, Pine Mountain, Lake Cootharaba, Blackall Range and Norman Creek. He was a close friend to Queensland Colonial Botanist F.M. Bailey who was Keys' mentor and was responsible for many of Keys collections of lichens and mosses being sent to specialists in Europe for study. With Bailey's encouragement Keys was to compile a comprehensive collection of plants from the Upper Burnett River and Mount Perry which culminated in the first local checklist of plants in Queensland from outside of the Brisbane area. Most of his flora collections which were not sent abroad now reside in the Queensland Herbarium where approximately 600 of Keys' collections are presently preserved. Keys was also recognised for his abiding interest in uses of plants and his documentation of the aboriginal plant names in the Mt Perry district were listed in Bailey's seminal 7-volume botanical book 'The Queensland Flora'.
Samuel Justin Dansie was an Australian forester and botanist who was an influential early figure associated with the emergence of a conservation ethos in the use and management of the Wet Tropical rainforests of Northern Queensland. During his 36 year tenure within the Queensland Forestry Department, Dansie was instrumental in identifying and securing the protection of a number of key conservation areas, both within and outside of state forests in the region.
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