About Kathleen Basford:
Kathleen Basford was a British botanist, with a special interest in genetics. In 1952, while studying at the University of Manchester, she discovered a form of fuchsia that was a cross between a New Zealand and Mexican fuchsia, proving this form of flower existed 20–30 million years ago, before the continents had separated. This earned her a job at the Botany Department at the University of Manchester, where she worked with geneticist S.C. Harland. She later worked at the Department of Diagnostic Cytology at Christie Cancer Hospital, where she worked until her retirement.