A Woman's Legacy to Botany
Belinda Pellow
Curator, Janet Cosh Herbarium, University of Wollongong
The Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong was established in 1991 with funds and resources donated by Miss Janet Cosh of Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands , NSW. During the last
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Botanical drawing by |
17 years of her life Miss Cosh, an educated woman with a variety of interests and a great passion for botany, collected, preserved and illustrated over 1000 native plant species from the greater area
surrounding her home. Miss Cosh’s interest in botany and natural history was inspired by her parents and grandparents. In particular, her maternal grandmother, Louisa Atkinson, was a botanist, natural historian and writer and her work is held in the Mitchell Library and National Herbarium of NSW.
Miss Cosh represents a large group of women from her era who, with independent means and a keen interest in natural history, have contributed to our knowledge of science in a quiet but significant way. Miss Cosh’s contributions to the field of botany have been acknowledged by professionals and the community at large. The National Herbarium of NSW provides Janet Cosh Summer Studentships for students of plant taxonomy or ecology and the visitors centre in Morton National Park has a Janet Cosh Room which is an educational resource for the community.
At the end of her life Miss Cosh was keen to facilitate continued documentation, learning and research in plant taxonomy and ecology and saw an avenue to do this by providing the foundations for the development of a regional Herbarium. In 1991, I was employed to collate and curate her plant specimens, books, notes and illustrations to establish the Janet Cosh Herbarium in the School of Biological Sciences. In 1993 Dr. Kristine French, a newly arrived lecturer to the School, was appointed as the Herbarium Manager. In keeping with Miss Cosh’s wishes the Herbarium’s aims were to provide a regional Herbarium for the Illawarra and Southern Highlands, enhance the understanding and teaching of botany and facilitate botanical research.
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Jean Clarke and Jodi Dunn, working on the curation of Miss Cosh’s botanical drawing. |
Since then the Herbarium has evolved into a relatively small but valuable resource for teaching undergraduates in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Earth and Environmental Sciences. It supports the research projects of post graduate students and staff across a number of disciplines within the University. Research projects which are currently being supported by the Herbarium include: Investigations into the weed Chrysanthemoides monilifera (Bitou Bush) by Tanya Mason & Emilie Ens; Flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) and human modified vegetation by Emily Schmelitschek; Revegetation of disturb sites in the Sutherland Shire by Cally Howe; Systematics and ecology of modern Australian charophytes by Dr Adriana Garcia; and Microsatellite analysis of genetic variation in the moss Ceratodon purpureus by Laurence Clarke. The Herbarium has also supported projects in the Faculty of Creative Arts such as an exhibition entitled “Hidden Visions: Re-imaging Nature” by Mary Rosengren.
The Herbarium is involved in work outside the University and its staff have been contracted to carry out a number of flora surveys and management plans. In particular, we have conducted surveys on the Cumberland Plain west of Sydney. The remnant vegetation of this area is under threat from urban development and in 2004 we facilitated a community symposium on the Ecology and Management of Cumberland Plain Habitats. This symposium was very successful attracting 180 participants across a broad range of Government and non-Government organizations. The Herbarium has also supported a South Coast Vegetation Survey by the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation and has benefited from this with a donation of several hundred specimens for the collection. Last year, Jean Clarke, Honorary Fellow with the Herbarium, sought and received funds from the NSW Foundation for National Parks to catalogue and preserve Miss Cosh’s botanical drawings and notes. This seems apt given that Miss Cosh made generous donations to the Foundation during her lifetime. The intention of the project was to allow greater access to this collection by interested persons.
Miss Cosh’s collection of botanical notes and drawings presented a challenge for curation as she was a great recycler and did much of her work in or on old school books, Christmas cards, sock inserts and
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Miss Janet Cosh at work in the bush, an unassuming contributor to Science. |
letters as well as on the back of many of her father’s watercolour paintings.
This year, as a result of a successful joint application with the University of Sydney to the Environment Trust of NSW, the Herbarium will be involved in a 3 year project crucial to the teaching of plant identification skills and taxonomy. Since the early 1960’s, the Flora of the Sydney Region was the only portable, taxonomically comprehensive means by which skills in plant identification could be taught by educators in the greater Sydney area. For the last five years the Flora, no longer in print and seriously out of date, has been unavailable for teaching these skills. In response to the need for an adequate teaching resource, the Janet Cosh Herbarium in partnership with the John Ray Herbarium at the University of Sydney developed a concept whereby the Flora of the Sydney Region will be revised for production as an e-book and in a print-on-demand paper format. Access to the electronic resource will be free, with the option of purchasing a soft cover book for use in the field. Electronic delivery of taxonomic resources via the World Wide Web is a relatively new, but rapidly expanding phenomenon and we are proud to be a part of its development.
In 2004, the Herbarium’s Director Kristine French produced and launched the Herbarium Prospectus a web page which aims to reach out to the community for support and to further understanding and caring for our unique flora. The launch attracted community members and friends and gave the Herbarium staff the opportunity to showcase our achievements since the Herbarium was first established 12 years.
As women working in a discipline traditionally dominated by men, but underpinned by women, we hope to provide a model for other women who may seek work in science. The contributions of the Herbarium to teaching and research, particularly its recent outreach activities, will hopefully highlight the important contributions that women have made to plant taxonomy and related fields.