Ynes Mexía: Google Doodle celebrates Mexican-American botanist

Ynes Mexía is remembered as much for her prolific collection of rare plant specimens as her frequent risk of life and limb for her efforts to advance science.

Sunday Google Doodle celebrates the adventurous life of botanist Inis Mexico Ah (Ynés Mexía), who started researching plants in the late 50s but has not finished a college. Today's botanist still studies the 150,000 specimens she has acquired in the field.

In 1925, Mexico lover began her first plant exploration on the day they began their trip to Mexico to collect rare plant species with a group of Stanford University. But 55-year-old Ynés Mexía knew immediately that she could achieve a lot and gave up the group to travel to this country for two years.

During this expedition, he fell off a cliff that knew Mexico and ended her trip, but before she collected more than 1500 specimens, 50 of which hadn't been discovered before.

Born in Washington, DC in 1870, her father works as a Mexican diplomat. She wanted to be a nun but became a social worker in San Francisco, where she moved in 1908. Her love for botany began studying undergraduate plants at UC Berkeley at the age of 51 and began to blossom when she joined the Sierra Club.

Mexía has made many trips over the next 12 years and often travelled alone in the collection, but at that time it was very unusual. Her exploration to the same destinations as Alaska, Southern Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru calculated 150,000 samples including many new species.

During the South American expedition in 1929, she travelled about 3000 miles on the Amazon River to the Andes canoe on a Mexican canoe. She was diagnosed with lung cancer on a 1938 trip to Mexico and died in July at the age of 68.

Mexía is a well-known botanist who frequently lectures in the Bay Area, where he has not finished his degree and publishes periodicals adventure articles in various environments. In a short career as a botanist, Mexía collected 150,000 specimens, including at least two new genera (Mexianthus Robinson and Spulula Mains), and about 500 new species (of which 50 were named after her) Named).

She sells many of the 150,000 specimens to the California Academy of Sciences to support travel, collects interesting and unknown plant specimens, sells them in museums and university departments, In the same way, she helped fund other expeditions. 

She sent many people to the ship immediately on the scene. Today, these specimens still constitute important research material. In fact, botanists are still waiting to learn from Mexía discoveries, as they still don't know how many new species have been discovered in their adventures. Estimates range from 2 to 500, but the dispute will not be resolved until all specimens have been fully studied and compared to other specimens and samples.

Ynés Mexía: 5 quick facts to know

1. Mexico travelled for the first time in Mexico for "rare plant species"

Google has designated Google Doodle to coincide with Mexía's “First Plant Collection Journey” anniversary.

She went to Sinaloa, Mexico in 1925 and wrote with his colleagues at Stanford University that she “finds rare plant species”. She joined the local Sierra Club, which was 55 years old. She had a difficult journey with broken hands and ribs, but she brought 50 newly discovered 500 specimens.

According to Latino Natural History, Stanford University botanist Roxanna Stinchfield Ferris participated in the collection trip. One of the species they collected was named mexiae: Mimosa mexiae.

2. Mexico was the daughter of a diplomat

Mexía was born as "daughter of Mexican diplomat" in Washington D.C. in 1870. 

According to Latin natural history, her mother was American and moved with her to Texas when her parents broke up. But eventually, she joined her father in Mexico City. She married twice. NYBG reported that her early life was "maybe noisy".

She experienced a lot of personal hassle, but eventually lead her to California and got a new job. According to Latin natural history, one of her husbands died and the second marriage ended in a divorce, and she moved to California after "distraction". She became a US citizen in 1924.

She was a social worker in California before becoming botany.

3. Ynés Mexía started botany research in her later life

Until Mexía came to California and in his fifties, he began studying plants with his love for nature as his mission. 

According to Google, after the journey of discovering the inauguration plant in 1925, she continued to travel to discover more species throughout Mexico, many of which are named after her name.

According to Latin natural history, she wrote about studying botany.

4. Mexía's work continued and she had an important impact on the botany world

Mexía has not completed a university degree, she has an influential person in the field.

It became one of the most famous plant's specimen collectors in history, collecting about 150,000 specimens.

It ’s been over 90 years since she started, and scientists are still working on samples of Mexico that stored in many major institutions around the world.

According to Early Women in Science, she collected specimens in the United States, Brazil, Peru and Mexico.

The outside portrays a volcano trip. She was based in Ecuador and said that the wax seeds grew there, so she travelled to find Chile in the “long volcano on the border of Colombia”. 

Outside described her journey to a volcano; she was based in Ecuador and travelled to find Chiles, “a remote volcano on the Colombian border,” because it was said that wax palm grew there, Outside reported. This was a tree that was said to tolerate the cold at high altitudes. She eventually found the tree. “I photographed the great spathe and flower-cluster, so heavy the two men could hardly lift it; made measurements and notes; and took portions of the great arching fronds,” she later wrote, according to Outside.

5. Mexía died of lung cancer at a very young age

Ynés Mexía died at the age of 67 years, collecting specimens in about 13 years. According to Latino Natural History, she died of lung cancer.

Early women in science reported that Mexía worked with famous scientists like Agnes Chase and Alice Eastwood. “She was able to collect thousands of plant specimens, including unknown types of plants.

According to the Natural History Museum's electricity, she had many adventures. For example, she collected Alaskan plants, took a canoe, travelled the Amazon River, and travelled to Mexico and South America multiple times. “However, for the first time in 13 years, she has collected 8800 numbers or more than 145,000 specimens, including two new amateurs, Mexianthus Robinson (Asteraceae) and Spulula Mains (Pucciniaceae).