Mary Beal

This article is about the American botanist. For the English painter, see Mary Beale.
Mary Beal and John Burroughs, standing outside her tent home on the Dix Van Dyke ranch in 1911

Mary Beal (1878–1964)[1] was a pioneering botanist who spent most of her life in Daggett, California, living at the ranch of local judge Dix Van Dyke.[2] Though an amateur botanist, she was praised by Willis Linn Jepson for her excellent botanical specimens, and many of these were kept by the University and Jepson Herbaria to this day.

She wrote a regular botany column for the Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1953.[2] Back issues of this publication are available online today through Desert Magazine.[3]

A trail at the Mojave National Preserve commemorates her life and contribution to Mojave Desert botany.

Some of her papers are held at the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association[4] and some of her paintings of Mojave Desert flowers are held at the Mojave River Valley Museum in Barstow, California. Other papers and plant specimens are held at the archives of the University and Jepson Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley.[5]

  1. ^ Peyton, Paige M. (2012). Calico: Images of America. Arcadia Publishing. p. 64. ISBN 9780738589053.
  2. ^ a b Sizek, Julia (21 September 2016). "When Women Seldom Travelled Alone, This Botanist Wandered the CA Deserts in Search of Rare Plants". Artbound. KCETLink Media Group. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  3. ^ "Desert Magazine". desertmagazine.com. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  4. ^ "Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association - Home". mdhca.org. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  5. ^ "Mary Beal Papers, 1937-1943". University and Jepson Herbaria Archives. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 11 March 2017.