labrys,
études féministes/ estudos feministas
janeiro/ junho 2016 - janvier/juillet 2016
Finding the Perfect Specimen: Ynes Mexia, Renown Botanical Collector
Durlynn Anema
Abstract
Ynes Mexia, renown botanical collector whose legacy remains important today, did not start her career until fifty years old. She fearlessly visited botanical areas throughout the Western Hemisphere with only a native guide, determined to discover as many botanical specimens as possible during her career. Shy as a child, she often was alone to read continuously and experienced nature through walks wherever she lived. Growing up in the Baltimore area, she was summoned to Mexico after graduating from high school to manage her father’s household. Her first husband died. When she remarried she suffered a nervous breakdown. Her doctors recommended going to San Francisco for treatment by the renown psychiatrist Philip King Brown, M. D. During recovery she discovered the budding environmentalist movement and joined the fledgling Sierra Club. At fifty-years-old she attended the University of California, Berkeley where she discovered the study of botany. She embarked on a series of expeditions in the late 1920’s and 1930’s accompanied only by a native guide into the wilds of Mexico and South America. Her story traces the journey of a shy young girl from a stilted but conformist lifestyle to one full of adventure and groundbreaking achievements. She is not forgotten through a new genus -- the Mexianthus Mexicana-- and fifty new species named for her, as well as the vast collections she obtained for university and museum herbariums across the world.
Key Words: Botany,Botanical Collector, South America, Mexico, environmentalist, Legacy, herbarium, Sierra Club, psychiatry
“I don’t think there’s any place in the world where a woman can’t venture alone. In all my travels I’ve never been attacked by a wild animal, lost my way or caught a disease,” Ynes Mexia told a San Francisco News reporter in 1937. (“U. C. Scientist Back from Trip Into South America for Plants,” San Francisco News, March 6, 1937.)
Ynes Mexia never dreamed that one day she would explore North and South America as a botanical collector, obtaining almost 138,000 specimens, more than any other woman collector of the era. Her childhood had few adventures and a loneliness that resonated throughout her adult years. She moved often during her youth and found it difficult to meet other people. Yet these challenges enabled her to adapt to the solitary nature of her work in some of the most remote areas of the American continents.
Early Life
Born on May 24, 1870, in the Georgetown section of Washington, D. C., Ynes Enriquetta Julietta Mexia and her family remained there briefly -- just long enough for her to be baptized as a Catholic. She remained a strong Catholic throughout her life, always trying to attend Mass when a church was available.
Her father, Enrique, was the son of General Jose Antonio Mexia, a Mexican general under President Santa Anna. At the time of her birth, Ynes’ father was serving in Washington, D. C. as representative of the Mexican government under President Benito Juarez. Her mother, Sarah R. Wilmer, was raised in pampered luxury in Baltimore, Maryland.
When Ynes was one year old, her family moved to Mexia, Texas, a town founded on land given to the state by the Mexia family. Its layout was typical of towns in that part of Texas, with buildings surrounding a town square that features a bandstand.
Ynes kept to herself, having few friends. Her father often was away on business, so she hardly knew him. Her mother and older sister Adele were close and enjoyed social gatherings and entertaining friends. Ynes preferred to read or walk in the fascinating countryside. She watched birds and small animals, and examined flowering plants. When she was six years old, she began school which she liked very much.
In late 1879, Ynes’ small world changed. Her parents separated. Her father headed to Mexico City. Ynes, her mother and sister went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother enrolled her in a private school where she felt like an outsider. The girls, being more sophisticated, could not understand her ways, nor she theirs. Her schooling continued at boarding schools in Toronto and Maryland, each move deepening her loneliness. She found solace in reading, walking and writing letters to her father. These letters vividly describe her surroundings, showing even then her close attention to the world around her and her eye for detail.
Life in Mexico
When she finished school in the late 1880’s, Ynes’ father sent for her to come to Mexico City to live with him and supervise his household of servants. She did not know a word of Spanish. However, she not only succeeded but also conducted much of the ranching business. She also learned she had a half sister Amanda (Amy) Gray Mexia and a half brother, Clarence W. Mexia. She and her sister developed a comfortable relationship.
Slight of stature with luxuriant brunette hair and sparkling brown eyes, Ynes was shy and unacquainted with young men her age. However, one young man, Herman Laue, a German-Spanish merchant, courted her persistently until she accepted his proposal of marriage shortly after her father died. They went to live in Tacubaya, near Mexico City, on a ranch she had inherited. Her husband managed the ranch and tried to take care of her. However, she had been alone for so long she could not develop a close relationship with him. She tried because she wanted their marriage to succeed. Then he died abruptly in 1904 after seven years of marriage.
Now Ynes was truly alone in the world. Her mother and sister Adele were in the United States, but she had no contact with them. Her sister Amy rarely visited. She remained on the ranch, taking over managerial duties and running the business. She became an astute financial entrepreneur, a skill she retained over a lifetime.
In 1908 she met and married Auguistin de Reygades. She tried to make the marriage work but by this time had retreated too far within herself. Her spiraling unhappiness resulted in severe physical consequences, often she stayed in her room curled into a fetal position on her bed. In 1909, she suffered a mental and physical breakdown so severe her physician advised her to leave Mexico and go to San Francisco to seek help from Dr. Philip King Brown, a noted doctor in the newly emerging psychiatric field. Her husband quickly agreed.
Meeting Dr. Brown
The couple first lived in a hotel in San Francisco, then found an apartment. Dr. Brown was the medicine she needed. However, she was worried about the ranch, so convinced her husband to return to Mexico. Reluctantly, he agreed. During the next ten years the couple’s main communication was through their detailed correspondence, in which she called him “Petsito” and he called her “Petsita.”
Dr. Brown had studied psychiatry and knew the effects of stress on mental functions. He hoped he could help Ynes return to a full life, remaining her doctor for the rest of her life. He also became a friend and the father figure she never had. When she was not seeing him, they kept up a steady correspondence as he encouraged her to find avenues of interest she could pursue.
This was the first time Ynes had been to the West Coast of the United States. She loved everything about the San Francisco Bay area from its hills and spectacular scenery to the natural surroundings of forest and ocean. AND she found the outside interests Brown had suggested -- joining the Sierra Club and the Save-the-Redwoods League. She went on many outings with both groups, hiking, camping and enjoying everything about the outdoors.
