Re: women and plants

Dick Richardson (d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu)
Sat, 4 Mar 1995 13:33:14 -0600

Without a doubt, in my opinion the stellar woman was Barbara McClintock,
who won the Nobel Prize about 10 years ago. There is a book "The Discovery
and characterization of Transposable Elements" that is a collection of her
papers (Garland Publishing, New York, 1987, and copyrighted by her. There
is another biography of her that I can't find on my shelf, but should be
easily located in the library. Maybe some of her students will share many
of the wonderful anecdotes about her.

And, on a different direction, I recommend Lynn Margulis as a prime leader
for her development of concepts embedded in "Gaia".

Another mover and shaker was Metasuche Brown for her work in cotton
cytogenetics.

Beryl Simpson in systematics is another prime candidate.

And, Katherine Esau is the leader of plant anatomy for the first half of
this century, and still stands tall.

That's at least a start off the top of my head. Good luck.

R. H. (Dick) Richardson Office: 512-471-4128
Zoology Dept. Home: 512-476-5131
Univ. of Texas FAX: 512-471-9651
Austin, TX 78712