Hilda Geissmann

Hilda Geissmann (22 November 1890 - 10 June 1988) was a pioneering Australian botanist, naturalist and photographer whose botanical and ornithological research within the Mount Tamborine area of South East Queensland significantly contributed to the early ecological understanding of the region.

Her Swiss born father was a grocer by trade and in 1898, when Hilda was eight, he decided to move the family to Tamborine Mountain where he built a guest house called Capo di Monte (which later burnt down in 1930).

She undertook art training at the Brisbane Central Technical College from 1913 alongside fellow students including painter Lloyd Rees and sculptor Daphne Mayo who was to remain a life-long friend.

[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Geissmann’s work in the field of Orchid identification and collection was also important to the research of Australian botanists such as William Henry Nicholls, Alexander Greenlaw Hamilton, Herman Rupp, Richard Sanders Rogers, Anthony Musgrave (entomologist) and Ferdinand August Weinthal, all of whom she was known to frequently correspond on natural history matters whilst also fulfilling their requests for plant specimen photographs and fresh flower samples for study.

Tambourine Cycad "Great Grandfather Peter" was to later also feature on the cover of the American Journal of Science Newsletter, in 1937 and many of Geissmann’s specimens reside in herbariums and museums in throughout the USA.