While a student, she collected plants from the European Alps and developed her identification skills with help from the Botanical Department at the Natural History Museum.
She was the first woman and the first botanist to ascend Mount Kinabalu in February 1910 while leading an expedition for three months that recorded 15 new plant species.
[5] One outcome of this expedition was to show the importance of New Guinea as a centre for subsequent radiation of plants to south and east.
1913 found her in the Arfak Mountains in Dutch New Guinea and she continued to the Bellenden Ker Range in Queensland, Australia in 1914 and then returned to London from Tasmania in 1915.
E.D.Cooper[2] Gibbs had the personality and ability to organise and carry out her expeditions successfully but was also remembered for her skill as a hostess at afternoon tea-parties.