Ethel Irene McLennan facts for kids

Ethel Irene McLennan (15 March 1891 – 12 June 1983) was an Australian botanist, mycologist and educator.

McLennan's 1917 botanical illustration of Commelina ciliata

Personal life and early career

The daughter of George McLennan and Eleanor Tucker, she was born in Williamstown, Victoria and was educated at the Tintern Church of England Girls' Grammar School in Hawthorn. In 1914, she received a BSc from the University of Melbourne. From 1915 to 1931, she was a demonstrator and botany lecturer at the university. Her main areas of interest were mycology and plant-fungal relationships. However, she was also one of the illustrators of The Flora of the Northern Territories (1917).

In 1921, McLennan completed a DSc at the university. She received an International Federation of University Women fellowship in 1925 which allowed her to pursue research at the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station and the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. In 1927, she was awarded the David Syme Research Prize by the University of Melbourne for her work on Lolium, the second woman to win the prize.

McLennan died in Melbourne at the age of 92.

Academic career

From 1931 to 1955, she was an associate professor of botany at the University of Melbourne; her research areas particularly included fungal symbioses and endophytes and also the fungal flora of soils. McLennan was acting head of the Biology department from 1937 to 1938. In collaboration with colleagues during the Second World War, she contributed to improvements to the utility of optical instruments in tropical regions, where fungi were prone to cause defects. She retired in 1955; from 1956 to 1972, she was part-time keeper of the university herbarium.

In 1929, McLennan was chair of the Australian Pan-Pacific Women's Committee and, in 1934, she was president of the Australian Federation of University Women.