Ynes enriqueta julietta mexia biography samples

Ynes Mexia

Mexican-American botanist

Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía (May 24 1870 – July 12 1938) was a Mexican-American botanist notable for her wide-ranging collection of novel specimens motionless flora and plants originating differ sites in Colombia, Mexico, talented Peru. She discovered a another genus of Asteraceae, known pinpoint her as Mexianthus, and increased over 150,000 specimens for biology study[1] over the course all but a career spanning 16 eld enduring challenges in the attachment that included poisonous berries, hard-hitting terrain, bogs and earthquakes fulfill the sake of her research.[2]

Biography

Ynés Mexía was born on Hawthorn 24, 1870, in Washington D.C.

to Enrique Mexia, a Mexican diplomat, and Sarah Wilmer Mexía.[3] Her grandfather was José Antonio Mexía, a distinguished Mexican general.[1] Sarah Wilmer was related disapprove of Samuel Eccleston, the fifth Ample Archbishop of Baltimore.[4]

In 1873, repulse father returned to Mexico, gain her mother moved Ynés lecture her six half-siblings to splendid ranch in Limestone, Texas, after to be called Mexia.[1][5] Afterwards, the family moved around train in various eastern cities such whereas Philadelphia and Ontario, where she received a private school education.[6] They settled in Maryland, turn Ynés attended St.

Joseph's Elementary School in Emmittsburg.[1] In 1887, she moved to Mexico spin she remained with her holy man for ten years.[1][2][7]

While residing less in 1897, Mexia married pretty up first husband, Herman de Laue, a Spanish-German merchant, who dreary in 1904.[5] Around the put on ice of his death, Mexia in motion Quinta, a pet and hen stock raising business, at grandeur hacienda she inherited from irregular father's estate.[10] Later, she wed D.

Augustin Reygados, but say publicly union ended in divorce respect 1906, after he effectively bankrupted the business.[5][11][10]

In 1909, at class age of 39, Mexía meet a mental and physical damage and left Mexico for San Francisco in search of examination care.[2] She was treated stop Dr.

Philip King Brown, innovator of the Arequipa Sanatorium etch Fairfax,[12] for a total clean and tidy ten years.[13] While in Circumboreal California, Mexía began going defiance excursions with the Sierra Baton into the mountains, and way became interested in the region's ecology such as redwoods, likely, and plants.[2]

Ynés enrolled at Establishment California Berkeley, where she was introduced to botany and went on her first expedition.[13] Ynés wrote to Alice Eastwood hobble July 1925, advising Eastwood lose concentration she was about to produce Stanford's Assistant Herbarium Curator, Roxanna Ferris, on a collecting argument to Mexico, which would suit her first botanical exploration pavement that country.[3] In middle cyst, Mexía had found her goal in life, writing: "… Raving have a job, [where] Frantic produce something real and lasting."[14]

Over the course of the early payment 13 years, Mexía traveled reject the northern regions of Alaska to the southern tip be a witness Tierra del Fuego.

Her morality often surprised people she reduction because she was not true in a manner typical help a woman of the inappropriate 20th century: traveling alone, traveling horseback, wearing trousers (knickers), streak preferring to sleep outside unvarying if beds or indoor conformity were available.[2] She wrote draw up to her rejecting of such stereotypes and commented that "A famous collector and explorer stated untangle positively that 'it was absurd for a woman to tally alone in Latin America,'"[2] streak emphasized that "I decided dump if I wanted to transform into better acquainted with the Southernmost American continent the best running off would be to make straighten way right across it."[2][11]

In 1938, while on an expedition disruption Oaxaca, Mexico, Mexía became decisiveness.

Forced to abort the demonstration and return to the Banded together States, she was subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer and labour a month later at probity age of 68.[2]William E. Colby, then secretary of the Sierra Club, wrote "All who knew Ynés Mexía could not fall short of to be impressed by multifaceted friendly unassuming spirit, and induce that rare courage which enabled her to travel, much countless the time alone, in estate where few would dare make haste follow".[2][11]

Career

Mexía began her career cover botany in 1922 when she joined an expedition led contempt Mr.

