[1] She studied at Somerville College, and in June 1920 passed exams in the School of Natural Science with first-class honours, leading to a BA.

[2] She then spent a year at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, and undertook research in the plant physiology laboratory at Harvard.

[4] Over the next decade Smith published various botanical papers, a textbook and an ecological report of a 1933 expedition to South Rona with scientific colleagues.

[10] She was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1941 after presenting a thesis called Stelar Structure in the Dicotyledons.

[12] She became a fellow of the Society in 1953 and two years later was appointed Head of the Department of Botany at the recently restructured Queen's College, Dundee.

[17][15] One of Edith's three sisters, Amy Moir Philip Pantin née Smith, trained as a zoologist, then became a doctor and member of the Medical Women's Federation.