March 27, 2013
Though this is not a picture of her, I can’t help but tell you a bit about Mary Agnes Chase because she was a remarkable woman. She was a botanist who specialized in grasses and worked for the USDA and the Smithsonian. She was also a supporter of women’s suffrage who was force-fed while on hunger strike. She published a three-volume index of U.S. grasses at age 93. All this and she never made it past grade school. She was a true botanical badass. ~AR danforth: Mary Agnes Chase’s Field Work in Brazil, Image No. 1931. Serra da Gramma [sic]. Dr. Rolfs, jungly bamboo slope between fazendo and Araponga. by Smithsonian Institution on Flickr. Really, Dr. Rolfs, is that the best way to go? Up the jungly bamboo slope? It’s awful jungly is all, Dr. Rolfs. Frightfully jungly. Your way is beset with staggering amounts of jung!

Though this is not a picture of her, I can’t help but tell you a bit about Mary Agnes Chase because she was a remarkable woman. She was a botanist who specialized in grasses and worked for the USDA and the Smithsonian. She was also a supporter of women’s suffrage who was force-fed while on hunger strike. She published a three-volume index of U.S. grasses at age 93. All this and she never made it past grade school. She was a true botanical badass. ~AR

danforth:

Mary Agnes Chase’s Field Work in Brazil, Image No. 1931. Serra da Gramma [sic]. Dr. Rolfs, jungly bamboo slope between fazendo and Araponga. by Smithsonian Institution on Flickr.

Really, Dr. Rolfs, is that the best way to go? Up the jungly bamboo slope? It’s awful jungly is all, Dr. Rolfs. Frightfully jungly. Your way is beset with staggering amounts of jung!

3:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5yhFzGsg
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(Notes: 54)
  
Filed under: Mary Agnes Chase Botanists Botany Women Woman Scientists Science history 
March 20, 2013
And here we have one of the NYBG’s own. Dr. Barksdale was a mycologist who earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in botany from the University of North Carolina. She is most famous for discovering an important antifungal agent used in control fungal infections on plants. She joined the staff at the Garden in 1952 and carried out work here for over two decades. Her archive is available to researchers through our Mertz Library. ~AR fuckyesfemalescientists: Alma Whiffen Barksdale (1916-1981) (by Smithsonian Institution)

And here we have one of the NYBG’s own. Dr. Barksdale was a mycologist who earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in botany from the University of North Carolina. She is most famous for discovering an important antifungal agent used in control fungal infections on plants. She joined the staff at the Garden in 1952 and carried out work here for over two decades. Her archive is available to researchers through our Mertz Library. ~AR

fuckyesfemalescientists:

Alma Whiffen Barksdale (1916-1981) (by Smithsonian Institution)

3:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5ygiw2fP
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(Notes: 40)
  
Filed under: Alma Whiffen Barksdale Women Scientists Botany Botanists Science Mycology Women's History 
March 18, 2013
fuckyesfemalescientists: Johanna Westerdijk (1883-1961) (by Smithsonian Institution) It looks like we hold a copy of Westerdijk’s thesis and dissertation from the University of Zurich in the collections of the Mertz Library. She was a botanist and plant pathologist and “was one of the first women appointed as a professor in a Dutch university; she taught at the University of Utrecht from 1917 until 1952.”

fuckyesfemalescientists:

Johanna Westerdijk (1883-1961) (by Smithsonian Institution)

It looks like we hold a copy of Westerdijk’s thesis and dissertation from the University of Zurich in the collections of the Mertz Library. She was a botanist and plant pathologist and “was one of the first women appointed as a professor in a Dutch university; she taught at the University of Utrecht from 1917 until 1952.”

10:40am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5ygYNjvn
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(Notes: 20)
  
Filed under: Female Scientists Botany Botanists Johanna Westerdijk The LuEsther T. Mertz Library 
April 13, 2012
foucaultscat: Jeanne Baret (sometimes spelled Baré or Barret) (July 27, 1740 – August 5, 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation. Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret. She enlisted as valet and assistant to the expedition’s naturalist, Philibert Commerçon (anglicized as Commerson), shortly before Bougainville’s ships sailed from France. According to Bougainville’s account, Baret was herself an expert botanist. Excellent! And it sounds like she was involved in collecting the first samples of the genus of popular, colorful plants, Bougainvillea. We have many specimens of this which are currently in full “bloom” in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Why bloom in quotes? Because the colorful “petals” of the plant are actually bracts, specialized, colored leaves that look like flowers, but are not. The poinsettia is another popular plant with colored bracts. ~AR

foucaultscat:

Jeanne Baret (sometimes spelled Baré or Barret) (July 27, 1740 – August 5, 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation.

Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret. She enlisted as valet and assistant to the expedition’s naturalist, Philibert Commerçon (anglicized as Commerson), shortly before Bougainville’s ships sailed from France. According to Bougainville’s account, Baret was herself an expert botanist.

Excellent! And it sounds like she was involved in collecting the first samples of the genus of popular, colorful plants, Bougainvillea. We have many specimens of this which are currently in full “bloom” in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Why bloom in quotes? Because the colorful “petals” of the plant are actually bracts, specialized, colored leaves that look like flowers, but are not. The poinsettia is another popular plant with colored bracts. ~AR

(via scinerds)

11:39am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5yJbLIuM
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(Notes: 61)
  
Filed under: Jeanne Baret Louis Antoine de Bougainville Bougainvillea Botanical History Botanists Women Plants Nature Science Geekery 
June 15, 2011
How flowers found their way to Ireland from the Yangtze

Have you ever seen a plant with henryi as the species and wondered who Henry was? Well, now you can find out. Click through to this story about the fascinating Irish plant hunter, Augustine Henry, who traveled to China and discovered more than 1,700 species of plants.

5:25pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5y67KmFh
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(Notes: 25)
  
Filed under: Plants Botanists Plant Hunters History China 
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