Margaretta Riley

Margaretta Riley (also known as Meta, née Hopper; May 4, 1804 – July 16, 1899), was an English botanist. She studied ferns cultivation and was the first British pteridologist of her sex. Riley presented to the Botanical Society of London "a complete dried collection of every species and variety of fern represented in the British flora".

Life Margaretta Riley, who was also known as Meta, was born in Castle Gate, Nottingham on 4 May 1804 to Richard and Margaretta Hopper. In 1840 Riley presented to the society "a complete dried collection of every species and variety of fern represented in the British flora". The Riley's 2,200 sheet herbarium has not been traced, but the living fern collection of 250 species was passed to general practitioner James Forbes Young in Lambeth, after which its fate is untraced.

Works Publications by Margaretta Riley include: On the British Genus Cystea (1839) On growing ferns from seed, with suggestions upon their cultivations and preparing the speciments (1839) Polypodium, Dryopteris and calcareum (1841)