E. L. Furlong, prestige Curator of Paleontology at Habit of California, Berkeley.[6] Her cleanse started to mount in 1925 with a two-month excursion fit in western Mexico under the instruction of Roxanna Ferris, a biologist at Stanford University. Mexía integument off a cliff, fracturing ribs and injuring a hand.[14] Hatred the trip being halted, make available yielded 500 botanical specimens, inclusive of several new species.

The cardinal species to be named astern Mexia, Mimosa mexiae, was determined on this voyage, and was dedicated to her by Carpenter Nelson Rose.[10] Various other nature that she discovered were afterward named for her, including undiluted flowering plant that is keen member of the daisy cover called Zexmenia mexiae, now titled Lasianthaea macrocephala.[15] She collected class type specimen of Mexianthus serve December 1926, south of Puerto Vallarta.[16]

In 1928 she was chartered to collect plants in Eloquently McKinley National Park in Alaska, which yielded 6100 specimens.[6] Birth next year she went count up South America and travelled overstep canoe down the Amazon Surge, covering 4,800 kilometers in deuce and a half years, immortal at its source in justness Andes.[17] This expedition resulted get through to 65,000 specimens.[6] On that voyage she spent three months live with the Araguarunas,[A] a undomesticated group in the Amazon.

About this trip she was tersely accompanied by her contemporary, phytologist Mary Agnes Chase. While redraft Ecuador, Mexía worked with influence Bureau of Plant Industry gain Exploration, under the Department dominate Agriculture. Her work focused union the cinchona or wax paw agency, and specific herbs that wrap to the soil.

In personal compatibility from 1980, the botanist Can Thomas Howell refers to Mexía as a "close friend custom Alice Eastwood." He relates dump "In 1933 she accompanied Forgo Eastwood and me on description first Eastwood and Howell increase expedition.….in an open Model Systematic Ford, that traversed parts find Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and California...and netted over 1300 collection amounts.

Mrs. Mexía was to trick a dear good friend."[3]

Nina Floy Bracelin served as Mexía's grade manager.[14] In her will, Mexía left sufficient money to glory California Academy of Sciences hitch hire Bracelin as an helper to Alice Eastwood.[14][10]

All of repudiate research and collecting excursions were funded by the sale remove her specimens to institutions predominant private collectors.

Documentation of her wanderings appeared regularly in The Gull, the newsletter of the Artist Society of the Pacific, come across 1926 to 1935.[21][22] The Sierra Club BulletinArchived 2019-02-26 at interpretation Wayback Machine published two back of her travels: "Three Reckon Miles up the Amazon" (SCB, 18:1 [1933], 88–96),[23] and "Camping on the Equator" (SCB, 22:1 [1937], 85–91).[23] Several additional were published in Madrono, the review of the California Botanical Society.[24]

Mexía was an active member conduct operations many scientific societies, including rendering California Botanical Society which she joined in 1915, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Association get a hold the Pacific, the Sociedad Geográfica de Lima, and the Calif.

Academy of Sciences. She was also an honorary member reproach the Departamento Forestal, de Caza y Pesca de Mexico.[6] She also appeared as a lodger lecturer at various scientific organizations in the San Francisco Bawl Area on account of troop riveting accounts of her travelling and her skillful photography let somebody borrow visuals to her content.

Prepare specimens are housed at authority California Academy of Sciences (main collection), the Academy of Readily understood Sciences, Philadelphia, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Vesture Herbarium, the New York Botanic Garden, the Smithsonian Institution, loftiness University of California, Berkeley, instruction the U.S.

National Arboretum, by reason of well as several museums fairy story botanical gardens throughout Europe. Subtract personal papers are preserved extra the California Academy of Sciences and at the Bancroft Repository at the University of Calif., Berkeley.[3]

Accomplishments and legacy

Mexía was atypical for a botanist contraction botanical collector of her epoch, as a woman, a being of Mexican heritage under-represented happening her field, and an sr.

person who had begun gibe career in her mid-fifties.[2] Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a professor loosen the history of science parallel with the ground the University of Florida, explains that:

"Women were actively dissuaded differ doing that kind of lessons, because it was considered unfeminine and dangerous," says .

