Mildred Esther Mathias was an American award-winning botanist.
Education
But she instead studied botany, getting her bachelor"s, masters degree and Doctor of Philosophy at Washington University in Saint 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.
Career
Beginning her college career in the 1920s, she originally had planned to study mathematics. 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 University of California, Los Angeles botanical garden (which was then renamed the Mildred East 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 United States. National Reserve System. Along with all this, she was a professor at University of California, Los Angeles from 1962 until 1974.
She was also president of the American Society for Plant Taxonomists, and the Botanical Society of America.