Elizabeth Alice Flint

Elizabeth Alice Flint (26 May 1909 – 7 December 2011) was a New Zealand botanist who specialised in freshwater algae. She co-authored the three-volume series Flora of New Zealand Desmids in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early life and education Born in Edmonton, London, England, on 26 May 1909, Flint was raised in the London suburb of New Malden until she emigrated with her family to New Zealand in 1921. There, she was educated at St Margaret's College, Christchurch, and went on to study botany at Canterbury University College, graduating with a Master of Science degree in 1936. Her master's thesis was titled The periodicity of the phytoplankton in Lake Sarah, with a consideration of some ecological factors, and required her to carry out field work at Lake Sarah, a sub-alpine lake near the university's field station at Cass. Flint then undertook doctoral studies at Queen Mary College, London, under the supervision of Felix Eugen Fritsch, investigating the changes in distribution of algae in a reservoir at Barn Elms, near Hammersmith. She died on 7 December 2011. In the 1991 New Year Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to botany. In 2017, Flint was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", a project celebrating the contributions of women to expanding knowledge in New Zealand.