‘A taste for botanic science’: Ferdinand Mueller’s female collectors and the history of Australian botany

Abstract

In 1884, Ferdinand Mueller, Government Botanist of Victoria, told his collector Mary Bate that she was ‘one of the very few’ women in Australia interested in botany in contrast to the situation in Europe and North America. This proposition is assessed using Maroske and Vaughan’s biographical register (2014), which identifies 225 of Mueller’s female collectors, and outlines their contribution to Australian botany. An analysis of this register reveals that Mueller achieved a scale and level of engagement between Australian women and botany far in excess of the benchmark he described to Mary Bate. This is an achievement that has not been acknowledged in the history of Australian botany.