Sep 15, 2019
Celebrating Ynés Mexía





In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, today’s Doodle celebrates Mexican-American botanist and explorer Ynes Mexía, who braved earthquakes, bogs, and poisonous berries to reach a remote volcano on the border of Colombia and Ecuador—all for the sake of botanical discoveries. “We started on the long journey back,” she wrote after collecting samples of the rare wax palm, “very tired, very hot, very dirty, but very happy.”

On this day in 1925, Mexía embarked on her first plant collection trip, travelling with a group from Stanford University to Sinaloa, Mexico in search of rare botanical species. The 55-year-old had joined the local Sierra Club just a few years earlier, enrolling in special classes at UC Berkeley soon after. Despite falling off a cliff and fracturing her hand and some ribs, Mexía brought home around 500 specimens—50 of them previously undiscovered.

Born in Washington D.C. in 1870 as a daughter to a Mexican diplomat, Mexía moved around a lot before becoming a social worker in California and falling in love with nature. At age 51, she began studying botany. After her inaugural plant discovery trip in 1925, Mexía continued journeying to uncover more species throughout Mexico, many of which were then named after her. The first was a flowering plant from the daisy family named Zexmenia mexiae in 1928, now referred to as Lasianthaea macrocephala.

Although she never completed her degree, Mexía became one of the most celebrated collectors of botanical specimens in history, gathering some 150,000 specimens throughout her career. She went on to travel the world while researching, writing, and lecturing widely.

More than 90 years after she started, scientists are still studying Mexía’s samples, which are now housed in a number of major institutions around the world.