She focused on botany (Stokes' own specialism) and spent much time out of doors accompanied by the indoor occupations of identifying, recording and drawing the plants she collected. She studied plants, specialising in the Cryptogams such as mosses, liverworts, lichen, and seaweeds. Nearly all of her collecting was undertaken in the Bantry area and County Cork. The Lusitanian flora of West Cork was comparatively unknown at this time. She learnt quickly and clearly had a gift for plant identification, produced very detailed watercolour drawings, and meticulously prepared specimens. She sent samples to Stokes which he passed on to other botanists. Through Stokes she became acquainted with James Townsend Mackay, a curator at the Botanic Garden of Trinity College. He helped her in the classification of the plants she was collecting and she contributed to his "Flora Hibernica". In 1807, Mackay sent her specimens to Dawson Turner a botanist in Great Yarmouth on the East Anglian coast of England, for his publication "Fuci". Turner's 'thank you' note was the beginning of a seven-year correspondence and exchange of specimens and drawings. A selection of these letters has been published by the National Botanic Gardens Glasnevin, Dublin in 1999. This publication also reprints the list of nearly 1100 plants that she prepared between 1809 and 1812 at the request of Dawson Turner for "a complete catalogue of plants of all kinds that you have found in your neighbourhood".