Olive Blanche Davies

Petalostigma quadriloculare from Flora of the Northern Territory

Olive Blanche Davies MSc (27 October 1884 – 1976/7) [1] was an Australian botanist and botanical artist, noted for being co-author with Alfred Ewart of their 1917 book The Flora of the Northern Territory, and for producing many of the illustrations.[2]

Olive was born Toorak, Victoria, the youngest of six children of Elizabeth Locke Mercer (*c1850) from Kirkcudbright and Sir Matthew Henry Davies (1850-1912) [3] of Geelong.[4][5]

She was a government research scholar studying biology at Melbourne University, and wrote a paper in 1911 on Petterd's semi-slug Cystopelta petterdi, and another in 1914 on Caryodes dufresnii, a large land mollusk native to Tasmania.[6][7][8]

On 22 December 1915 at 'Cluden', in Brighton, Australia, Olive Blanche Davies married Arthur Lyle Rossiter, a lieutenant in the Australian Expeditionary Force, and elder son of Edward Lyle Rossiter of Elsternwick. Arthur had been born in 1888 in Ballarat[9] By the end of World War I he had risen to the rank of captain,[10] and after the war he gave a lecture on gas warfare at Melbourne University, from which he had graduated an MSc. in 1911 and had been a demonstrator in physics from 1913. He had served as a gas officer in the 4th Australian Division in France. In 1924 he was appointed on a temporary basis as senior master at Melbourne High School.[11] She died in Adelaide.

The standard author abbreviation O.B.Davies is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[12]
  1. ^ "Martin-Yuille Tree - Geneanet".
  2. ^ "Davies, Olive Blanche". www.anbg.gov.au.
  3. ^ Freeman, R. D. "Sir Matthew Henry Davies (1850–1912)". Cultural Advice. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University – via Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  4. ^ "James Stewart Mercer, Christopher Frederick Metelmann, Louis Meyer, Jonathan Mitchell, Maurice Joseph Morton, Patrick Mullavey". www.oocities.org.
  5. ^ Ewart, Alfred J.; Cheel, Edwin; Davies, Olive B.; Hamilton, Arthur Andrew; Maiden, J. H. (22 January 2024). The flora of the Northern Territory. McCarron, Bird & Co., Printers.
  6. ^ Davies, O. B. (22 January 2024). "BioStor-Lite". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 27: 19–24.
  7. ^ "| Shells For Sale | Conchology". www.conchology.be.
  8. ^ Davies, O. B. (22 January 2024). "BioStor-Lite". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 24: 331–342.
  9. ^ The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria)
  10. ^ "Australian War Memorial".
  11. ^ Victoria Government Gazette
  12. ^ International Plant Names Index.  O.B.Davies.