Although Ynes realized what her husband had done for her, she knew she never could return to Mexico and her old life. She also was upset at his lack of financial acumen because he was bankrupting the ranch. Theirs was never a strong marriage, so with reluctance he agreed to a formal separation. Records are not clear whether they ever divorced. She sold her ranch and took back her name.
Now it was 1920 and she was almost fifty years old. Above everything, she wanted to satisfy her need for learning. As a member of the Sierra Club and Save-the-Redwood League she was exposed to the budding environmental movement. In a letter to the Save-the-Redwoods League she wrote, “I am heartily in sympathy with any effort to save these trees, and wish to inquire whether it is only the trees in Humboldt County which are under consideration (to be saved) or groups throughout the state.” (Ynes Mexia to Save-the-Redwoods League, November 3, 1919, Save-the-Redwoods League, San Francisco, California.)
Returning to School
Then she made her big decision -- to return to school. In 1921, Mexia enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley as a special student. She was fifty-one years old, an anomaly in those days because college was for young people. She didn’t care, feeling education was a lifetime experience. Her first course was natural history.
A university expedition led by Dr. E. L. Furlong, curator of paleontology at the university, introduced her to botanical collecting. This introduction to plant life captured her attention as no other project had. This would be the focus for the remainder of her life -- to be a botanical collector and explore known and unknown places on Earth in search of plant life. Immediately, she took more courses in botany. In 1922, she joined a botanical expedition from the university to Mexico and had her first glimpse of botanical collecting in the wild.
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Side note: If a plant is herbaceous, or containing little or no woody tissue, a botanist will unearth the entire specimen. Woody tissue samples, because of their size and weight, usually require a pruner to clip a piece off. In certain instances, plants must be dissected in order to properly identify them. The plants are then pressed and dried, sometimes in the field and sometimes in a lab. (Mexia did most of her pressing and drying in the field.) Old newspaper can be used to separate the specimens until they are offered to museums and herbariums, where they will hopefully become part of a permanent collection.
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When she went to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for additional study, Mexia met Alice Eastwood, an important American botanist. Eastwood provided critical specimens for professional botanists and advised travelers on methods of plant collecting. Mexia felt it a great privilege to work with Eastwood. During their acquaintance, she often accompanied Eastwood on field trips to the coastal ranges and to the Sierra Nevada. Whenever Mexia had a botanical question she knew she could find the answer by asking Eastwood.
In 1929, with her marriage over and her business interests sold, Mexia reestablished her U. S. citizenship.
Mexia’s First Solo Expedition
Eager to continue her botanical education, she took a course in flowering plants at the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California on Monterey Bay in 1925. There she met a couple who would be collecting specimens in Sinaloa, Mexico. They invited her along. She was thrilled. Although she realized they had invited her because of her connections in Mexico, she still would be an actual collector.
In preparation she contacted Eastwood with a proposal. She saw no reason why she couldn’t duplicate the collection she would make and send it to the Academy. She assured Eastwood she already had a “good deal of experience in the collecting and preparing of Herbarium specimens,” and would forward the specimens directly to Eastwood from Mexico. (Ynes Mexia to Alice Eastwood, July 25, 1925, Ynes Mexia Collection, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California.)
Because collecting was expensive, Mexia asked Eastwood only for expenses. She would buy her own equipment and materials for pressing and drying to collect on her own. Eastwood agreed to pay on a per-specimen basis when Mexia returned.
The trip turned out to be a disappointment. Mexia realized quickly when they arrived in Mazatlan, Mexico that she wanted to collect in her own way and didn’t enjoy the couple’s company. She had been independent for so long it was difficult for her to follow the orders and plans of others. The couple agreed that she should leave the expedition.
Mexia planned to continue on by herself. She wrote friends in California, asking them to send her equipment. Again, she contacted Eastwood, asking for any help, equipment, or materials the Academy could spare. She planned to venture into the hills and mountains above Mazatlan, then down the coast. While the expense of doing this by herself was an obstacle, she was independent enough to realize she no longer could go on expeditions with other people. She felt going at her own pace into places of her choosing would be more productive.
Mexia’s wait in Mazatlan for her equipment proved productive because she met a botanist who advised her about the area around the city. He also explained where no collecting had yet been done.
When at last she started to explore on her own she first went along the coast north and south of Mazatlan, collecting coastal forms of every flower and plant she could find. Then she went into the foothills east of the city to an elevation of about eight hundred feet for more obscure collecting.
Quickly, she realized she had to find a guide. She engaged a native who was familiar with the trails of the Sierra Madre east of Mazatlan. They went on horseback, climbing higher into the mountains. She was fascinated by the starkness of the landscape and realized collecting only could be done at certain times of the year -- after the rains had come and gone.
Two days later, tragedy struck. Mexia saw a specimen far out on a ledge above a cliff. She was not even aware of her next move; all she cared about was the specimen. She moved closer to the ledge and her determination got the best of her. Over the cliff she went. While the fall wasn’t a great distance, it was severe enough that she broke some ribs and injured the hand upon which she landed.
Fortunately, she had her guide, who led her gently to her horse and helped her into the saddle. In a great deal of pain, she rode back to Mazatlan where she learned she needed surgery. She had to return to California.
Mexia had obtained nearly five hundred species at three elevations. One, the Mimosa mexiae, became the first of a number of plant species that were named after her. As she reluctantly watched the coast of Mexico disappear she knew she would return.
Expense of Collecting/Back to Mexico
Horses, dugout canoes, small boats and foot power were paramount on Mexia’s first major collection effort by herself. Although she was collecting under the auspices of the University of California Department of Botany, she needed additional funds. Botany collection is an expensive occupation due to the equipment necessary for pressing and labeling the specimens found. A drier and a plant press must be carried along with materials for pressing the specimens. The prepared collector also brings a compass, pruner, trowel, camera, and any other necessities for survival. All this equipment was a burden. Mexia wrote after her Mexican expedition, “Transporting of equipment and specimens is a real problem in Mexico, where packing by animals is the only method of getting around, and that often difficult and expensive.” (Ynes Mexia to Dr. B. L. Robinson, July 2, 1926, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)
Mexia was able to obtain funds or promises of payment -- at twenty cents per specimen -- from several herbariums and natural history institutes, ranging from Harvard University to the Royal Botanical Garden. In late August 1926, she left San Francisco on a Pacific Mail steamer. Four days later, the steamer reached the tip of Baja California and sailed east to Mazatlan. From the ship’s railing, Mexia could see the fertile inclines of the Sierra Madre.
