Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía (1870-1938) was a pioneering botanist and contributed immensely to the field. She was born May 24th, 1870, in Washington D.C., while her father worked as a representative for the Mexican consulate. She moved every few years or so from Texas to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Mexico until the death of her first husband and the divorce of her second husband after he financially her family ranch. All the stress caused her to suffer a mental and physical breakdown. While recovering in San Francisco in 1909, she joined the American Environmental Organization named the Sierra Club, where she discovered a love for ecology and environmental science. She was passionate about protecting the redwood trees in California.
She enrolled at UC Berkeley in 1921 at the age of 51 to study Botany. Her first trip was collecting specimens in Mexico. She found that she worked better alone than in a group, and after her first successful trip she was hooked. She eventually obtained funding to do her own expeditions, and then she was really off to the races. By 1929, she was the first recorded female scientist that was able to travel on expeditions completely independently. She would go on to collect almost 150,000 plant specimens over 13 years. She traced all of the Americas and was the first person to collect plants in Denali National Park. She was well known for lecturing about her work in the San Francisco Bay area. In her career she had 1 or 2 genera named after her, 50 new species named after her, and she characterized more than 500 previously unknown plant species. On her last trip she became ill with what was later identified as lung cancer and had to return to California. She ended up dying at the age of 68. Her collection can still be found at the California Academy of Sciences and numerous other facilities.
References:
- https://www.canadajournal.net/world/ynes-mexia-google-doodle-honors-tenacious-mexican-american-and-explorer-59595-2019/
- https://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/library/special/bios/Mexia.pdf
- https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mexia-de-reygades-ynes
- https://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/8/2/1302842/-Women-in-Science-Ynes-Mexia-1870-1938