In retirement, Alison continues to manage the bryophyte collection at Macquarie University and has been actively involved in research on the taxonomy of Australian members of the moss family Bruchiaceae with Helen Ramsay and Rod Seppelt.
She has been active in raising awareness amongst non-botanists of plants of many kinds but particularly bryophytes They have maintained contact with their many visitors by correspondence and by visiting them on overseas trips.įrom 2013 to 2016 Alison served as a Councillor of the International Association of Bryologists and worked hard in this role to support the bryological community in Australia and worldwide. These field trips over many years have contributed extensively to the bryophyte collections of The Downing Herbarium.Īlison and Kevin have also been most welcoming to international and local bryologists visiting Sydney, accompanying them on field work. Alison is held in high regard by the biocrust and bryological research community of China.Īlison and her husband Kevin have been regular participants of New Zealand’s annual John Child Bryophyte and Lichen Workshops and Australasian Bryophyte Workshops. In Australia, she has encouraged Chinese researchers and their students, proof-read manuscripts and hosted them and their families. More recently, she has advised and mentored students working on bryophyte ecology in Guizhou Province of south-western China. Subsequently she has contributed to studies on the biological soil crusts of the Gurbantünggüt Desert in north-western China (e.g. This led to completion on a part time basis (between 19) of her MSc Distribution of bryophytes on calcareous substrates in south-eastern Australia, supervised by Patricia Selkirk.Īlison has studied Mandarin and when attending the 2007 World Bryology Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a fortuitous introduction to Professor Zhang Yuan Ming from the Chinese Academy of Sciences led to an invitation to give a presentation to his students in Urumqi when she visited China with a Chinese-led international team of palaeontologists in 2007. These included species from rainforests, from arid and semi-arid biological soil crusts and introduced and cosmopolitan species. During a visit to Jenolan Caves with bryologists Helen Ramsay and Wilf Schofield, her curiosity was aroused by the unusual and eclectic combination of mosses that occurred on limestone outcrops at Jenolan Caves. Encouraged by Patricia Selkirk and Rod Seppelt, her earliest bryological publications related to collections of bryophytes from Macquarie Island. This was in recognition of services to the University and in particular, her role in the establishment of the herbarium in 1972.Īlison became interested in bryophytes when collecting for university laboratory classes a task she continues today. At the time of her retirement the Macquarie University Herbarium, was renamed The Downing Herbarium (MQU) in her honour. Alison retired in 2003 but continues her research activities as an Honorary Associate and Curator of Cryptogamic Collections at Macquarie University. She joined the staff of the School of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University in 1970 specifically to take responsibility for plant production and plant collecting for both research and teaching. She trained in horticulture and was the first woman to be employed by the Forestry Commission of New South Wales as a nurseryman. By Patricia Selkirk, Chris Cargill & Pina MilneĪlison Downing grew up amongst nurserymen and orchardists on her mother’s side of the family and bushwalkers and environmentalists on her father’s side.
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