The Port Phillip Bay seaweeds are diverse and have maintained their colour. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The seaweed album holds more than 200 samples of the marine plants, affectionately described as "flowers of the sea" by the album's creator. On some pages a single branch of seaweed reaches out to the edges. On others, there are up to 11 specimens. Some have fronds as delicate as lacework, others are as chunky as old gum leaves. A poem, stamped in red ink, on the inside cover is charming. It begins "Call us not weeds, we are flowers of the sea for lovely and bright and gay tinted are we." The National Museum Australia in Canberra purchased the fragile album in 2013 for $3500. It is one of just 30 known seaweed albums in the country and will go on public display for a fortnight from April 8.

The Port Phillip Bay seaweed album's leather cover is intricately decorated. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It took the museum's artist in residence Julie Ryder six months of work last year to solve the mystery of who was behind the album. "Personally I was convinced that this was going to be by a woman," Ms Ryder said. "The collages, the poem and the beautifully decorated cover; it's all highly feminised." Julie Ryder with the two rare seaweed albums that will go on display at the National Museum of Australia in April. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen National Museum Australia curator Catriona Donnelly said collecting seaweed was a fashionable pastime for middle class women in the 19th century. Seaweed and foreshore designs were prominent on textiles, china and wallpaper at the time.

"It was a real craze," she said. "It's hard to imagine seaweed being such a popular thing but the study of natural history was seen as a respectable way to fill your leisure time." The Port Arthur seaweed album, created by Lady Catherine Frere, is dated 1836. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Ms Ryder also thought it was compiled by a citizen scientist - the album isn't organised by theme, species or timeframe but by aesthetics. There is the odd botanical name, date and location of collection - neatly recorded by hand. After comparing the Port Phillip seaweed album with two held by Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens' Herbarium Ms Ryder was proved wrong. "I got the shock of my life because at least two of their albums are by the same collector," she said. "They look exactly the same and the handwriting and collections are the same and the dates match up."

Ms Ryder said the Port Phillip Bay album was made by prolific collector Charles Morrison. With the museum, she has issued a national callout for information on the Glasgow-born collector, who married a woman in Northern Ireland before migrating to Victoria in the 1850s. He lived in Collingwood and Fitzroy and died in Ascot Vale. Ms Ryder believes he made the albums for his niece, Georgina Thomasina Maxwell, and granddaughters Jessie Morrison Magee and Jane Augusta Magee. The creator of at least 10 albums Ms Ryder hopes that if she can locate Charles Morrison's descendants, she can learn more about the man and perhaps even uncover more albums. "I feel like I know him but at the same time he has remained elusive," Ms Ryder said. Ms Donnelly said the album was more than just a rare object. Being a record of the Port Phillip seaweed population in the 1850s to the 1880s – starting just 20 years after Melbourne was settled – it could yet adopt a greater historic and scientific significance.