Piggin, Josephine Eyde (Jose)   (née Simmonds)   (1952 -  )

Born in Melbourne in 1952;

- Schooled at Baringhup Public School, Delatite Public School, Nth Ringwood Public School, Warrandyte Public School, Norwood High School.

- B Agr Sc, Melbourne University, 1970-73.

- Grad Dip Sci (Systematics and Taxonomy), University of New England (part-time), 2000-07.

- Employed doing vegetation studies, surveys, collection of herbarium specimens and seed samples, particularly of crop wild relatives, in Australia and overseas.

- Living in Steiglitz, Victoria, in 2025.

She worked on the effects of harvesting eucalypts for sawlogs and pulpwood in two areas in East Gippsland for Forests Commission, Victoria in early 1980s.

She donated several hundred specimens to the Australian National Herbarium (ANH) from various locations in NSW and Vic in 1995.

Jose also volunteered her time with ANH immediately pre-COVID (2020-21) to check the taxonomy and provide accurate determinations of non-Australian wild crop relatives. She did numerous determinations in Fabaceae and Poaceae, of taxa related to crop plants like wheat, barley, and commercial legume species. That material was frequently of non-Australian origin, or else cultivated in Australia (usually at CSIRO in Canberra), back in the CSIRO Plant Industry days. "Her input was invaluable. There would likely be no-one else in Australia capable of providing that level of expertise on these collections" (B.Lepschi).

Her work on Callitris with Jeremy Bruhl was published in 2010.

Her sister, Mary Jill Simmonds also collected herbarium specimens for ANH.

Her late husband was Col M. Piggin, who published a paper on Echium in Australia in 1977 (Muelleria, Vol.3, Sept 1977, p.215-244).

Source: Extracted from:
Pers.Comm. email J.Piggin - R.Purdie (2025)
Pers.Comm. email Brendan Lepschi (2025)
https://abr.business.gov.au/ABN/View?id=68606253756
Portrait Photo: supplied by Jose in 2025.

Collecting localities for 'Piggin, J.' from AVH (2025)

Data from 1,432 specimens