Evans, Janine (2025) Botanical women artists in northern Queensland: science, art, and entanglement, 1880–1999. History Australia.

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Abstract

This article explicates the contributions of two women botanical artists, Marian Ellis Rowan (1848–1922) and Vera Scarth-Johnson (1912–1999) to botanical science in northern Queensland. Despite the perception of botany as more accessible to women than other scientific fields, formal botanical institutions during the late Victorian era and early twentieth century remained male dominated. Within this context, Rowan’s privilege enabled her to navigate colonial and botanical networks, facilitating her access to the colonial frontier where she encountered and painted rare and newly identified plants. By contrast, in the late twentieth century, Scarth-Johnson expanded the scope of botanical illustration to encompass environmental activism and the inclusion of Indigenous ecological knowledge. Although Rowan and Scarth-Johnson operated in different historical and political contexts, collectively their work showed the entanglement of botanical science with broader environmental, cultural, and social issues specific to the Endeavour River valley in northern Queensland.

Item ID:	89625
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1833-4881
Keywords:	Botany; Gendered botany; Botanical illustration; northern Queensland
Copyright Information:	© 2025 the Author(s). Published by informa uK limited, trading as taylor & Francis Group. This is an open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Date Deposited:	16 Nov 2025 23:10
FoR Codes:	43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4303 Historical studies > 430302 Australian history @ 70% 43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4303 Historical studies > 430309 Gender history @ 15% 43 HISTORY, HERITAGE AND ARCHAEOLOGY > 4303 Historical studies > 430307 Environmental history @ 15%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130703 Understanding Australia’s past @ 100%
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