Lady Anne Brewis, daughter of Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne, was an English botanist. As a child, Brewis had spent long holidays studying the orchids on Noar Hill

Noar Hill

Noar Hill, near Selborne in East Hampshire, is best known for its nature reserve.-Etymology:Nore is an obsolete spelling of nor, north...

, near Selborne

Selborne

Selborne is a village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is south of Alton. It will be just within the extreme northern boundary of the proposed South Downs National Park, which is due to take effect in mid-2010....

. This led her to study the works of Gilbert White

Gilbert White

Gilbert White FRS was a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist.-Life:White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He was educated at the Holy Ghost School and by a private tutor in Basingstoke before going to Oriel College, Oxford...

, and eventually to a degree in Zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 at Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and was one of the first women's colleges to be founded there...

. Marriage took her to many localities before returning to Hampshire on her husband's retirement. Over the next 27 years she would meticulously catalogue hundreds of specieshttp://www.hants.gov.uk/museum/biology/plants/vascular.html, give freely of her time to whoever was interested and co-author the definitive guide to Hampshire's plant life ( Bowman, Brewis et al., 1996).