American botanist who worked in Berlin under Adolf Engler. From LaFayette, Indiana, Perkins graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1872 before setting off for Europe, where she worked as a private tutor in Hildesheim, Germany, and studied music and languages in Paris. She returned to the U.S. in 1875 and worked as a teacher for some 20 years in Chicago, also taking time out to travel in California, Hawaii and the Azores. She retraced her steps in 1895, beginning work towards her botany PhD in Berlin under Engler and his associates, though she transferred to Heidelberg to complete the qualification (1900). Her thesis was a monograph on the genus Mollinedia Ruiz & Pav.

She returned to Berlin with her PhD to work at the Botanic Museum in Dahlem and proceeded to publish many articles and books in German and English on tropical plants, including work on the flora of the Philippines (1904-1905), on the legumes of Puerto Rico (1907) and on the flora of Bolivia (1912). Perkins spent 1914-1917 collecting plants in Jamaica, sets of which she presented to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She died at Hinsdale, Illinois, in 1933.

Sources:
Anon., 1933, Science, 78(2013): 87
S.L. Singer, 2003, Adventures Abroad: North American women at German-speaking universities:123.