Helen Patricia Ramsay

Helen P. Ramsay is an Australian bryologist specialising in cytology and taxonomy.

Education and personal life Helen Patricia Ramsay was born 2 September 1928. She received her doctorate on bryophyte genetics from the University of Sydney in 1966. By this time she was married to Frank (died 2003) and they had 3 children together.

Botanical career In 1966 she had a Leverhulme postdoctoral fellowship at Bangor University, Wales, working on meiotic cell division in bryophytes in the laboratory of Professor Paul Richards. At the time, the department was one of the leaders in bryology research in the UK. In 1968 she was appointed as a tutor in botany, University of New South Wales, and was later promoted to senior lecturer. She remained there until she retired in 1984. However, her active fieldwork of collecting and recording moss continued. From 1985 until the early 2000s she substantially extended the collection in the National Herbarium of New South Wales of bryophytes from the Blue Mountains.

Publications Ramsay was the author of more than 65 scientific publications and book chapters. These included:

Ramsay, H., 'History of research on Australian mosses' in Flora of Australia volume 51 (Mosses 1), McCarthy, P. M., ed. (Canberra & Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2006), pp. 1–19. Ramsay H.P. (2011) Australian Mosses – New chromosome numbers and compilation of chromosome data. Telopea 13 (3): 577-619. Ramsay, H.P., Schofield, W.B., & Tan, B.C. 2002. The genus Taxithelium (Bryopsida, Sematophyllaceae) in Australia. Aust. Syst. Bot., 15 (4): 683-596 Ramsay, H.P., Streimann, H., & Vitt, D.H. 1995. Cytological studies on mosses from Papua New Guinea I. Introduction and the family Orthotrichaceae. Tropical Bryology 11: 151-160 Ramsay, H.P. (1985) Cytological and sexual characteristics of the moss Dicranoloma Ren. Monographs in Systematic Botany 11: 93-110 Ramsay, H. (1984) Census of New South Wales Mosses, Telopea, 2 (5) 455-533 Ramsay, H.P. (1974) Cytological studies of Australian mosses. Aust. J. Bot., 22 (2): 293-348 Ramsay, H.P. (1969) Cytological studies of mosses from the British Isles. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 62: 85-121 Ramsay, H.P. (1966) Sex chromosomes in Macromitrium. Bryologist 69: 293-311

Australian moss specimens that she collected are in the National Herbarium of New South Wales. The John Ray Herbarium at the University of New South Wales contains the liverworts from her doctoral research.

Awards and honours Ramsay was appointed Member of the Order of Australia in 2019 for her service to plant science.