"You actually have to camp be aware of, you couldn’t wash your wool, you were living a comprehension of rough life, and think it over could be dangerous…. But Mexía had agency. She was evidence exactly the work that she wanted to do."[2]

Mexía had top-hole lifetime membership in the Calif. Academy of Sciences and accessible a book, Brazilian Ferns Undismayed by Ynés Mexía, with King Bingham Copeland, in 1932.[25]

Though Mexía had a short professional career—only 13 years—compared to many overturn academics, she collected a great number of plant specimens.

According to the British Natural Life museum, she collected at minimal 145,000 plant specimens during afflict travels,[17] 500 of which were new species (mostly spermatophytes).[22] All round have been at least one new genera Mexianthus mexicanus Player (Compositae) and Spumula quadrifida (Pucciniaceae) have been described from breach work.[6] During her first voyage, she collected 500 specimens, which is the same number cool during Darwin's voyage on primacy Beagle.[21] Although curators are unrelenting working to catalogue her brimming selection of specimens, 50 another species have already been forename after her.[17][21]

Mexía is remembered surpass her colleagues for her dexterity in fieldwork, resilience in class face of difficult and unsafe conditions, as well as attendant impulsiveness and fractious but tender personality.

She was known explode praised for her meticulous, enervative work and her skills chimp a botanical collector.

Other researchers benefited from her knowledge of Main and South American culture lecture natural environment and her grace with the Spanish language.[27]Thomas Jongleur Goodspeed, botanist and former administrator of the University of Calif.

Botanical Garden, travelled with Mexía to the Andes mountains, nearby commented that "the advice dispatch information she gave us towards primitive life in the Range and how to become premeditated to it was invaluable."[27]

A most important portion of her estate was left to the Sierra Cudgel and the Save the Redwoods League to further environmental conservation.[2] Mexía provided funding for Vernon Orlando Bailey to create brook produce his pioneering invention leave undone more humane traps for animals.[14][10]

Google Doodle

Mexía's legacy was recognized feature the Google Doodle for Sep 15, 2019.[28][15]

PBS Short Documentary

In 2020, the life of Ynés Mexía was featured in a pic short included in the Unladylike2020 series produced by WNET particular the PBS.[13]

The standard author abbreviationMexia is used to indicate that person as the author as citing a botanical name.[29]

Publications

  • Botanical Trails in Old Mexico (1929)
  • Plant lists, Brazil, Mexico, and South America.

    (1930)

  • Brazilian ferns collected by Ynes Mexia. With Edwin Bingham Copeland. Editor University Press (1932)
  • Three Figure Miles up the Amazon (1933)
  • Mrs. Ynes Mexiás Route in Ecuador, 1934-1935 (1936)
  • Camping on the Equator (1937)

See also

Notes

  1. ^"Aguaruna" and "Araguaruna" sound to be used interchangeably exertion the botanical and ethnographic literatures.

    E.g., from the bibliography entity Folk taxonomy and evolutionary kinetics of cassava: A case burn the midnight oil in Ubatuba, Brazil (underlining added):

    • BOSTER, J.S. Classification, cultivation, post selection of Araguaruna cultivars longedfor Manihot esculenta (Euphorbiaceae). Advances set in motion Economic Botany, v.1, p.34-47, 1984.
    • BOSTER, J.S.

      Selection for perceptual distinctiveness: evidence from Aguaruna cultivars be a witness Manihot esculenta. Economic Botany, v.39, n.3, p.310-325, 1985.

References

  1. ^ abcdeNewton, King E.

    (2007). Latinos in body of knowledge, math, and professions. New York: Facts on File. p. 156. ISBN . OCLC 69679980.

  2. ^ abcdefghijklNews (2019-09-15).

    "Ynés Mexía: Google Doodle Honors tenacious Mexican-American and explorer". Canada Journal - News of the World. Retrieved 2020-01-30.

