Mary Harriet Bate

Between the years of 1881 and 1886, Bate collected specimens of flowering plants, algae and fungi between the Tilba coast and Mount Dromedary (now known as Mount Gulaga). The National Herbarium of Victoria, Melbourne Botanic Gardens still retains 361 of her plant specimens and the collection includes the rare shrub Myoporum bateae F.Muell (1882) and the moss Bryum bateae Müll.Hal. (1898) named for her. Also there are the moss Bryum viridulum Müll.Hal. (1898) as well as the basidiomycete Trametes heteromalla Cooke (1882), the alga Sargassum laevigatum J.Agardh (1889) and the tree Eucalyptus bosistoana F.Muell. (1895). All these were type specimens for the respective species which she collected. Her algal specimens were identified by Jacob Agardh, the fungal specimens by Mordecai Cooke and the bryophytes by Carl Müller.^[2]

Bate was only one of Mueller's at least 220 female collectors, although she was one of the more prolific of them. They wrote to each other regularly and he encouraged her by writing "You are one of the very few Ladies in all Australia, who have any taste for botanic science, in contrast to what is observed in all Europe and North America". In naming Myoporum batae eponymously, he wrote to her "I hope this acknowledgment will encourage you to continue your searches as doubtless a whole host of rare plants and some new ones remain there yet to be discovered." Other female collectors had species named after them by Mueller, including Caroline Atkinson (known as Louisa Atkinson) whose name is commemorated in five species and one genus (Atkinsonia).^[2]