Ynes Mexia

Ynés Mexía was born in 1870 in Washington, D.C. to Enrique Mexía and Sarah Wilmer Mexía.[2] She was the daughter of a Mexican diplomat and the granddaughter of a Mexican general. When she was very young, her parents divorced. Her father returned to Mexico, and her mother moved the family to Texas. Mexía later moved to Mexico.[1][3]

In 1909, in her late thirties, she suffered a mental and physical breakdown that spurred her to move to San Francisco and seek medical care. Her second husband continued to live in Mexico, and they eventually separated. There she started going on excursions into the mountains of Northern California with the Sierra Club and fell in love with the redwoods, the birds, the plants, and the quiet. [1] She became involved in social work and was an active member of the Sierra Club, which motivated her to attend the University of California, Berkeley.[3]

Her interest in botanical collecting began in 1922 when she joined an expedition led by Eustace. L. Furlong, a Berkeley paleontologist. She then enrolled in a course on flowering plants at the Hopkins Marine Station with LeRoy Abrams in Pacific Grove, California.[3][4] A 1980 letter from John Thomas Howell reminisces about the autumn of 1923:

"When I was enrolled in freshman botany at UCB and Mrs. Mexía was attending advanced classes... We were on a field trip with the Calypso Club, the student botanical club. We had spent the day under the guidance of Herbert Mason (then a graduate student under Prof. Jepson) exploring the floristic riches of Jasper Ridge... Separated from the rest of the club, we made a wrong turn...reached the station long after our train had departed... Eventually we arrived in Berkeley (by train to San Francisco, streetcar to Ferry Building, ferry across the Bay, interurban to Berkeley, streetcar to our homes). Mrs. Mexía never let me forget it!"

At that time, it was very remarkable for that experience to have occurred unchaperoned.[2] In 1924 she became a United States citizen.[5]

In July of 1925, at the age of 55, Ynés wrote to Alice Eastwood, letting Eastwood know that she was about to accompany Stanford's Assistant Herbarium Curator, Roxanna Ferris, on a collecting trip to Mexico. This would be her first botanical exploration trip to Mexico. Once in Mexico, Mexía decided that she could accomplish more on her own and abandoned the group, traveling the country for two years and collecting more than 1,500 specimens.[3] The trip resulted in 500 species being collected, including one named in Mexía's honor, Mimosa mexiae. Finally, in middle age, Mexía had found her purpose in life, writing: "… I have a job, [where] I produce something real and lasting."[5] She made three additional expeditions to Mexico and collected throughout South America in remote areas of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. She also collected in Alaska and other areas of the continental United States.[3]

After her first major expedition to Sinaloa, Mexico in 1925, she spent 13 years traveling from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, often shocking those she met because she was traveling solo, riding horseback with knickers, and preferring to sleep outside even when a bed was available. "A well-known collector and explorer stated very positively that 'it was impossible for a woman to travel alone in Latin America,'" she wrote, continuing, "I decided that if I wanted to become better acquainted with the South American continent the best way would be to make my way right across it."[1][6]

In 1938, during an expedition to Oaxaca, Mexico, Mexía became ill. She tried to continue but had to turn back and return to the United States, where she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died within one month at age 68. William E. Colby, the secretary of the Sierra Club, wrote, "All who knew Ynés Mexía could not fail to be impressed by her friendly unassuming spirit, and by that rare courage which enabled her to travel, much of the time alone, in lands where few would dare to follow."[1][6]

In the same 1980 letter where he described his student botanical club adventure with Ynés Mexía, John Thomas Howell refers to her as a "close friend of Alice Eastwood." He continues, "In 1933 she accompanied Miss Eastwood and me on the first Eastwood and Howell collecting expedition.….in an open Model T Ford, that traversed parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and California...and netted over 1300 collection numbers... Mrs. Mexía was to me a dear good friend."[2]

Once, Mexía joined a collecting trip to Mexico where she fell off a cliff, injuring her hand and fracturing her ribs.[5] No obstacle could stand in Mexía's way, whether that be broken bones, poison, or dangerous terrain. She was an adventurer in the name of science. In 1928 she was hired to collect plants in Alaska. The next year she went to South America and travelled by canoe down the Amazon River, covering 4,800 kilometres in two and a half years to its source in the Andes.[7] Her specimens were widely distributed to herbaria throughout the United States and western Europe. In addition to collecting, Mexía wrote articles and gave lectures describing her adventures and travels.[3]

During her collecting trips, Mexía would occasionally join other expeditions, including one headed by A.S. Hitchcock and Agnes Chase of the U.S. National Herbarium, and T. Harper Goodspeed's University of California Botanical Expedition. Mexía learned how to collect from Alice Eastwood of the California Academy of Sciences. Nina Floy Bracelin served as Mexía's collection manager, caring for the specimens and sending them out for identification.[5] Credit is due to Bracelin, affectionately known as "Bracie," who prepared Mexía's specimens for herbaria. She worked diligently to label the specimens, sending sets to specialists so their species could be determined and distributing the duplicates. Mexía was said to be more interested in exploration and discovery rather than preparing her specimens, but her legacy lives on through those preserved botanical collections.[3] In her will, Mexía left enough money to the California Academy of Sciences to hire Bracelin as an assistant to Alice Eastwood.[5]

Mexía was an active member of many scientific societies, including the California Botanical Society, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Association of the Pacific, the Sociedad Geográfica de Lima, and the California Academy of Sciences. She was also an honorary member of the Departamento Forestal, de Caza y Pesca de Mexico. Her specimens can be viewed at the California Academy of Sciences (main collection), the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Gray Herbarium, the New York Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of California, Berkeley, and the U.S. National Arboretum, as well as several museums and botanical gardens throughout Europe. Her personal papers are preserved at the California Academy of Sciences and at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.[2]

Mexía was also unusual for an American botanical collector during that era. Not only was she a woman, she was also of Mexican heritage and suffered some prejudice in a largely white field, and she was older—she started her career in her mid-fifties. "Women were actively dissuaded from doing that kind of work, because it was considered unfeminine and dangerous," says Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, a professor of the history of biological sciences at the University of Florida. "You actually have to camp out, you couldn’t wash your hair, you were living a kind of rough life, and that could be dangerous…. But Mexía had agency. She was doing exactly the work that she wanted to do."[1] Mexía had a life membership in the California Academy of Sciences and published a book, Brazilian Ferns Collected by Ynés Mexía, with Edwin Bingham Copeland, in 1932.[8]

Though Mexía had a short professional career—only 13 years—compared to many other academics, she collected a huge number of plant specimens. According to the British Natural History museum, she collected at least 145,000 plant specimens during her travels,[9] 500 of which were new species.[10] During her first expedition, she collected 500 specimens, which is the same number collected during Darwin's voyage on the Beagle.[11] Although curators are still working to catalogue her full selection of specimens, 50 new species have already been named after her.[11][9]