The ineluctable appeal of women botanists

 I have read biographies of Linnaeus, of Asa Gray, Thomas Nuttall, of Aven Nelson..and come to think of it quite a few other such gentlemen over the decades. They were all good reads. 

Why is it I find biographies of women botanists so much more interesting? Alice Eastwood's Wonderland: The Adventures of a Botanist, by Carol Green Wilson had me spellbound from start to finish. Her rescue of type specimens from the Academy of Science in San Francisco was of course practically Indiana Jones in its excitement--but there is something more to her story than what men had to put up with.

I picked up a copy of The Forgotten Botanist on my last visit to Tucson (where the mountain looking down on the city is named for her--and where she has not been forgotten). Again it is a page turner, and of course her husband kept getting credit for her work. 

This afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of watching a movie at Cincinnati's fantastic Union Station--a gigantic Art Deco masterpiece filled with museums, restaurant, wonderful ice cream parlor and much more--including a theatre where documentaries are shown. We'd just seen Lucy Braun (and her sister Annette's) graves at Spring Grove cemetery. I'd actually seen it a half dozen year's earlier one August--but this time I managed to take a picture of the enormous white oak which towered here long before European settlement of this area.

Our Cincinnati host, Scott Beuerlein, is standing in front of the ancient oak...

That picture doesn't give the right scale. Here's one that coveys the magnificent oaks size better. We'd just seen Lucy Braun (and her sister Annette's) graves at the fringe of the oak's crown.

Scott's wonderful wife, Michelle, gives a much better sense of the size of this specimen. There were dozens of graves in the shadow of the oak--it took us a while to find the Braun sisters. 

Later this afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of watching a movie about Lucy Braun at Cincinnati's fantastic Union Station--a gigantic Art Deco masterpiece filled with museums, restaurant, wonderful ice cream parlor and much more--including a theatre where documentaries are shown. 

Like the books I've read about women botanists, this documentary was more stirring than similar pieces I've seen done about men. I suspect knowing the enormous challenges professional women faced in the past (and no doubt still do) adds a layer of concern and engagement to the account of their lives. Or are women just more interesting?

Click on the image above to have a chance to learn about a great American botanist. And her sister to boot--an important entomologist.

And if you've managed to read this far, I have another blog post about another extraordinary woman who also led an extraordinary life in Academia and beyond: Mary Rippon.