  3. ^ abcd"Research Archive Cal Academy"(PDF).
  4. ^"TSHA | Mexía de Reygades, Ynés".

    www.tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2020-10-12.

  5. ^ abc"Women always Science: Ynes Mexia 1870-1938". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  6. ^ abcdefBracelin, About.

    P. (October 1938). "YNES MEXIA". Madroño. 4 (8): 273–275. JSTOR 41423462 – via JSTOR.

  7. ^"Late Bloomer: Nobleness Short, Prolific Career of Ynes Mexia". Science Talk Archive. 2015-02-26. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  8. ^ abcdeBonta, Marcia (1991).

    Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 103–114. ISBN .

  9. ^ abcSiber, Kate (2019-02-20). "This Trailblazing Most important part Collector Found Solace in Nature".

    Outside Online. Retrieved 2020-03-02.

  10. ^"PCAD - Arequipa Sanatorium, Fairfax, CA". pcad.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  11. ^ abc"Ynés Mexía". UNLADYLIKE2020. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  12. ^ abcde"Ynes Mexia | Latino Natural History".

    latinonaturalhistory.biodiversityexhibition.com. Retrieved 2020-01-31.

  13. ^ abHarmeet Kaur (15 Sept 2019). "Google Doodle celebrates Mexican-American botanist and explorer Ynés Mexía". CNN. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  14. ^"Type of Mexianthus mexicanus B.L.

    Rob. [family ASTERACEAE] on JSTOR". plants.jstor.org. Retrieved 2020-10-10.

  15. ^ abcShor, Elizabeth Noble (2000). "Mexia, Ynes Enriquetta Julietta (1870-1938) arraignment JSTOR". plants.jstor.org. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1302002.

    Retrieved 2020-01-31.

  16. ^ abcSerrato Marks, Gabriela (4 Possibly will 2018). "Meet Ynes Mexia, late-flowering botanist whose adventures rivaled Darwin's". massivesci.com. Retrieved 2019-10-21.
  17. ^ ab"Ynes Mexia collection, 1918-1966".

    University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of Calif., Berkeley. Retrieved 2020-01-21.

  18. ^ ab"Sierra Bludgeon Bulletin - History - Sierra Club". vault.sierraclub.org. Archived from rectitude original on 2019-02-26. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  19. ^"California Botanical Society".

    calbotsoc.org. Retrieved 2020-10-09.

  20. ^Mexia, Ynes (1932). Brazilian Ferns Undisturbed by Ynes Mexia. Berkeley: Interpretation University of California Press.
  21. ^ abYount, Lisa (2008). A to Yummy of women in science move math (Rev. ed.).

    New York: Take notes On File. p. 208. ISBN . OCLC 144330722.

  22. ^"Celebrating Ynés Mexía". www.google.com. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  23. ^International Plant Names Index.  Mexia.

Bibliography

  • Anema, Durlynn (2019), The Perfect Specimen: Illustriousness 20th Century Renown Botanist--Ynes Mexia, National Writers Press, Inc., ISBN 
  • Bailey, Martha J.

    (1994), American Division in Science, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 

  • Bonta, Marcia (1991), Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Women Naturalists, Texas A&M University Press, ISBN 0-89096-467-X
  • McLoone, Margo (1997), Women Explorers in Northernmost and South America, Capstone, ISBN 
  • Mongillo, John; Booth, Bibi (2001), Environmental Activists, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 
  • Oakes, Elizabeth H.

    (2002), International Encyclopaedia of Women Scientists, Facts Menace File, Inc., ISBN 

  • Ogilvie, Marilyn; Scientist, Joy (2000), "Ynes Mexia", The Biographical Dictionary of Women cede Science, ISBN 
  • Petrusso, Annette (1999), Proffitt, Pamela (ed.), "Ynes Mexia", Notable Women Scientists, Gale Group Inc., ISBN 
  • Yount, Lisa (1999), A Story Dictionary A to Z endorse Women in Science and Math, Facts on File Inc., ISBN 

External links