Lilian Suzette Gibbs

Lilian Suzette Gibbs (1870–1925) was a British botanist who worked for the British Museum in London and was an authority on mountain ecosystems.

Education She studied initially at Swanley Horticultural College in Kent, UK (1899-1901) and then specialised in botany at the Royal College of Science in London, studying under J. B. Farmer. Her postgraduate research was into seeds of the Alsinoideae (Caryophyllaceae). While a student, she collected plants from the European Alps and developed her identification skills with help from the Botanical Department at the Natural History Museum. She visited Fiji in 1907, and explored the flora on the northern slopes of the Mount Victoria range, and then studied the bryophyte flora of New Zealand on her way home, identifying four new species of liverwort in the Waitākere Ranges. One outcome of this expedition was to show the importance of New Guinea as a centre for subsequent radiation of plants to south and east. Garcinia gibbsiae , Racemobambos gibbsiae or Miss Gibbs' Bamboo, (Urticaceae), and the liverwort species Haplomitrium gibbsiae and Neolepidozia gibbsiana

Gibbs had the personality and ability to organise and carry out her expeditions successfully but was also remembered for her skill as a hostess at afternoon tea-parties.

Awards Gibbs was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1905. In 1910 she was awarded the Huxley medal and prize for research in natural science and also joined the Microscopial Society. She became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1919.

Publications Her publications include:

(1904) Notes on Floral Anomalies in species of Cerastium New Phytologist 3 243-247 (1906) A contribution to the botany of Southern Rhodesia. Botanical J. Linnean Society 38 425-494 (1907) Notes on the development and structure of the seed in the Alsinoideae. Annals of Botany 21 25-55 (1908) Bio-histological notes on some new Rhodesian species of Fuirena, Hesperantha and Justicia Annals of Botany 22 187-206 (1909) A contribution to the montane flora of Fiji (including crypograms). Botanical J. Linnean Society 39 130-212 (1911) The Hepatics of New Zealand. Journal of Botany 49 261-266 (1912) On the development of the female strobilus in Podocarpus. Annals of Botany 24 515-571 (1914) A contribution to the flora and plant formations of Mount Kinabalu and the Highlands of British North Borneo. Botanical J. Linnean Society 42 1-240 (1917) Dutch N. W. New Guinea: a contribution to the phytogeography and flora of the Arfak Mountains, etc. Octavo Taylor and Francis, London (1917) A contribution to the phyto-geography of Bellenden-Ker. Journal of Botany 55 297-310 (1920) Notes on the phyto-geography and flora of the mountain summit plateaux of Tasmania. J Ecology 8 1-17 (1920) The genus Calobryum. Journal of Botany 58 275