Mary McCallum Webster (31 December 1906 - 7 November 1985) was a British botanist. She was a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. [1]
Mary McCallum Webster (31 December 1906 - 7 November 1985) was a British botanist. She was a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. [1]
She was born in Sussex. McCallum Webster initially trained as a children's nurse, however retrained at Aldershot as a cook in order to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service in World War II. [2]
McCallum Webster continued to work as a cook after the war, spending winters working and summers focusing on botany. [2] She worked for the School of Botany, Cambridge University, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, [3] McCallum Webster was a member of several botany focused groups, including the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, Botanical Society of Scotland, [4] and the Moray Field Club, as well as being a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. Wintergreens were a particular area of interest for McCallum Webster, [5] as noted on her memorial in Culbin Forest. [6] Some have claimed that while McCallum Webster was an expert on wintergreens particularly in the Moray region of Scotland, she was deliberately vague about the exact sites of her finds and that botanists were taken to sites by Webster "on a deliberately tortuous route along forest tracks which made relocation practically impossible". [5]
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collections, and publishes academic journals and books on plant and animal biology. The society also awards a number of prestigious medals and prizes.
George Bentham was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studied law, but had a fascination with botany from an early age, which he soon pursued, becoming president of the Linnaean Society in 1861, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1862. He was the author of a number of important botanical works, particularly flora. He is best known for his taxonomic classification of plants in collaboration with Joseph Dalton Hooker, his Genera Plantarum (1862–1883). He died in London in 1884.
Sir James Edward Smith was an English botanist and founder of the Linnean Society.
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Bella Dytes MacIntosh MacCallum was a New Zealand and British botanist and mycologist and was New Zealand's first female doctor of science.
Rose Bracher was a British botanist and academic. She researched the ecology of the mud flats of the River Avon at Bristol and in particular the genus Euglena.
Rev. James Mascall Morrison Crombie was a Scottish lichenologist. The standard author abbreviation Cromb. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Olga Margaret Stewart née Mounsey was a prolific Scottish botanist and botanical artist.
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