Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía (May 24, 1870 – July 12, 1938) was a Mexican-American botanist notable for her extensive collection of novel specimens of flora and plants originating from sites in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. She discovered a new genus of Asteraceae, known after her as Mexianthus, and accumulated over 150,000 specimens for botanical study over the course of a career spanning 16 years enduring challenges in the field that included poisonous berries, dangerous terrain, bogs and earthquakes for the sake of her research. Biography Ynés Mexía was born on May 24, 1870, in Washington D.C. to Enrique Mexia, a Mexican diplomat, and Sarah Wilmer Mexía. Her grandfather was José Antonio Mexía, a distinguished Mexican general. Sarah Wilmer was related to Samuel Eccleston, the fifth Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore. In 1873, her father returned to Mexico, and her mother moved Ynés and her six half-siblings to a ranch in Limestone, Texas, later to be called Mexia. Later, the family moved around in various eastern cities such as Philadelphia and Ontario, where she received a private school education. They settled in Maryland, where Ynés attended St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Emmittsburg. In 1887, she moved to Mexico where she remained with her father for ten years. While residing there in 1897, Mexia married her first husband, Herman de Laue, a Spanish-German merchant, who died in 1904. Around the time of his death, Mexia started Quinta, a pet and poultry stock raising business, at the hacienda she inherited from her father's estate. Later, she married D. Augustin Reygados, but the union ended in divorce in 1906, after he effectively bankrupted the business. In 1909, at the age of 39, Mexía suffered a mental and physical breakdown and left Mexico for San Francisco in search of medical care. She was treated by Dr. Philip King Brown, founder of the Arequipa Sanatorium in Fairfax, for a total of ten years. While in Northern California, Mexía began going on excursions with the Sierra Club into the mountains, and thus became interested in the region's ecology such as redwoods, birds, and plants. In 1924 Mexía became a United States citizen. Ynés wrote to Alice Eastwood in July 1925, advising Eastwood that she was about to accompany Stanford's Assistant Herbarium Curator, Roxanna Ferris, on a collecting trip to Mexico, which would be her first botanical exploration in that country. In middle age, Mexía had found her purpose