Ynes Mexia, Denali's First Botanist

Figure 1. Ynes Mexia

Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

By Erik Johnson, Denali Historian

In the summer of 1928, an unlikely person emerged as Denali's first botanist.

At the time, Ynes Mexia had only recently started her journey as one of the great plant collectors in the world. Mexia's story is extraordinary because of the numerous collections she accumulated in her brief career, which, incredibly, did not begin until she was well into her fifties. Mexia bravely traveled to obscure and potentially dangerous parts of the world to accomplish her work and did so while also courageously navigating a scientific field dominated by men. At the time (and well after), women's abilities to contribute to science were routinely dismissed but this did not deter Ynes Mexia.¹ Perhaps then it's no surprise that Mexia would be fine roaming through Mount McKinley National Park, sometimes by herself, to collect numerous samples of the region's flora.

Ynes Mexia was born on May 24, 1870 (same year as Fannie Quigley), to a Mexican diplomat in Washington, D.C. She spent a major part of her early life living in Mexico before moving to San Francisco to embark on a new life that involved social work, conservation of redwoods, and eventually pursuit of a botany degree at age 51.²

Mexia's plant collecting journey at Mount McKinley National Park began in June 1928 and included traveling from McKinley Station to the base of Copper Mountain (now called Mount Eielson), near miner O.M. Grant's cabin, and then on to Wonder Lake. She cached her pressed plants at the Big Timber Ranger Cabin (no longer extant; see figure 2).³

Figure 2. "Big Timber" or "McKinley Bar Cabin" in 1928. Mexia cached many of her collections here in summer 1928. Rangers Fritz Nyberg and Grant Pearson built the cabin in 1926 and it also was referred to as the "Kantishna Ranger Station"

DENA 3955, Denali National Park and Preserve Museum Collection

That summer, the park boasted just 800 visitors and a staff of six. The park road was still under construction and had yet to reach the East Fork of the Toklat River. After completing the Igloo Cabin the year before, the Alaska Road Commission (ARC) built the East Fork Cabin, but the East Fork Bridge was not completed until 1930. Miners were active in the Copper Mountain area inside the park and in Kantishna, which was just beyond the north boundary at the time.

The June 1928 Superintendent's Report briefly documented her arrival and its significance:

Mrs. Ynes Mexia and her assistant, Miss Francine Payne, are spending several weeks in the park making a collection of wild flowers and plants for the University of California and other institutions. This is the first careful study that has been made of the botany of McKinley Park. It is probable that we can secure an article on the wild flowers of the Park from Mrs. Mexia to be included in the park bulletin. Mrs. Mexia was recommended to us by Professor Joseph Dixon. The Transportation Company is giving her every assistance they can, knowing the value of her work.⁵

Figure 3. Grant Cabin at Copper Mountain in 1926

DENA 11236, Denali National Park and Preserve Museum Collection

When she departed from the park, Mexia left several stacks of pressed plants that were nearly three feet high, and rangers transported them to McKinley Station with their dog teams. She worked with Rangers Bill Myers and Fritz Nyberg, and the latter commented on the courage she demonstrated conducting her work in remote Alaska.⁵

Figure 4. Mexia collected this Geum Rossii (Aiton) Ser. specimen (also known as "Ross' Avens") at the head of the Savage River in July 1928

Smithsonian Institution

While in Mount McKinley National Park, Mexia collected 365 plant types and 6,100 specimens in all.

Some of the duplicate plant sheets she put together were distributed to institutions across the world, including the National Herbarium in Washington, DC, the University of California Herbarium, and the Riks Museum in Stockholm.⁶

Mexia has been hailed as one of the best plant collectors in American history, and she earned part of that reputation during her visit to our park. The samples she collected were part of the park's first large and systematic plant collection and botanical investigation.⁷

Figure 1. Portrait of Ynes Mexia, 1920s

Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

After leaving Alaska, Mexia pursued collecting expeditions in South America and throughout Mexico. During her career, she accumulated nearly 145,000 specimens, which included 600 new species of plant and two new genera. More than sixty plants were named in her honor.⁸

She passed away in 1938 and left most of her estate to the Save the Redwoods League and the Sierra Club. Mexia holds a special place in Denali's history as she was at the forefront of our park's botanical study, a practice that National Park Service botanists continue to build upon nearly a century later.

---

^{1 Jess Romeo, "Ynes Mexia: Botanical Trailblazer," JSTOR Daily, September 29, 2020, https://daily.jstor.org/ynes-mexia-botanical-trailblazer/
2 Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Muir Woods National Monument, Ynes Mexia, https://www.nps.gov/people/ynes-mexia.htm; Mexia went to University of California Berkeley
3 Tom Walker, McKinley Station: The People of the Pioneer Park that Became Denali (Missoula: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, Inc., 2009), 288-290.
4 Superintendent's Monthly Report, Mount McKinley National Park, June 1928.
5 Walker, McKinley Station, 288-290.
6 Carl A. Roland, The Vascular Plant Floristics of Denali National Park and Preserve. A Summary, Including the Results of Plant Inventory Fieldwork. History of Plant Collecting in Denali National Park and Preserve (Denali National Park and Preserve: National Park Service, 2004), 30.
7 Roland, Vascular Plant Floristics, 30. Walker, McKinley Station, 288-290. The earliest documented reference to a plant being collected, for scientific purposes, in what is now Denali National Park and Preserve was in 1902 by L.M. Prindle, who was a part of the Alfred Brooks expedition.
8 Romeo, "Ynes Mexia," https://daily.jstor.org/ynes-mexia-botanical-trailblazer/; Golden Gate NRA and Muir Woods NM, Ynes Mexia, https://www.nps.gov/people/ynes-mexia.htm}