Ynés Mexἰa (1870-1938) didn’t discover her career passion until later in life. The daughter of a Mexican diplomat father and an American mother, her childhood was difficult with her parent’s divorce and several moves throughout the eastern United States. She spent her 20s and 30s in Mexico living through two marriages, moving to San Francisco in her 40s, where she required years of medical care to recover following a mental and physical breakdown.
As part of her treatment, her doctor encouraged getting involved in hobbies. She discovered the Sierra Club, and eventually enrolled, at age 51, at the University of California, Berkeley. While not seeking a degree, she took courses on botany, including classes through the California Academy of Science where she met Alice Eastwood. Together, they joined on field botany trips into the mountains of California.
While this became a valuable collaboration, Mexἰa discovered that she most enjoyed exploring alone. Over a 13-year career that followed, she took many long trips to Mexico, throughout South America, and briefly to Alaska, collecting plants to press and later sell to many of the outstanding herbarium collections in the United States. The details of these travel are chronicled in the “The Perfect Specimen” by Durlynn Anema.
Mexἰa’s career, cut short by her death from cancer, was extremely productive, adding about 150,000 new specimens to American botany, including several new species. She was not bothered by rough conditions, and her knowledge of Spanish language and culture, and her ease in interactions with indigenous people, allowed her to explore remote areas for new plants.
Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin