Meg Lowman had been a leaf detective ever since she was a young girl in the 1950s in Elmira New York Shy and studious Meg rarely spoke in school IT PAINED ME IF I WAS EVER CALLED UPON IN CLASS Instead she found comfort and friendship and quiet excitement in plants She built tree forts and collected twigs leaves and wildflowers to study and identify to press and label swamp thistle devil's paintbrush forget me nots
I WAS LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE IN MY TOWN LIKE MYSELE Meg wrapped herself in nature like a soft blanket
In college Meg fed her passion with science she was a young woman in a jungle of men with no women to lead the way One professor refused to let her in his class because she was a woman
Still she stuck like sap to her passion and followed it to graduate school and the tropical rainforests of Australia No one at Sydney University had studied the rainforest before Tropical rainforests receive at least sixty inches of rain per year The hot humid environment encourages lots of different plants to grow This diversity supports a huge variety of animal species
