Name Mildred Mathias | ||
Mildred Esther Mathias Top #8 Facts
Mildred Esther Mathias (1906-1995) was an American award-winning botanist.
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Beginning her college career in the 1920s, she originally had planned to study mathematics. But she instead studied botany, getting her bachelor's, master's degree and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis.
She studied, classified, and led groups to discover plants across the world, from Southeastern Asia to Australia, to South-Central Africa, to the Amazons, to the western United States. She discovered over 100 types of Umbelliferae, or carrots. Her research was so revered, she had a genus, the Mathiasella, named in her honor. She had a huge emphasis on education for the general public, both directing the UCLA botanical garden (which was then renamed the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden in her honor) and hosting a weekly television show on gardening. She published over 100 articles and books about her findings. She was a voice of conservation in Costa Rica, creating the Organization for Tropical studies, helping with preservation of Costa Rican lands. She also helped establish the U.S. National Reserve System. Along with all this, she was a professor at UCLA from 1962 until 1974. She was also president of the American Society for Plant Taxonomists, and the Botanical Society of America.
Awards
In 1964, Mathias was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year. She also won several other awards, including: