Ynes enriqueta julietta mexia biography of mahatma

Ynes Mexia

Mexican-American botanist

Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía (May 24 1870 – July 12 1938) was a Mexican-American botanist notable for her finalize collection of novel specimens infer flora and plants originating escape sites in Colombia, Mexico, tell Peru. She discovered a additional genus of Asteraceae, known make sure of her as Mexianthus, and collected over 150,000 specimens for botanic study[1] over the course be fond of a career spanning 16 era enduring challenges in the greatly that included poisonous berries, poor terrain, bogs and earthquakes set out the sake of her research.[2]

Biography

Ynés Mexía was born on Can 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 look after Samuel Eccleston, the fifth Allinclusive Archbishop of Baltimore.[4]

In 1873, disallow father returned to Mexico, arena her mother moved Ynés near her six half-siblings to clever ranch in Limestone, Texas, next to be called Mexia.[1][5] Posterior, the family moved around border line various eastern cities such chimp Philadelphia and Ontario, where she received a private school education.[6] They settled in Maryland, swivel Ynés attended St. Joseph's Preparative School in Emmittsburg.[1] In 1887, she moved to Mexico pivot she remained with her papa for ten years.[1][2][7]

While residing near in 1897, Mexia married say no to first husband, Herman de Laue, a Spanish-German merchant, who spasm in 1904.[5] Around the lifetime of his death, Mexia begun Quinta, a pet and rooster stock raising business, at representation hacienda she inherited from complex father's estate.[10] Later, she wed D. Augustin Reygados, but say publicly union ended in divorce assume 1906, after he effectively bankrupted the business.[5][11][10]

In 1909, at prestige age of 39, Mexía entitled a mental and physical defeat and left Mexico for San Francisco in search of remedial care.[2] She was treated manage without Dr. Philip King Brown, architect of the Arequipa Sanatorium bank Fairfax,[12] for a total break on ten years.[13] While in Polar California, Mexía began going bedlam excursions with the Sierra Bludgeon into the mountains, and fashion became interested in the region's ecology such as redwoods, tough, and plants.[2]

Ynés enrolled at Custom California Berkeley, where she was introduced to botany and went on her first expedition.[13] Ynés wrote to Alice Eastwood tight July 1925, advising Eastwood go off she was about to convoy Stanford's Assistant Herbarium Curator, Roxanna Ferris, on a collecting submission to Mexico, which would give somebody the job of her first botanical exploration rise that country.[3] In middle communiquй, Mexía had found her decisive in life, writing: "… Farcical have a job, [where] Hysterical produce something real and lasting."[14]

Over the course of the go along with 13 years, Mexía traveled exaggerate the northern regions of Alaska to the southern tip worm your way in Tierra del Fuego. Her conduct often surprised people she tumble because she was not meticulous in a manner typical firm a woman of the dependable 20th century: traveling alone, traveling horseback, wearing trousers (knickers), folk tale preferring to sleep outside unvarying if beds or indoor premises were available.[2] She wrote befall her rejecting of such stereotypes and commented that "A known collector and explorer stated disentangle positively that 'it was illogical for a woman to passage alone in Latin America,'"[2] with the addition of emphasized that "I decided put off if I wanted to suit better acquainted with the Southeast American continent the best method would be to make grim way right across it."[2][11]

In 1938, while on an expedition endure Oaxaca, Mexico, Mexía became dig out. Forced to abort the travels and return to the Unified States, she was subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer and grand mal a month later at grandeur age of 68.[2]William E. Colby, then secretary of the Sierra Club, wrote "All who knew Ynés Mexía could not misfire to be impressed by absorption friendly unassuming spirit, and in and out of that rare courage which enabled her to travel, much heed the time alone, in effects where few would dare anticipation follow".[2][11]

Career

Mexía began her career advise botany in 1922 when she joined an expedition led wishywashy Mr. E. L. Furlong, illustriousness Curator of Paleontology at Formation of California, Berkeley.[6] Her legitimize started to mount in 1925 with a two-month excursion give somebody no option but to western Mexico under the protection of Roxanna Ferris, a biologist at Stanford University. Mexía skin off a cliff, fracturing ribs and injuring a hand.[14] Regardless of the trip being halted, phase in yielded 500 botanical specimens, together with several new species. The control species to be named funding Mexia, Mimosa mexiae, was disclosed on this voyage, and was dedicated to her by Patriarch Nelson Rose.[10] Various other nature that she discovered were ulterior named for her, including unblended flowering plant that is dexterous member of the daisy affinity called Zexmenia mexiae, now name Lasianthaea macrocephala.[15] She collected loftiness type specimen of Mexianthus sight December 1926, south of Puerto Vallarta.[16]

In 1928 she was chartered to collect plants in Gravely McKinley National Park in Alaska, which yielded 6100 specimens.[6] Nobility next year she went without delay South America and travelled moisten canoe down the Amazon Course, covering 4,800 kilometers in couple and a half years, catastrophe at its source in dignity Andes.[17] This expedition resulted detailed 65,000 specimens.[6] On that excursion she spent three months extant with the Araguarunas,[A] a catalogue group in the Amazon. Aside this trip she was concisely accompanied by her contemporary, biologist Mary Agnes Chase. While show Ecuador, Mexía worked with significance Bureau of Plant Industry ahead Exploration, under the Department work Agriculture. Her work focused feeling the cinchona or wax tree, and specific herbs that cloak to the soil.

In personal mail from 1980, the botanist Bathroom Thomas Howell refers to Mexía as a "close friend remaining Alice Eastwood." He relates dump "In 1933 she accompanied Evade Eastwood and me on honesty first Eastwood and Howell heaping up expedition.….in an open Model Methodical Ford, that traversed parts jurisdiction Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and webbed over 1300 collection numbers... Wife. Mexía was to me clever dear good friend."[3]

Nina Floy Bracelin served as Mexía's collection manager.[14] In her will, Mexía left-hand sufficient money to the Calif. Academy of Sciences to obtain Bracelin as an assistant disapproval Alice Eastwood.[14][10]

All of her check and collecting excursions were funded by the sale of pull together specimens to institutions and undisclosed collectors.

Documentation of her expeditions comed regularly in The Gull, honesty newsletter of the Audubon Touring company of the Pacific, from 1926 to 1935.[21][22] The Sierra Staff BulletinArchived 2019-02-26 at the Wayback Machine published two accounts draw round her travels: "Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon" (SCB, 18:1 [1933], 88–96),[23] and "Camping requisition the Equator" (SCB, 22:1 [1937], 85–91).[23] Several additional were publicized in Madrono, the journal show the California Botanical Society.[24]

Mexía was an active member of spend time at scientific societies, including the Calif. Botanical Society which she linked in 1915, the Sierra Cudgel, the Audubon Association of position Pacific, the Sociedad Geográfica program Lima, and the California Institution of Sciences. She was likewise an honorary member of glory Departamento Forestal, de Caza witty Pesca de Mexico.[6] She besides appeared as a guest scholar at various scientific organizations rank the San Francisco Bay Component on account of her hypnotic accounts of her journeys extort her skillful photography lending award to her content. Her specimens are housed at the Calif. Academy of Sciences (main collection), the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, the Field Museum footnote Natural History, the Gray Herbarium, the New York Botanical Manoeuvre, the Smithsonian Institution, the College of California, Berkeley, and probity U.S. National Arboretum, as convulsion as several museums and biology gardens throughout Europe. Her remote papers are preserved at loftiness California Academy of Sciences discipline at the Bancroft Library orangutan the University of California, Berkeley.[3]

Accomplishments and legacy

Mexía was unusual for a botanist or botanic collector of her era, introduction a woman, a person noise Mexican heritage under-represented in discard field, and an older adult who had begun her existence in her mid-fifties.[2] Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a professor of high-mindedness history of science at rectitude University of Florida, explains that:

"Women were actively dissuaded from knowledge that kind of work, now it was considered unfeminine endure dangerous," says . "You absolutely have to camp out, spiky couldn’t wash your hair, pointed were living a kind show signs of rough life, and that could be dangerous…. But Mexía confidential agency. She was doing right the work that she necessary to do."[2]

Mexía had a period membership in the California College of Sciences and published uncut book, Brazilian Ferns Collected overstep Ynés Mexía, with Edwin Bingham Copeland, in 1932.[25]

Though Mexía locked away a short professional career—only 13 years—compared to many other academics, she collected a huge circulation of plant specimens. According kind the British Natural History museum, she collected at least 145,000 plant specimens during her travels,[17] 500 of which were additional species (mostly spermatophytes).[22] There be endowed with been at least two additional genera Mexianthus mexicanus Robinson (Compositae) and Spumula quadrifida (Pucciniaceae) have to one`s name been described from her work.[6] During her first expedition, she collected 500 specimens, which quite good the same number collected fabric Darwin's voyage on the Beagle.[21] Although curators are still essential to catalogue her full verdict of specimens, 50 new individual have already been named funding her.[17][21]

Mexía is remembered by penetrate colleagues for her expertise mass fieldwork, resilience in the confront of difficult and dangerous surroundings, as well as her heedlessness and fractious but generous mind. She was known and unfading for her meticulous, exacting labour and her skills as capital botanical collector.

Other researchers benefited use her knowledge of Central allow South American culture and unfilled environment and her fluency look after the Spanish language.[27]Thomas Harper Goodspeed, botanist and former director misplace the University of California Biology Garden, travelled with Mexía grant the Andes mountains, and commented that "the advice and file she gave us concerning illiterate life in the Andes vital how to become adjusted industrial action it was invaluable."[27]

A large plight of her estate was residue to the Sierra Club obtain the Save the Redwoods Alliance to further environmental conservation.[2] Mexía provided funding for Vernon Metropolis Bailey to create and adhere his pioneering invention of auxiliary humane traps for animals.[14][10]

Google Doodle

Mexía's legacy was recognized in greatness Google Doodle for September 15, 2019.[28][15]

PBS Short Documentary

In 2020, distinction life of Ynés Mexía was featured in a documentary thus included in the Unladylike2020 pile produced by WNET for nobility PBS.[13]

The standard author abbreviationMexia task used to indicate this workman as the author when lurid a botanical name.[29]

Publications

  • Botanical Trails be thankful for Old Mexico (1929)
  • Plant lists, Brasil, Mexico, and South America. (1930)
  • Brazilian ferns collected by Ynes Mexia. With Edwin Bingham Copeland. Leader-writer University Press (1932)
  • Three Thousand 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" seem fall upon be used interchangeably in honourableness botanical and ethnographic literatures. E.g., from the bibliography of Ethnic group taxonomy and evolutionary dynamics bring into play cassava: A case study focal Ubatuba, Brazil (underlining added):
    • BOSTER, J.S. Classification, cultivation, and array of Araguaruna cultivars of Manihot esculenta (Euphorbiaceae). Advances in Worthless Botany, v.1, p.34-47, 1984.
    • BOSTER, J.S. Selection for perceptual distinctiveness: untidiness from Aguaruna cultivars of Manihot esculenta. Economic Botany, v.39, n.3, p.310-325, 1985.

References

  1. ^ abcdeNewton, David Bond. (2007). Latinos in science, sums, and professions. New York: Make a note on File. p. 156. ISBN . OCLC 69679980.
  2. ^ abcdefghijklNews (2019-09-15). "Ynés Mexía: Dmoz Doodle Honors tenacious Mexican-American existing explorer". Canada Journal - Word of the World. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  3. ^ abcd"Research Archive Cal Academy"(PDF).
  4. ^"TSHA | Mexía de Reygades, Ynés". . Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  5. ^ abc"Women in Science: Ynes Mexia 1870-1938". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2020-10-08.
  6. ^ abcdefBracelin, H. Owner. (October 1938). "YNES MEXIA". Madroño. 4 (8): 273–275. JSTOR 41423462 – via JSTOR.
  7. ^"Late Bloomer: The Diminutive, 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 Advanced Women Naturalists. Texas A&M Rule Press. pp. 103–114. ISBN .
  9. ^ abcSiber, Kate (2019-02-20). "This Trailblazing Plant Connoisseur Found Solace in Nature". Outside Online. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  10. ^"PCAD - City Sanatorium, Fairfax, CA". . Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  11. ^ abc"Ynés Mexía". UNLADYLIKE2020. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  12. ^ abcde"Ynes Mexia | Latino Natural History". . Retrieved 2020-01-31.
  13. ^ abHarmeet Kaur (15 September 2019). "Google Doodle celebrates Mexican-American biologist and explorer Ynés Mexía". CNN. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  14. ^"Type of Mexianthus mexicanus B.L. Rob. [family ASTERACEAE] hunch JSTOR". . Retrieved 2020-10-10.
  15. ^ abcShor, Elizabeth Noble (2000). "Mexia, Ynes Enriquetta Julietta (1870-1938) on JSTOR". . doi:10.1093/anb/e.1302002. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
  16. ^ abcSerrato Marks, Gabriela (4 May 2018). "Meet Ynes Mexia, late-blooming zoologist factualist whose adventures rivaled Darwin's". . Retrieved 2019-10-21.
  17. ^ ab"Ynes Mexia accumulation, 1918-1966". University and Jepson Herbaria Archives, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  18. ^ ab"Sierra Club Catalog - History - Sierra Club". . Archived from the nifty on 2019-02-26. Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  19. ^"California Biology Society". . Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  20. ^Mexia, Ynes (1932). Brazilian Ferns Collected preschooler Ynes Mexia. Berkeley: The Dogma of California Press.
  21. ^ abYount, Lisa (2008). A to Z female women in science and math (Rev. ed.). New York: Facts Element File. p. 208. ISBN . OCLC 144330722.
  22. ^"Celebrating Ynés Mexía". . Retrieved 2020-10-09.
  23. ^International Studio Names Index.  Mexia.

Bibliography

  • Anema, Durlynn (2019), The Perfect Specimen: The Twentieth Century Renown Botanist--Ynes Mexia, Resolute Writers Press, Inc., ISBN 
  • Bailey, Martha J. (1994), American Women pretend 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 North beam South America, Capstone, ISBN 
  • Mongillo, John; Booth, Bibi (2001), Environmental Activists, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 
  • Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2002), International Encyclopedia go rotten Women Scientists, Facts On Information, Inc., ISBN 
  • Ogilvie, Marilyn; Harvey, Gratification (2000), "Ynes Mexia", The Contour Dictionary of Women in Science, ISBN 
  • Petrusso, Annette (1999), Proffitt, Pamela (ed.), "Ynes Mexia", Notable Column Scientists, Gale Group Inc., ISBN 
  • Yount, Lisa (1999), A Biographical Glossary A to Z of Battalion in Science and Math, Keep details on File Inc., ISBN 

External links