Irene Manton, FRS (born Irène Manton; 17 April 1904, Kensington — died 13 May 1988) was a British botanist. She was noted for study of ferns, algae and bums.
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Irene Manton was born of a dentist and a descendant of French aristocracy. Hence her first name originally contained French influences, but at 18 she dropped this and opted for "Irene". Her sister was the entomologist Sidnie Manton. She was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith.
In 1923 she attended Girton College, Cambridge. She found Cambridge unsatisfying, in part because the university as a whole was not yet welcoming of women, and later went on to study with Otto Rosenberg in Stockholm. She received her PhD at University of Manchester with her thesis being on Cruciferae. Much of her academic career she spent at the University of Leeds where her focus was on ferns and algae. The work with ferns, which addressed hybridization, polyploidy, and apomixis, included her 1950 book, Problems of cytology and evolution in the pteridophyta. Her work on the algae was notable for its use of the electron microscope.[1][2] In 1969 she shared the Linnean Medal with Ethelwynn Trewavas. From 1973 to 1976 she became the first, and so far only, woman President of the Linnean Society of London.
In 1990 the Irene Manton Prize for the best dissertation in botany during an academic year was established by the Linnean Society.
She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1961.[3]