At the pier, she was met by J. Gonzales Ortega, a civil engineer, amateur botanist, and good friend. She knew that “this gentleman knows the west coast of Mexico as few know it, and has been most helpful in advising me as to the best localities for collecting.” (Ynes Mexia, 1929: 227.)
Mexia set out by train for Tepic, Nayarit. This old city sat at an altitude of 3,000 feet, an advantageous altitude for collecting because it was out of the coastal humid heat. The town was largely unspoiled by civilization, much to Mexia’s satisfaction. Ortega had provided Mexia with a letter of introduction to a Tepic official. With his help, she hired a guide named Mauro and two horses. Her fluency in Spanish meant she could communicate with everyone she met.
Each morning they rode out from town to explore and collect. She was amazed at the abundance of vegetation, so much “it was hard to know where to begin to collect, and still harder to know when to stop.” (Ibid.) Munro carried the field press. Mexia got off her horse to collect and pack away all the plants she could find within a specified area, then remounted.
She was amazed at the abundant ferns growing along the trail and in every ravine.
“Convolvulaceae of every size and color were everywhere along the hedgerows and clambering over shrubbery and small trees. very ornamental but a terrible pest to agriculturists . .. . The wild fig tree, Ficus mexicana Miq, here grows to huge proportions. As the green fruit hung high, Mauro deftly lassoed some fruiting branches for me.” (Mexia, 1929: 228)
Usually by three in the afternoon she had collected all the specimens she could handle. Immediately, she wanted to get them into the presses to dry them. Mauro learned how to help her, which she appreciated. Even so. the task often was not completed until after nine-o’clock at night.
Finding a dense, overgrown trail near Cerro de San Juan, Mexia talked Mauro into taking it. He informed her it had not been used since the mountain had been a stronghold for bandits during the revolution. This only made the route more alluring to Mexia. As they traversed the narrow path, she delighted in strange and fragrant deciduous trees and ferns and mosses growing in the dense shade beneath. On their descent the trail was more level and open, leading her to find a new species of shrub (called pie de pajaro by Mauro and officially named Deppea macrocarpa).
Mexia left Tepic after two weeks of collecting and went southwest by train to Ixtlan del Rio, which was higher in the mountains. She hired a new mozo, Juan, whom she felt was very competent. They rode up the sides of the mountains until they reached the lower fringe of the oak and pine belt. She wrote,
“Many composites were now in flower. On the more sunny slopes we found cacti, among others, a red-fruited Cereu (species). This latter strikingly demonstrates in what manner the slabs lose their spines and shape and become trunk-like as the cactus approaches tree form in age.” (Ibid, 229)
After returning to Mazatlan to deposit her collection, Mexia took a short train trip to Los Labrados and the jungle around Marisma for four days. Returning to Mazatlan, she then went south via train to the village of Ruiz. From there she took a dugout canoe down the Rio San Pedro River to Tuxpan where another dugout canoe took her to Mexcaltitlan. This village of shrimpers sat on an island in the lagoon formed by the delta of the river. Mexia had decided this was a logical place to find new specimens with little difficulty.
Her equipment was piled in the middle of the dugout which was poled down the river by her newest mozo, Antonio. As they traveled the mosquitos became fierce. “The mosquitos and ‘jejenes’ (biting gnats) arise from the water in clouds!” (Mexia, October 24, 1926) At the village the setting enthralled her, but not the village itself.
“It was the most miserable little shrimp-fishing village imaginable. [...] My heart sank away down when I surveyed (and sniffed) the village and I began to wonder why I ever wanted to collect in far-away spots anyhow [...]” (Ynes Mexia 1926,)
A canoe took her out the next morning to collect. Mexia quickly collected all she could from the mangroves, fascinated by the landscape. “The lagoons stretch for leagues and leagues and leagues up and down this coast and everywhere the surface of the earth is covered by clear, warm, shallow water.” (Ibid)
She remained at the village for two days but found little of value. The return trip was more difficult than the trip down with a steady, hard rain. Her concern was keeping her specimens and driers dry. After a stay in Tuxpan, she was ready to leave the mountains of Mazatlan. Perhaps more valuable than the thousands of specimens she’d already collected was the experience gained surviving in the wild and running her own expedition. She was ready to explore new areas and discover new specimens.
Into the Sierra Madre
Mexia’s next decision was to go to Puerto Vallarta and the Sierra Madre mountains adjacent to this coastal village. The mountains climb from 6,000 to 12,000 feet, are steep and covered in thick vegetation. Traversing them is no simple matter but she was ready for the challenge.
Getting to Puerto Vallarta required taking a steamer which only made occasional stops at the village. Dugout canoes greeted the ship upon arrival (there were no docks) and Mexia disembarked (the only person to do so). She took a deep breath as her equipment was unloaded into the canoes, more afraid for it than for herself.
She quickly discovered that the rumors about this unsampled terrain were true. The wilderness in this secluded, unspoiled area was immediate, and Mexia only had to go to the end of a small street to collect. Climbing around the precipitous hills rising sharply from the river’s edge, she found a small tree later named for her -- Eugenia mexiae Standl. No matter where she looked, discoveries abounded, until she hardly had enough room to pack all the specimens down the mountain.
Determined to go into the mountains, she hired Pedro, a woodcutter who lived in the hills with his family. When they arrived at his small hut the family wanted her to stay with them but she did not want to impose, so she camped close to the hut. She also wanted time by herself, something she treasured throughout her life. She was at Cruz de Vallarta at an altitude of about 2,300 feet and stayed five days. Pedro’s sons helped with the collecting, climbing trees to get the leaves she wanted, although they wondered why she would want leaves.
The highest town in the mountains was San Sebastian where she would stay for several weeks. It was an old silver mining town at 7,000 feet, the population had decreased and few old families remained. Gazing at the steep, jagged mountains, Mexia knew she would have some rugged hiking ahead. The narrow, deep canyons were crowded with deciduous trees and shrubs, while the slope and crests were clothed with pine and oak forest.
“The varieties of oak are legion, among them some of the largest and most stately oaks it has been my fortune to see. The pines are also of many species, all that I found but one, being five-needled and quite different in habit from those of more northern climes.” (Mexia, 1929: 233)
From San Sebastian Mexia climbed higher to the remains of an ancient mining village, El Real Alto built by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. It was bright and warm in the sunshine during the day. But when the sun dropped into the west, the chill crept in and nights were bitterly cold.
The first day there, Mexia and her mozo, Jose, climbed Bufa. The climb was not easy, but she was unafraid, even at “two or three ticklish places.” (Ynes Mexia, 1927) When they reached the peak her effort was rewarded with views of the San Sebastian valley and the Pacific Ocean. A steep slope towards the south proved to be thick with interesting vegetation. The oak trees were thickly covered with orchids. Collecting and drying became so fascinating Mexia and Jose lost track of time. Jose kept saying they would never find their way in the dark because of the faint trail -- but they did with Mexia later saying, “I did not know I could go down hill so fast!” (Ibid, 3)
After spending five days in El Real Alto, Mexia and Jose returned to San Sebastian. She sorted and labeled her specimens, and readied them for sending home. Missing El Real Alto Mexia decided to return for another collecting round. On February 27, they returned to the tiny village. It was much colder and she wished she had brought warm clothing, especially at night. The first few days they stayed close to the village but she wanted to find a stream with real water. The villagers told about El Jaguey about two or three hours way. They started off early and did not reach the stream until three-thirty. Then she began to collect because they had come too far for her to leave without specimens. Mexia found the first alders she had seen in Mexico and some herbaceous plants. She hated to leave when Jose insisted they go. At five o’clock they started up the slope. Then it became dark. “It grew black night before we were half way home, of course, and many an uphill mile still to go.” (Ynes Mexia, 1927) She had trouble keeping up with Jose in the dark because he was going fast.
Then she took a tumble into a rocky gully. She hit her shin and tore her ragged clothes even more than they already were. Right after that, Jose fell head first but was unhurt. Finally, he agreed that they must have a light. With his machete, he made two pine torches. As they saw each familiar landmark, they knew they were closer to home. The villagers were about to send a search party for them.
Jose was pleased when Mexia said they would return to San Sebastian. He also told her how impressed he was at her walking ability. While she wasn’t a fast walker, she had a great deal of endurance. He went around boasting of her prowess: “Another like the Senora I have never seen.” (Ynes Mexia to unknown, 1927)
With regret Mexia realized she had to leave San Sebastian with her 33,000 specimens and head for San Francisco to distribute her specimens.
Four Months in Alaska
Mexia returned from Mexico with nearly 6,600 different plants -- lichens, mosses, ferns, grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees. Included in these was one new genus and about fifty new species, ten of which were determined by the Field Museum of Natural History and six by the Harvard University Botanical Museum. Her reputation as a collector was growing.
On her return from Mexico, she was paid the standard rate of twenty cents per specimen for what she brought back, plus additional funds for photographs. Her quality work prompted the British Museum of Natural History to fund a trip to Alaska. The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia also promised funds. With those assurances she headed north on June 9 with a young botanist paying her own way. The summer season is short in this area so Mexia knew she had to move quickly before mid-September when the weather would change.
The park superintendent told her no person had ever made a botanical collection where she wanted to venture, and added he was “most anxious to have it done.” (Ynes Mexia to Dr. B. L. Robinson, September 27, 1928, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.) Mexia knew this was an area of nearly 3,000 square miles and couldn’t believe she was the first. Meanwhile, the young woman decided Mexia was much too adventurous for her and stayed behind in the comfort of the park headquarters.
Transportation became her greatest problem. The railroad stopped at the park, so it was up to Mexia to find a way into the wilderness. Part of the time she hiked, using a few pack dogs to carry her equipment. Other times she carried or hauled the equipment by herself.
Nothing deterred her. The park rangers assured her they would come to her campsites occasionally, but never showed up. Most of the time she was by herself with only her dogs for company. She faced difficult collecting and hiking conditions daily. “I could only scratch the surface of that vast Park area, but I chose my stations as far as possible from each other and at different altitudes.” (Ynes Mexia, 1928,)
Collecting specimens proved far more difficult than she anticipated. The roots of the more fragile plants broke off when she tried to dig them out. Mexia tried using a botanical pick. But the pick, she later wrote, “made no impression on this elastic ‘wire mattress’ sort of growth. . .” (Ynes Mexia letter 1929) The weather presented a problem throughout the expedition. Cold rain and wind often prevented her from collecting. Further hindered by the rough terrain, Mexia was concerned that she “only was able to get in the neighborhood of four hundred numbers, possibly not that many.” (Mexia, 1928)
She wanted to stay longer. However, when it began to snow heavily, she knew she had to leave. Confused by the deep snow, she did not know which way to go. Finally, on September 12, 1928, she and her dogs were rescued from her campsite by an Alaskan on a dogsled.
Adventure in Brazil
With each new adventure, Mexia set the bar a little higher. Brazil was her next destination, hoping to leave in mid-October 1929. She had some visa problems but her goal was achieved, leaving San Francisco on October 15 on a freighter bound for Rio de Janiero. She was joining Agnes Chase, an associate agrostologist (studies grasses) at the Smithsonian Institution.
She met Chase and the rest of the scientific team in Rio de Janiero. Their final destination was Espirito Santo where they would travel into the foothills of Pico de Caparao, the highest peak of the range. This site was chosen because, to their knowledge, no botanizing had been done on the southeastern side.
They traveled by train to Porto Alegre, then transferred the baggage and equipment into a truck. As they climbed, wonderful mountain views appeared as well as unknown vegetation. The steep slopes were cultivated with coffee bushes, corn and beans. Growing naturally among this agriculture were cecropia trees,
“[...]perhaps the most conspicuous, for they have tall slender trunks with a great crown of huge palmately incised leaves that stand out in a perfect crown showing silvery white on their glistening surface.” (Ynes Mexia, 1929)
The trip proved to be the roughest Mexia had ever taken. She said she was unprepared because she “had no idea what it was going to be.” (Ibid.) She found Chase, being a “pure and simple scientist, was unprepared as all scientists are.” (Ibid.) Chase even protested when Mexia insisted on taking food for a journey into the wilderness. She also discovered as they began to climb 9,000 foot Pico de Caparao that Chase had not even brought a change of clothing or warm outer coat and only a thin blanket.
It was raining, quite cold and a difficult climb. At 8,000 feet they talked their guides into stopping for the night. The next day it was still raining but they decided they were so wet it didn’t make any difference so went out to collect. They found so many specimens that they became too involved to notice the time. In early afternoon, the guides tried to convince them to move on but the women declined. They had collected so much they wanted to put the plants into the press, making them easier to carry.
