Gretna Margaret Weste

Gretna Margaret Weste (5 September 1917 – 30 August 2006) was a leading scientist noted for her work in plant pathology and mycology, specifically with Phytophthora cinnamomi.

Biography Gretna Margaret Weste (née Parkin) was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland in 1917 to Australian parents, Grace and Arthur Parkin.

The family returned to Australia when Gretna was two years old, and she grew up in Surrey Hills, an outer-suburb of Melbourne.

Weste was a foundation member of the Australian Conservation Foundation and an active member of numerous community natural history associations, including the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association, the Environmental Studies Association of Victoria, the Friends of Warrandyte State Park and the 100 Acres Reserve in Park Orchards, the Montrose Environment Group, the Ringwood Field Naturalists Club, and the Maroondah branch of the Society for Growing Australian Plants (now the Australian Native Plants Society).

Research Weste was noted for her many contributions to the fields of plant pathology and mycology. For her Masters of Science research, she studied wood anatomy—which proved useful in preserving the huge quantities of dead standing Mountain Ash timber which resulted as a consequence of the Black Friday bushfires of 1939.

Personal life Gretna Parkin married Geoffe Weste, a forester, in December 1941 and they had three children.