Leonie Cobb

Leonie Elaine Cobb (1912–1984) was a British collector of herbarium specimens, naturalist, and conservationist.

Personal life Cobb was born at Duffryn Gardens, near Cardiff, to Arthur John Cobb and Marie Emma Cobb (née Low). Her father was a keen gardener and in 1919, the family moved to Shinfield, Berkshire, where Arthur lectured on Horticulture at the University of Reading, before ultimately moving to Reading upon his retirement in 1938.

Cobb was educated at the Covenant School before studying at the University of Reading with an Honours degree in French, subsequently earning further qualifications in German, Spanish, and Secretarial Studies.

From her passion of linguistics, Cobb became a member of a society which promoted Anglo-French relations, leading to her meeting the French President Albert Lebrun in London in 1939.

In 1939 Arthur Cobb took up a wartime appointment at Seale-Hayne Agricultural College where he died in 1940.

Career In 1936, Cobb worked for the Commonwealth Institute of Economic Entomology as an abstractor, writing abstracts for journal articles on beneficial and harmful insects to humans, animals, and crops until her retirement in 1976.

Cobb produced illustrations of flowering plants which appeared in the Atlas of the British Flora, the Flora of Berkshire, and the Flora of Oxfordshire.

Cobb was a keen conservationist and one of the founder members of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire Naturalists' Trust, currently known as the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT), a conservation charity that protects local wildlife, where she provided assistance in the field of several reserves.

In October 1984, Cobb died in Berkshire at the age of 72. Cobb bequeathed a collection of mosses in addition to a set of four albums to Reading Museum.