The next day they decided to go to the other side of the range -- hopefully to find sun. There they met a Brazilian family who ran cattle. The family took in the cold, wet women, fed and housed them. Chase became ill and couldn’t go any further which was fine with Mexia who loved to collect on her own. When Chase was well enough they returned to Rio.
Her next adventure was to Minas Geraes and the town of Vçcosa where she visited the state school of agriculture. She was impressed to find such a modern institution so far from what she considered civilization. Minas Geraes became Mexia’s home for the next year, dividing her time between Viçosa, a fazenda in the Sierra da Gramma, and another fazenda north and west of Vicosa. These collection localities were in the highlands of mid-Brazil at 2,000 feet. This was her longest journey away from the United States, and she had no intention of returning any time soon.
Mexia was approaching sixty years old, but she rarely slowed down. She was amused by the reaction of villagers when they saw her ride onto a main street. “The village was treated to the sensation of all time to see a woman astride.” (Ynes Mexia, 1930,) She still preferred to sleep outdoors to avoid the fleas that seemed to inhabit every house. Her hosts were often shocked by her choice, fearful she’s be attacked by a ferocious beast. Mexia found it delightful.
“To be in a rainforest in Brazil was thrill sufficient. It being high rainforest, one thousand to one thousand three hundred meters, it is not so dense that one cannot see into it, and the great trees, many with lianas equaling their girth, stood above everything. Then the tree ferns are really the most beautiful and graceful things ever created.” (Ibid.)
Her year in Minas Geraes ended with a bang. One night as she, her student assistant and the porters slept under the stars a monstrous thunder and lightning storm set upon them. The next morning she suggested building a shelter for the men. They said no, only wanting to return to the fazenda. She sent two porters and her assistant to collect a special plant. She wanted to collect more but knew the men were eager to leave by noon.
The group started down the mountain -- straight down over steep, rocky, waterworn granite. They had to creep along the edges or take advantage of cracks. She later discovered the porters had been so scared by the storm they wanted to get home. She wished they had taken the original trail, not because of the difficulty but because she could have collected more plants. While she wished she could have collected more, Mexia realized that aside from the grasses collected by Chase, no collecting had been done in this area. She hoped her collections would encourage more exploring.
While she could have stayed indefinitely in the highlands, Mexia felt the need to follow her original drea -- to travel the breadth of South America along the Amazon. She took a boat from Rio, already looking forward to her next adventure.
Up the Amazon
The botanical treasures of the Amazon River, especially at its origin and tributaries, drew Mexia like a magnet. She had dreamed of visiting this area for years.
“Most of us, I think, have felt the fascination of the Amazon region. So much have we heard of its rivers, it tropical beauty, its luxuriant forest, the wild life and wilder Indians that lurk in its depth, that the pictures drawn by our imagination are vivid and unique. This vision of the unspoiled wilderness drew me irresistibly.” (Ynes Mexia, “1933: 88.)
Mexia spent almost twenty-two months in Brazil before she was able to accomplish her dream. Normally, the Amazon and its tributaries were reached from the west. However, because she was on the east side of the Andes Mountains, Mexia decided to reach the Amazon and its tributaries from that direction. She inquired about the best way to approach these rivers, but because no one had heard of this being done, she obtained no answers.
A lack of information did not stop her. After a few months of side excursions around the north coast of Rio, Mexia booked passage on a comfortable motor ship and traveled directly to Belem. She obtained visas for Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia because she wasn’t sure exactly where she was going. On August 28, 1931, she boarded the steamer Victoria for the trip upriver. She was loaded down with equipment in preparation for a long stay in this region.
The steamer itself was an upgrade in living conditions. Mexia enjoyed air cooled by electric fans and ate fresh meat on this leg of her Amazonian adventure.
As she sat on the deck she absorbed the beauty of the river and its islands. These memories later became part of several articles she wrote.
“The river itself is a tawny flood, looking more like an inland sea, ‘El Rio Mar de las Amazonas,’ than a river. Everywhere it is island-sown, and these islands divide it into parana each of which may be several miles wide. . . . Every foot of terra firma is heavily wooded, and these forests of the Lower Amazon are truly magnificent.” (Ibid, 88-89)
The steamer was a wood-burner. Each day the boat tied up at some spot on the shore to obtain fuel to continue the journey. This gave Mexia a chance to go ashore. She was fascinated by the way the forest crowded the settlements of thatched houses, almost hemming them in, with little land left to cultivate. This was not the uninhabited wilderness she had imagined, because the steamer was rarely out of sight of a little settlement.
The Victoria reached Santarem, a good-sized town on the mouth of the Tapajoz River, on the fifth day. This area had been visited for years by naturalist explorers, so she was already well acquainted with the vicinity.
On the sixth they came to Obydos. This was the first time she could see both banks of the Amazon. Up to this point islands had blocked the views. When they left the town, she began to see more wildlife. On September 2, 1931, the steamer entered the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It soon came to the mouth of the Rio Negro, where the boat turned north into the swift black waters. They arrived in Manaos two days later.
When the steamer continued its journey, it carried a new group of passengers. Mexia was the only continuing passenger. The riverbanks changed, showing sandpits and newly formed islands. Near the water’s edge was tall, coarse grass. Behind were imbaubas, fast-growing trees that looked almost like palm trees, with slender silver-white trunks with enormous leaves that were covered with a down that made them gleam in the sun.
As they approached the equator, Mexia braced herself for the anticipated heat, and was pleasantly surprised by how agreeable the climate was. Cooled by the moisture from the almost-daily rain, it was nothing like the dry heat she had grown up with in the southwestern United States.
“Cafe-au-lait” was Mexia’s description of the Amazon water. She loved eating the fresh fish, caught in abundance each day by men in canoes. The Amazon was very low because this was the end of the dry season. The banks were often fifteen to twenty feet high. When the passengers heard a splash in the water, they would run to the side of the boat, often to see that a huge slice of tree-covered shore had fallen into the river.
On the twenty-fourth day, they arrived at Iquitos, Peru. “Iquitos is quite a lively town sitting like a spider in the center of its web, whose silken strands are the shining rivers which come from north, west and south, traversing the wilderness.” (Ibid, 92) Mexia finally had reached the end of her 2,500 mile journey up the Amazon.
Mexia stayed in Iquitos almost the entire month of October preparing for her trip into the wilderness of the Amazon and its tributaries. She carried letters to several prominent people in the town. They helped her find lodging with a Peruvian family. Asking advice from several Peruvians, she learned it was possible to continue the ascent of the Maranon River and enter the Pongo de Manseriche of the Amazon. The more she heard about the region’s inaccessibility, its wildness, and its Indians, the more she wanted to go.
