My sister, Mary Gibby, who has died aged 75, whereas on a area journey within the Italian alps, held the excellence of being the best serving girl within the 350-year historical past of the Royal Botanic Backyard Edinburgh (RBGE).
Because the main British cryptogamic botanist of her technology, she championed the research of non-flowering vegetation (ferns, mosses and liverworts, lichens and fungi), reaching worldwide recognition for revolutionary analysis on the evolution of ferns utilizing a mixture of chromosome research with molecular proof. She additionally did in depth work on the evolutionary systematics of Pelargoniums. She was a former president of the British Pteridological Society and, till her dying, editor of its journal, the Fern Gazette.
Appointed director of science on the RBGE in 2000, Mary reworked science on the backyard, growing new partnerships with the College of Edinburgh and Scottish Pure Heritage. As a direct results of these partnerships, quite a lot of Scottish native vegetation, beforehand threatened with extinction, are actually being restored to the wild. Her work on the backyard introduced science and horticulture a lot nearer and led to her supporting organic area stations and gardens all over the world, together with in China, Bhutan, South Africa and Socotra in Yemen.
She was dedicated to schooling in its widest sense, acknowledging the necessity for scientists to interact with most of the people. Her PhD college students have gone on to key positions in Britain and overseas.
Born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, to Sheila (nee Bickerton), a former secretary, and Edgar Ambrose, a trainer, Mary grew up within the village of Greysouthen, on the sting of the Lake District, the place she acquired a lifelong love of mountains and nature. She earned a first-class diploma in botany at Leeds College, adopted by a PhD in genetics from Liverpool. Her skilled profession started in 1975 on the Pure Historical past Museum, London, the place she grew to become assistant keeper of botany, and remained till taking on the Edinburgh put up.
As well as, Mary was actively concerned in Britain’s inland waterways because the proprietor of Swan, a historic, 72ft working slim boat. She was a founding member in 1978 of the boat group at Battlebridge Basin in north London and a director of the London Slim Boat Firm. She plied 1000’s of miles of Britain’s canals and rivers, making many friendships and dealing to defend these historic transport arteries for his or her contribution to leisure, commerce and habitats for natural world.
Her first marriage, to Mike Gibby, a fellow botany pupil at Liverpool, resulted in divorce. She is survived by her husband, Janis Antonovics, whom she married in 2015; her daughter Jessica, from her marriage to John Barrett, who died in 2004; and two brothers, Ivor and me.
