[1] After the deaths of both her parents at a young age, Katherine was raised by her uncle Matthias O'Kelly of Rochestown House, Killiney, County Dublin.
[4] When her husband was elected President of the newly formed Queen's College Cork, Lady Kane refused to move there, preferring to stay in Dublin, tending to her collection of exotic plants.
[3] The book became the recommended botany text in Trinity College, Dublin as it contained the first record of many plants.
[8][self-published source] In 1836, the then 25-year-old Katherine became the first woman to be elected member of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, and her herbarium is housed in University College Cork.
[5] She had an interest in the cultivation of trees, writing about the subject for the Irish Farmer's and Gardener's Magazine.