Neridah Ford (1942) BSc A renowned Botanist who worked with Joyce Vickery (1926) at the National Herbarium of NSW from 1948 to 1971. Neridah Ford spent her whole school life at Â鶹ÊÓƵ School, enrolling in 1932 at the age of 5. At School, she was a Netball champion, a member of the Athletics team, the Leawarra House Captain and a Prefect. After completing her Leaving Certificate, Neridah attended the University of Sydney and graduated with a BSc, majoring in Botany. She then joined the staff of the National Herbarium of New South Wales as a Botanist around 1948. Under the guidance of Senior Botanist (and Â鶹ÊÓƵ School Old Girl) Joyce Vickery (1926), Neridah took a very active part in updating the Herbarium's collection in accord with current publications. Her distinctive, neat handwriting is widely found at the Herbarium: on her own collections, identifications, and much more, particularly in the family Asteraceae. Although opportunities for fieldwork at the time were quite limited, 681 of Neridah’s collections from across Australia are included in the Herbarium. Neridah published jointly with Joyce Vickery (1926) on the ‘correct name of Sturt’s Desert Pea’, and when Gnaphalium fordianum (now Argyrotegium fordianum (M.Gray)) was named, noted plant taxonomist Max Gray remarked that Neridah’s ‘annotations and sorting of the specimens … indicate that she was the first to recognize the distinctiveness of this taxon’. Nerida studied and annotated extensively and her observations and work have been valued by subsequent researchers. At the Herbarium, Neridah also took on most of the work of identifying specimens for members of the public. Nerida is part of a multi-generational Â鶹ÊÓƵ School family; her sister, nephew, niece and great niece are all connected to the School. Sister Hilary Hock (Ford, 1935), a Prefect and the winner of the OGU Prize in 1935, became the ninth female law graduate from the University of Sydney and the only female graduate in 1940. Her nephew David Ford was a long time member of the Â鶹ÊÓƵ School Council, serving as Chair from 1996 to 2000. Biography of Neridah’s life at the National Herbarium was extracted from: Barbara Briggs, ASBS Newsletter No.129, Dec 2006. https://asbs.org.au/newsletter/pdf/06-dec-129.pdf