Mexia hired three men: Jose, who was half Peruvian and half German, as guide and hunter, and Valentino and Neptali as cholos and canoe men. A lancha carried them up the Maranon River. It took a week to reach Barranca, where they then transferred to a smaller craft. She and her hired men were “dumped ashore” and then the river boat “whistled thrice, turned and slid down the river.” (Ibid)
In Barranca, Jose tried to hire a large dugout canoe. However, while every person seemed to have his own montaria, large ones were not available. Finally, he found one with four native paddlers, but it could only carry half the baggage. Mexia was tired of waiting, so she agreed to start up the river with Valentino and Neptali. Jose would follow with the rest of the baggage as soon as he could find another canoe.
Mexia relished the beauty around her.
“The shining cream-brown river, stretching from sunrise to sunset, confined by living green walls on the right and on the left, and above all the high-arched sky, delicately clouded at dawn, its intense blue relieved as the sun rose higher by fleecy white clouds, which soon piled aloft in large cumuli, turning black and threatening as they tore down upon us in a torrent of blinding rain, with thunder and lightning, for the afternoon storm. The deluge lessened, passed us by, traveling Andes-ward, and left us crawling in its wake refreshed and enlivened under a cloudless sky until we headed into the burning heart of a tropical sunset.” (Ibid)
Each evening they searched out a sandy beach to camp for the night. The men lit the fire, cooked, set up Mexia’s cot and mosquito net, and brought water for her bath. The river was too dangerous to bathe or swim due to the currents and presence of caimans. While the men worked, she roamed around the campsite, watching the birds and examining the vegetation.
They arose at dawn to “inch the canoe” (Ibid) upriver, battling the heavy downstream current. Huge stranded trees stuck out from the banks. The current raged past their partially submerged branches. Occasional gravel bars between islands caused shallow rapids. The men had to be careful at all times.
Mexia, seeing the Andes for the first time, wrote:
“One day, as we started westward, a blue mist hung low on the horizon athwart our river highway, which, unlike other morning mists, did not dissipate with the rising sun, but took on a dim outline and a deeper blue until it dawned upon us that it was no mist, but the eastern-flung chain of the mighty Andes, the barrier that would end our journey.” (Ibid 93)
One day, Mexia and her companions looked up to find the river bank lined with Aguaruna Indians holding copper-headed spears and twelve-foot blowguns with tiny darts quite visible. Mexia and her guides were startled and frightened. These natives assumed her canoe contained Wambisas, a native tribe who were their blood enemies.
“When they found we were ‘Christianos’ instead of the dreaded Wambisas, they were greatly relieved and received us with rejoicing,” she later wrote. (Ibid)
In preparation for meeting various tribes along the river, Mexia had brought presents -- a needle for each woman and a small fishhook for each man. The Indians took them to the moluca (community building) and were thrilled when she took pictures of them.
Now the expedition reached the point on the Maranon Riber where only canoes could go -- and these slowly, either creeping from rock to rock or hauled up by ropes. When the river rose or was in flood, the rapids were immense in this narrow passage and no craft could traverse it. This was the famous Pongo de Manseriche.
They arrived when the river was falling, allowing them to move forward. Her paddlers were experienced river men, so they advanced easily in the dugout canoe. Mexia described the gorge as “gloomy” (Ynes Mexia to Dr. Bailey, April 5, 1932, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley) and dense with vegetation from top to bottom. The gorge was 330 feet deep, too deep for rapids. However, the river moved rapidly from side to side in the narrow canyon, forming ferocious whirlpools. The water welled up in standing waves and rushing crosscurrents.
Mexia established camp a few miles above the Pongo at the mouth of the Rio Santiago, whose headwaters were in the Ecuadorian Andes. The group was in the dense forest of the upper Amazon along the first and easternmost range of the Andes. She set up camp as best she could, glad when Jose joined her a few days later. They sent the canoes and paddlers back down the river and settled in.
Soon after they encamped, the rainy season started. Mexia later wrote, “The rainy season began with unprecedented violence and the rivers rose and rose until the roar of the Pongo could be heard for miles.” (Mexia, 1933: 94)
They camped there for three months. However, the heavy rains made collecting difficult. Then it became clear that the immense rains had them trapped. She realized they had to be prepared to leave. When the downpours paused in January and the flood temporarily subsided they loaded a raft they’d made from balsa wood with Mexia’s collections of plants, birds and insects, and the equipment that had survived the months of drenching. Rafts were used extensively on the river system of the Upper Amazon but because they were unwieldy, their course could only be roughly directed. They loosed the vine rope holding the raft and swung out of the Santiago into the Maranon.
Valentino and Neptali handled the big oars on either side. They were swept into the Pongo, caught by the racing current and tossed about like straw. A whirlpool caught them, whirled them around three times, then “spewed us out.” (Ibid, 95) In twenty minutes they had raced through the most dangerous part of the river. The gorge widened. They didn’t have time to think about safety because they were rapidly carried into a circling backwash that swung them around and around. The rocks were jagged and they had a difficult time controlling the raft. Then “a lucky thrust” (Ibid) pushed them into the current once more and they floated down the river at a good speed.
As they approached Barranca, a boat came out to meet them with a huge packet of mail, some of which was nearly six months old. As Mexia read her letters and floated down the Maranon, she knew when they reached Iquitos both her raft journey and the trip up the Amazon would be finished. Her heart -- despite the collection of 65,000 specimens -- was heavy as she left behind a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
The Tireless Adventurer
Mexia’s next extensive expeditions were on the west side of South America. The U. S. Department of Agriculture sent her to Ecuador to find and obtain plants that control erosion, funding her entire trip. This was a welcome relief from the traditional scramble she underwent to secure money for each journey. She spent over a year in Ecuador -- September 1934 to September 1935.
In addition to her responsibilities for the government, Mexia was determined to acquire a sample of the wax palm tree, or palma real. This palm grew on the Volcan de Chiles, one of the lower peaks between Ecuador and Columbia. She was interested because the wax palm was reported to grow at greater altitudes and to endure greater cold than any other known palm. If this were the case, it would adapt easily to California’s varying locations and climates.
Mexia found herself somewhat of a celebrity when she arrived in Ecuador. Government officials greeted her at the boat, and schools, libraries and museums asked her to speak. She met such requests dutifully before embarking on what she really loved -- adventure.
