Margaret Sibella Brown

Margaret Sibella Brown (March 2, 1866 – November 16, 1961) was a Canadian amateur bryologist specializing in mosses and liverworts native to Nova Scotia. Early in her career she was involved with gathering supplies of sphagnum moss to be used as surgical dressings during World War I, when cotton was in short supply. After the war, she researched mosses from around the world, collecting specimens in Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States, as well as her native Canada. She published several papers in academic journals, some on materials she had collected herself and some cataloging samples collected by other investigators. Samples she collected are now housed at several major herbaria in North America and Europe.

Born into upper-class society, Brown was educated in Halifax, Stuttgart, and London. Although lacking formal scientific training, she has been recognized for her contributions to bryology and as an authority on the mosses and liverworts of Nova Scotia. At the age of 84, Brown was awarded an honorary M.A. degree from Acadia University after declining their offer of a Ph.D. She died at her home in Halifax in 1961 aged 95. In 2010, she was inducted into the Nova Scotia Scientific Hall of Fame.

Family and early life alt=A small child in a white dress posed in a chair. She is looking into the camera and resting her chin in one hand. Next to the chair is a table on which rests a small figurine. alt=Two women in formal dress (one seated, the other standing behind the first) in a room filled with plants. One wall is all windows with bright sunlight shining in. In front of the two women is a small child, who appears to be about 6 years old, in a white dress. Margaret Sibella BrownEfn-la|Brown's middle name is variously spelled Sibella, Sybella, or Sebella, in different sources. Although her death certificate uses Sebella, Sibella is used in this article, as that is the spelling most commonly used in sources talking about her scientific career. to Barbara (, 1842–1898) and Richard Henry (1837–1920) Brown. They lived in a house known as Beech Hill which had been built by their grandfather in 1826; it was the Brown family home until 1901. The elder Richard was a fellow of both the Geological Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society and wrote several books on the history of Cape Breton and the region's coal industry.

Brown's early education was at the Anglican School for Girls and King's College in Halifax, from which she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree. She then attended the Anglo-German Institute, a finishing school in Stuttgart, Germany, from 1883 to 1884, after which she took classes in French and china painting in London. Upon returning to Nova Scotia in 1885, she studied at the Victoria School of Art and Design (now NSCAD University).

Scientific career As a bryologist, Brown mainly collected and classified mosses and liverworts native to Nova Scotia. Most of her work was in Cape Breton, but she also collected specimens from Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, and Jamaica Brown went on an expedition to Coamo Springs, Puerto Rico, with Elizabeth and Nathaniel Britton in January 1922. A report of that expedition was published in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden upon their return in April detailing "some 4000 specimens included in 1304 field numbers". A species of herb discovered there, Pilea margarettae (Margarett's clearweed) was named in her honor. alt=A stoppered glass jar filled with a brown crumbly substance. A card partially visible in the jar reads "...HAGNUM MOSS / ... in surgical dressings." During Brown's lifetime, women scientists were uncommon. Her scientific career began during World War I while she was the honorary secretary of the Halifax branch of the Canadian Red Cross Society Due to a shortage of cotton for making surgical dressings, the use of sphagnum moss was explored as a replacement. Sphagnum species such as S. imbricatum and S. palustre had been used as a dressing since the Bronze Age and became widely used during the war when it was observed to inhibit the development of gas gangrene. At the time, it was believed that this inhibitory effect was due to the moss's ability to absorb up to 25 times its own weight in fluids (3–4 times as much as cotton) but modern research has shown that the moss contains a polysaccharide which interferes with the growth of bacteria as well as reacting with the toxins they produce.

Robert Boyd Thomson, a professor of plant morphology at the University of Toronto, requested that Brown oversee Nova Scotia's efforts to collect the moss, After this experience, she went on to publish at least eight scientific papers in the subject. A 1932 paper describes a new moss species Entosthodon neoscoticus but which was later identified by Crum and Anderson in 1955 as actually being an example of Pottia randii. In 1936, she published an extensive catalogue of Nova Scotian mosses and hepatics A 1937 paper categorized a collection of moss samples gathered in Syria by naturalist William Bacon Evans.

Brown belonged to the Moss Exchange Club (now known as the British Bryological Society) and the Sullivant Moss Society (now known as the American Bryological and Lichenological Society). She was president of the Halifax Floral Society.

She insisted that she considered this to be a hobby, albeit a full-time one. Talking about her discovery of Entosthodon neoscoticus, she said: and the Harvard University Herbaria in the United States as well as the British Museum in London. and the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History said that they "both made significant contributions to the study of bryophytes in Nova Scotia". Erskine, writing as a curatorial associate at the Nova Scotia Museum in 1968, said:

In 1934, Brown received an honorary diploma from the Victoria School of Art and Design in recognition her work securing funds to open the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design at a new campus. She later served on their board, and as a member of the education committee. In an invited paper at the 1976 annual meeting of the American Society of Bryology and Lichenology, Brown was listed as one of "the more important North American muscologists and collectors", noting that she was among those who "made the most lasting impact on muscology". She was posthumously inducted into the Nova Scotia Scientific Hall of Fame in 2010. Before she died at the age of 95, she was the oldest living member of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science.

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