Winifred Curtis
| Winifred Curtis AM | |
|---|---|
| Born |
15 June 1905 London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 14 October 2005 (aged 100) Hobart, Tasmania, Australia |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Alma mater | University College London |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | University of Tasmania |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | W.M.Curtis |
Winifred Mary Curtis AM (15 June 1905 – 14 October 2005) was a British-born Australian botanist, author and a pioneer researcher in plant embryology and cytology.
Curtis was born on 15 June 1905 in London, the only child of Herbert John Curtis and Elizabeth Winifred Curtis (née Baker).
Curtis lived in India for several years as a child after her father was posted there. She was a gifted student, and studied science at University College, London from 1924, winning various awards and scholarships. She graduated in 1927 and completed an honours degree in Botany the following year for research on Spartinia townsendii, and Taraxacum (dandelions). This was followed by several years of travel through Europe and teaching in Manchester and Hampstead.
In 1939 she emigrated to Australia with her family on the TSS Ascania where she initially took a teaching position as Science Mistress at the private girls' school Fahan School in Hobart. She later joined the Department of Biology at the University of Tasmania and took part in the creation of the Department of Botany there in 1945. In 1943 she started work on her The Students' Flora of Tasmania, a well known work on Tasmanian flora. The first volume was published in 1956; the fifth and final volume was published in 1994, more than 50 years after its commencement. From the early 1960s much of this was a close scientific collaboration with botanist and plant collector Dennis Ivor Morris (1924–2005) with whom she also shared a close friendship.
In 1944 Curtis published Variations in Pultenaea juniperina, the first record of polyploidy in an Australian native plant. This led to her PhD from London University which was awarded in 1950. Her doctoral thesis was titled Studies in Experimental Taxonomy and Variation in Certain Tasmanian Plants which was a pioneering work in cytology and polyploidy. Following from her doctoral award in London she travelled to the United States visiting various herbaria.
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