The first Australian palynologist: Isabel Clifton Cookson (1893–1973) and her scientific work

Isabel Clifton Cookson (1893–1973) of Melbourne, Australia, was one of that country’s first professional woman scientists. She is remembered as one of the most eminent palaeontologists of the twentieth century and had a distinguished research career of 58 years, authoring or co-authoring 93 scientific publications. Isabel worked with great distinction on modern and fossil plants, and pioneered palynology in Australia. She was a consumate taxonomist and described, or jointly described, a prodigious total of 110 genera, 557 species and 32 subspecific taxa of palynomorphs and plants. Cookson was a trained biologist and initially worked as a botanist during the 1920s. At the same time she became interested in fossil plants and then, Mesozoic–Cenozoic terrestrial (1940s–1950s) and aquatic (1950s–1970s) palynomorphs. Cookson’s research into the late Silurian–Early Devonian plants of Australia and Europe, particularly the Baragwanathia flora, between the 1920s and the 1940s was highly influential in the field of...