10/11/2021
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
£25
Event information
Time
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Price
£25

Men dominate the established history of plant hunting, but delving deeper, one discovers an astonishing array of female travellers, from cross dressing sailors to ‘diplomatic wives’ and footloose spinster artists, who collected plants from across the continents.  Rarely setting off as employed ‘hunters’, these women found themselves drawn into the lure of plant collecting, sometimes from boredom, others from necessity, sometimes incidentally.  Spurred on by communication with Charles Darwin or Kew, they noted new plants, sent specimens or recorded exotic flora on canvas, all too often to have their findings dismissed. In this session we will explore the lives and plant contributions of these overlooked women plant collectors from the 18th – 20th centuries including Jeanne Baret, Maria Graham Callcott, Lady Anne Monson, Lady Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, Isobel Wylie Hutchinson, Marianne Mason, and Marianne North. From the equator to the Arctic, women were ‘doing it for themselves’!