Surprising is the only word. The list of important female plant collectors from Belize is pretty short. So, when someone emailed out of the blue, about an Indigenous woman who collected in Belize I nearly fell off my seat.
It started with work on hidden figures and the search for plant genera named for women. A group of researchers from around the world had come together following a discussion on social media and started – during the pandemic – to work virtually on angiosperm genera honouring women and female beings. With the aim to highlight honoured women and their contributions to science and botany, the international collaboration resulted in a dynamic, multi-linked and open dataset comprising currently 700+ individuals.
Hidden among the thousands of names studied for the paper was the genus Chanekia described in the tropical tree family Lauraceae and named after a woman called Mercedes Chanek. What caught Sabine’s eye was the author’s note that she was an Indigenous collector: ‘The genus is named for Mercedes Chanek, the Maya plant collector.’
Having worked in Belize for a long time, I have seen a lot of specimens collected from the forests and savannas of Belize. Including the entire herbarium collection at the National Herbarium of Belize (BRH) in Belmopan. But I had never heard of Mercedes Chanek or her specimens. Even the otherwise comprehensive collection history of Belize in the National Checklist has no mention of her.
Mercedes is a real mystery. She collected very briefly, for a couple of months ninety years ago just in the area around “Cayo” now known as San Ignacio, the capital of Cayo District. She collected for the American botanist Cyrus Lundell. Cyrus had other local collectors who worked for him and with whom he maintained longer relationships, for example Percy Gentle. Yet, he was so impressed by Mercedes’ collecting that he named multiple plant species and a genus after her. So, currently the most we know about her stems from a trail of specimens scattered in collections across the United States and Europe, and a couple of references to her in publications by Cyrus Lundell. But there is otherwise, very little trace of her. Even asking friends and colleagues who live and work in San Ignacio, no one is even familiar with the surname Chanek.
We want to know more about Mercedes Chanek. Who was this prolific collector? This theme of indigenous collectors being overlooked is common during colonial era botanical discovery. Likewise, women have been marginalised and written out of much of botanical history. But to find an Indigenous female collector who has made such a contribution in a small, relatively well documented country like Belize, is a huge surprise. We are grateful that Lundell valued her but there is still so little known about Mercedes Chanek.
Zoë Goodwin (RBGE) and Sabine von Mering (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin)
Further Reading:
Lundell CL (1937) Chanekia, a new genus in the Lauraceae. Phytologia 1: 177–181. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13790711
von Mering S, Gardiner LM, Knapp S, Lindon H, Leachman S, Ulloa Ulloa C, Vincent S, Vorontsova MS (2023) Creating a multi-linked dynamic dataset: a case study of plant genera named for women. Biodiversity Data Journal 11: e114408. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.11.e114408
Leachman S, von Mering S, Lindon H, Ulloa Ulloa C (2023) Entangled “her”stories – How to create an open multi-linked dynamic dataset of plant genera named for women. Guest blog post for Pensoft Blog.
- “Piper chanekii.” In the digital collection University of Michigan Herbarium Catalog Collection. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/herb00ic/x-1111986/mich-v-1111986. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed October 04, 2024. ↩︎
- “Croton asteroides.” In the digital collection University of Michigan Herbarium Catalog Collection. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/herb00ic/x-1159228/mich-v-1159228. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed October 04, 2024. ↩︎