Ecuador presented the same kinds of challenges the sixty-four-year-old Mexia had been encountering and conquering since she began collecting. She and her team had to navigate the Andes mountains, with the weather shifting to frigid at the high altitudes. She got her wax palm, which was a major find, and traveled through the coastal plains, eastern Amazonian slope of the Andes, northern highlands and Columbia border.
In Lima, Peru on October 1, 1935, Mexia joined a botanist from the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Thomas H. Goodspeed and his wife. They collected south and west of Lima. When the Goodspeeds decided to go to the southeast, Mexia left them to go north to Huanuco in the Cerro de Pasco region to collect on her own. She would meet them later at Mendoza, Argentina.
Among the specimens she searched for were the nicotianas. These tender shrubby plants are native to the Americas. The longiflora variety has white-to-purplish flowers and is found from Peru to Argentina. Her quest took her from the highlands of Peru to several destinations in southern South America. Mexia journeyed across Lake Titicaca by steamer and proceeded to La Paz, Bolivia, by train. She traveled by car via Puente de Inca, a natural bridge, to the crest of the Andes.
From here, Mexia knew she was close enough to fulfill another dream -- traveling to the farthest point south on the continent. She took a train to Puerto Montt, Chile, where she boarded the Alejandro, a crowded steamer going through the Chilean Fjords and the Strait of Magellan to Punta Arenas, Chile. During the long trip, the steamer stopped only at the island of Chiloe in southern Chile. This was a great disappointment to her because she wanted to visit and explore as many places as possible. However, the fascinating scenery through the Chilean Fjords and the Strait of Magellan kept her at the ship’s rail.
Later she wrote that this inland passage was “still more beautiful than the passage to Alaska. The innumerable islands, many of them still unexplored, are but the peaks of a submerged mountain chain and are forested to the water’s edge with Nothofagus, the evergreen Southern Beech. Beneath the trees they are said to be waist-deep in spongy lichens, but I had no opportunity to land to verify this.” (Ynes Mexia, “The search for the Nicotianas,” Lecture, California Academy of Sciences, 12.)
Letters from friends helped Mexia obtain passage to Rio Grande on the eastern coast of Tierra del Fuego. She stayed with the manager of a big frigorificos (slaughterhouse) and was surprised at the many people inhabiting this place, which she thought would be an icy, uninhabited wasteland. Huge estancias (sheep stations) dominated the region. Unfortunately, the sheep had devoured almost all the vegetation. Further, she was there at the end of the season and the frost had already set in, withering flowering plants.
Because the autumn rains were about to arrive, Mexia decided to leave the mountainous are and return to Punta Arenas. By June 1, 1936 she was back in Lima, Peru. A steamer took her to Mollendo, Peru. From there she took a train to the mountains, eagerly watching the changing scenery.
“The railroad is a marvelous one. For a number of miles it runs along the beach [...]then turns inland and begins to climb. As it practically never rains on the Humboldt-current-bathed coast, the hills are absolutely bare. [...] The mountains grow steeper and more rugged, and snow peaks peep over the shoulders of the nearer ridges, while the train thunders around countless curves,” she wrote to friends. (Ynes Mexia , 1936)
Mexia first stopped at Cuzco, then took a train over the pass and into the deep gorge of the Urubamba River. From there she took a bus to the town of Quillabamba where she tried to collect. However, it was too close to town and the cultivated field. She and her guides rode horses up the river to the hills where she filled her press with “a beautiful rose-red bougainvillea which wreathed the stream side trees.” (Ibid) Then she took the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu.
On November 20, Mexia boarded a ship for the trip to Esmeraldas, Ecuador. From there she took a boat to Limones, Ecuador. When they reached that town, she left the boat to buy supplies. As she walked back to the boat on a plank and began across the hatch, she fell through a broken board, severely injuring her leg. While the skin was not broken, her thigh took the weight of the fall and turned black, making walking almost impossible.
As was her custom, she persevered, continuing on the boat to Concepcion. A canoe took her upriver to Playa Rica, then to her camp. She stayed there from December 5 to December 28, did what collecting she could while pressing and caring for some of the thousands of plants she had collected in the preceding years, including 13,000 in Peru alone.
She left for home on December 28, arriving in San Francisco on February 5. While she was happy to be home, she could hardly wait for the next adventure.
Preserving the Future
“Now that I’m back after more than two years in the wilds of South America, I find myself longing for a nice quiet jungle again,” Mexia told a San Francisco News reporter on March 6, 1937. ( San Francisco News, 1937.)
Mexia was sixty-seven years old and still anxious to visit as many places in Mexico and South America as possible. While she wanted to finish the one course she needed for a bachelor’s degree, she also was eager for new experiences. When she heard in June 1937 about the biological station at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, she applied and was accepted. She spent that summer happily presenting her extensive botanical knowledge to the students.
With the wilds still beckoning, she started another trip in October, this time to areas around Mexico City and Oaxaca. She spent the first week traveling throughout the Mexico City area trying to collect. However, she was not feeling well, so spent the next week seeing doctors and trying to recuperate. Although feeling weak and tired, she was determined to overcome all signs of illness. She traveled to Toluca, Cuernavaca, Taxco and Puebla.
By October 26, she was feeling well enough to travel to Balsa where she took a canoe up the Balsas River to a mine in the state of Guerrero. The hills were turning brown because this was the dry season and she found little to collect except along the streams. One day, as she was crossing a little stream jumping from rock to rock, her boot slipped. She went knee-deep into the water, wrenching her shoulder. The company doctor said it was only a sprain.
In the middle of December she arranged to go higher into the Sierra Madre with her guide, horses and pack mules. As they left the river basin the mountains were covered with deciduous oak trees and jungle, which merged into forests of pine. At 5,400 feet they reached the last habitation.
“[...] the country was gorgeous. There was wave after wave of the Sierra Madre range all covered with the heavy, untouched pine forest and trees well up to two hundred feet high.” (Ynes Mexia , 1937a,)
The collecting was scanty.
Mexia and her guide returned to Mexico City after five weeks because she was beginning to feel ill again. Even so, she set out to collect in the Oaxaca area, south of Mexico City. But by the end of April her weakness had returned. She saw a doctor who said her condition was more serious than she anticipated and that she should return to California and her own physician. Before she left, she took great pains to arrange all her equipment and put everything in order, expecting to return soon.
