Margaret Mee smelling the night-flowering moonflower
Margaret Ursula Mee (1909-1988) was an English woman who, in the 1950s, traveled the Amazon’s rivers and explored the forest at a time when women simply did not do those things. She marveled at the richness of the flora in Brazil, and over the next three decades made a total of 15 expeditions, documenting with her brushes and pencils the flora and fauna of the Amazon.
Her formal art training was in ceramics and sculpture, though her botanical paintings were totally different from the three-dimensional art she created. She rendered the strength and beauty of the human form with great energy. By contrast, her paintings of plants are carefully detailed and accurately depict the botanical structures of the highly diverse flora of the Amazon. It was as if she entered the heart of the objects she painted.
Elizabeth Kiernan is a project coordinator for the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden. She is currently working on a program to document the biodiversity of the Amazonian region of South America. Each Wednesday throughout Women’s History Month, Science Talk will celebrate one of the many women of science to have left a mark on botanical history.
An engraving of Jeanne Baret portrays her in loose-fitting clothing. (Credit: Leemage/Getty Images/Universal Images Gr.)
Jeanne Baret risked everything for her love of botany and, in doing so, became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. This notable feat was even more remarkable because for much of the voyage, her shipmates did not know she was a woman.
Baret was born in France in 1740. Her working-class parents taught her to identify plants for their healing properties, and she became an expert “herb woman,” a peasant schooled in botanical medicine. Her passion for botany drew her to renowned naturalist Philibert Commerson, who shared her fascination with plants.
Through the recommendation of Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who devised the system for naming species that science still uses today, Commerson was hired as the botanist on Louis de Bougainville’s voyage around the world in search of undiscovered territories, which set sail in 1766.
Commerson wanted Baret to join him in identifying and collecting plant species because of her vast botanical knowledge, but at this time women were strictly prohibited from sailing aboard French ships. Baret and Commerson devised a plan so that she could join the expedition as Commerson’s field assistant: disguise Jeanne as “Jean” by wrapping bandages around her chest and dressing her in loose-fitting clothing to hide her gender.