Mexia was met at the San Francisco dock by Dr. Brown and her good friend Nina Bracelin on May 29, 1938. Bracelin had worked on Mexia’s collections for years. Mexia hoped rest and good food would revive her. Despite all efforts, she died of cancer on July 12.
Mexia had prepared her estate carefully, wanting her legacy to be one of environmental protection. Money held in trust for her family, upon their deaths, ultimately went to the Sierra Club and the Save-the-Redwoods League. Her heart always remained close to these environmental organizations.
The Sierra Club passed a resolution in December 1938 saying:
“Resolved that the Sierra Club in the death of Ynes Mexia, has sustained a great loss [...]Because of her scientific knowledge and pains taking notes, the specimens collected by her have been recognized as of exceptional value.” (“Resolution about Ynes Mexia,” 1938.)
Mexia’s legacy lives on in the new genus -- the Mexianthus Mexicana -- and fifty new species named after her, as well as the vast collections she obtained for university and museum herbariums across the world.
Ynes Mexia, the shy, lonely girl, became a worldwide name in botanical circles. Her dreams of exploration and collecting were just beginning at an age when many people retire or slow down. Age was never a factor for Mexia. She was too busy learning and leading the adventurous life few young people experience -- enjoying every minute of her time on earth.
Mexia’s Expeditions
September-November 1925 -- Western Mexico (Sinaloa): 3,500 specimens.
August 1926-April 1927 -- Western Mexico (Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco): at elevations up to 6,000 feet in the Sierra Madre: 33,000 specimens.
June-September 1928 -- Alaska (Mt. McKinley National Park -- now Denali National Park and Preserve): first general collection of the park flora: 6,100 specimens.
May-July 1929 -- Northern and Central Mexico (Chihuahua, Mexico, Puebla, Hidalgo): 5,000 specimens.
October 1929-March 1932 -- South America (Brazil -- Rio de Janeiro, Vicosa. Diamantina, and the state of Minas Geraes, the Amazon and other river courses in the States of Para and Amazonas; Peru -- upper Amazon and Santiago river valleys.): 65,000 specimens.
September 1934-September 1935 -- South America (Ecuador -- coastal plains and eastern Amazonian slope of Andes, northern highlands, and Columbia border.): 5,000 specimens.
January 1936-January 1937 -- South America (Chile -- southern Chile, Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego; Peru -- Cuzco, Machu Picchu, and Cerro del Pasco; Argentina -- Tucuman and Mendoza; Ecuador -- Esmeraldas.): 13,000 specimens.
October 1937-May 1938 -- Southwestern Mexico (Oaxac and Guerrero): 13,000 specimens.
Bibliography
Bartram, Edwin B. ,1928. “Mosses of Western Mexico Collected by Mrs, Ynes Mexia.” Journal of the Washington Academy of Science 18: 577-82.
Bonta, Marcia Myers, ed. , 1995 American Women Afield: Writing By Pioneering Women Naturalists. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Bracelin, Nina F. 1935 . “Itinerary of Ynes Mexia in South America.” Madrono 3 : 174-76.
Clark, Lewis F. , 1938. “Mexia Resolution.” Sierra Club Bulletin, December.
Copeland, E. B. , 1932. “Brazilian Ferns Collected by Ynes Mexia.” University of California Publications in Botany 17. Berkeley: University of California Press
“Enricque Guillermo Antonio Mexia.” The Handbook of Texas Online, University of Texas at Austin, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/MM/fme74.html.
Goerke, Heinz. Linnaeus. 1973. Translated by Denver Lindley. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons
Goodspeed, Thomas H. 1961. Plant Hunters in the Andes. Berkeley: University of California Press
Goodspeed, Thomas H. and H. ER. Stark. , 1955. University of California Publications in Botany 281. Berkeley: University of California Press
James, Edward T., ed. , 1971. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
McLoone, Margo , 1997. Women Explorers in North and South America. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press
Mexia, Ynes. 1930. “Bird Study for Beginners ” Bird Lore 27 (1925): 68-72, 137-141.
---------- “Birds of Brazil.” The Gull, July/August
--------- 1929. “Botanical Trails in Old Mexico--The Lure of the Unknown..” Madrono 1 (September 27: 227-38.
--------- 1937. “Camping on the Equator.” Sierra Club Bulletin 22 (February: 85-91.
---------- Collected Letters, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
--------- 1926. “Down the San Pedro River.” The Gull, December
--------- 1927. “Experiences in Hospitable Mexico.” Better Health, October, 432-58.
--------- 1933. “Glimpses of a Brazilian Cattle Ranch.” (unpublished, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California,. Berkeley, April 1931).
-------- “Ramphastidae.” The Gull, July
-------- 1933 “Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon.” Sierra Club Bulletin 18 (February: 88-96.
--------- 1935 “Vignettes of Birds Long Since Flown.” The Gull, June
_________ 1937.“U. C. Scientist Back from Trip Into South America for Plants,” San Francisco News, March 6
_______ __1937a. Ynes Mexia to Nina Bracelin, November 15, Ynes Mexia Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
_________1938. Resolution about Ynes Mexia,” Sierra Club Bulletin, December
.
Minnesota State University at Mankato. “Machu Picchu,” http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/latinamerica/south/sites/machu_picchu.html.
Morton, A. G. 1981.History of Botanical Science. London: Academic Press,
National Park Service. “Denali.” U. S. Department of the Interior. http:www.nps.gov/dena/.
Shearer, Benjamin F. and Barbara S. Shearer, eds. 1996. Notable Women in the Life Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
Tyler-Whittle, Michael. 1970. The Plant Hunters. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Company
U. C. Scientist Back from Trip into South America for Plants. 1937..” San Francisco News, March 6, V
1932. “Woman Braves Amazon Wilds for Specimens.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 22,
Yount, Lisa. 1999. A to Z of Women in Science and Math. New York Facts on File, Inc.,
Web Sites
The official Web site of the Botanical Society of America
http://www.savetheredwoods.org/
The official Web site of the Save-the-Redwoods League
The official Web site of the Sierra Club
Biography
Durlynn Anema, Ph. D., has written 17 books -- 10 textbooks, 4 biographies of female explorers, 3 self-help books. Presently, she write a weekly column for a local newspaper, and has written columns and articles for newspapers, magazines, and research journals throughout her career. She was Director of Lifelong Learning, then taught Communication at the University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. She lives in Galt, California and can be reached at durlynnca@gmail.com
labrys,
études féministes/ estudos feministas
janeiro/ junho 2016 - janvier/juillet 2016