Mary Caroline Foster DeDecker (3 October 1909 - 5 September 2000) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

, conservationist, environmentalist and founder of the Bristlecone Chapter of the

California Native Plant Society The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is a California environmental non-profit organization (501(c)3) that seeks to increase understanding of California's native flora and to preserve it for future generations. The mission of CNPS is to con ...

. She discovered six new plants, three of which, including '' Dedeckera eurekensis'', are named in her honor. Dedeckera Canyon, south of Eureka Dunes, is also named after her.

Life

Mary Caroline Foster was born 3 October 1909 in

Texas County, Oklahoma Texas County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Its county seat is Guymon. As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,640. It is the second largest county in Oklahoma, based on land area, and is named for T ...

Barden P. O., later RFD Guymon, in a family of Charles Morrison Foster and Phoebe Arabella Thompson. Her father was a farmer and an office manager for Los Angeles DWP. She studied at

Van Nuys High School Van Nuys High School (VNHS) is a public high school in the Van Nuys district of Los Angeles, belonging to the Los Angeles Unified School District: District 2. The school is home to a Residential Program and three Magnet Programs—Math/Science, ...

in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

and after that completed one year at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, Los Angeles (UCLA). She lived in Zelzah, now Northridge, until she was married to Paul DeDecker in 1929. The couple moved to

North Hollywood North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...

where their daughters were born in 1932 and 1933. In 1935 the DeDeckers moved to

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

Inyo County Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is o ...

, California. In the 1930s and 1940s she started becoming familiar with the natural history of the

Eastern Sierra The Eastern Sierra is a region in California comprising the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, which includes Mono and Inyo Counties. The main thoroughfare is U.S. Route 395, which passes through Bridgeport, Lee Vining, Bishop, Big Pine, Inde ...

, during numerous extended camping trips with her family. In 2017 her daughters published a book, "Sage & Sierra", in reminiscence of those times. The daughters had left the Eastern Sierra upon graduation from high school. Mary DeDecker died on 5 September 2000 in Independence at the age of 90 and is buried at Independence Cemetery, Inyo County, California.

Work

In Independence DeDecker met a naturalist Mark Kerr who made an exhibit of the plants and their uses by the

Paiute Indians Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Pai ...

, as well as mounting and labeling many local plants. He taught DeDecker what some of the plants were and advised to send unknown specimens to Dr.

Philip Munz Philip Alexander Munz (1892–1974) was an American botanist, plant taxonomist and educator who worked at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and was a professor of botany at Pomona College, serving as dean there for three years. In 1935 Munz publ ...

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden The California Botanic Garden (formerly the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden) is a botanical garden in Claremont, California, in the United States, just south of the San Gabriel foothills. The garden, at , is the largest botanic garden in the sta ...

in Claremont and to

John Thomas Howell John Thomas Howell (November 6, 1903 – May 7, 1994) was an American botanist and taxonomist. He became an expert of ''Eriogonum'' (buckwheat) species, which are widely represented in the native California flora. He was the assistant of Alice ...

at the

California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...

in San Francisco. DeDecker started sending plants to them in early 1950s. In 1954 DeDecker started collecting her

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

that included over 6,000 specimens. She became the pre-eminent plant expert in the northern

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...

and

Nevada areas. In 1966 she published a book called ''Mines of the Eastern Sierra.'' After 1967 she focused on plant work and did not search any other job. She was hired or given contracts for many consulting jobs, largely to fulfill the requirements of

California Environmental Quality Act The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California statute passed in 1970 and signed in to law by then-Governor Ronald Reagan, shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), t ...

. She discovered six new plants: ''

Astragalus lentiginosus ''Astragalus lentiginosus'' is a species of legume native to western North America where it grows in a range of habitats. Common names include spotted locoweed page 752 and freckled milkvetch. There are a great number of wild varieties. The flow ...

'' var. ''piscinensis'', '' Astragalus ravenii'' Barneby, '' Dedeckera eurekensis'' Reveal & Howell, ''Lomatium inyoense'' Math. & Const. (now '' Lomatium foeniculaceum'' (Nutt.) Coult. & Rose subsp. ''inyoense'' (Math. & Const.) Theobald, ''Lupinus dedeckerae'' Munz & Dunn (now '' L. padre-crowleyi'' C. P. Smith) and '' Trifolium dedeckerae'' Gillett. Also she made the first collections of the following plants in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, most of them previously known in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

: '' Agave utahensis'' Engelm. var. ''eborispina'' (Hester) Breit., '' Cryptantha scoparia'' A. Nels., '' Cymopterus ripleyi'' Barneby, ''

Draba cana ''Draba breweri'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common names cushion draba, Lanceleaf Draba, Brewer's draba, and Brewer's Whitlow grass.Eriogonum puberulum'' S. Wats. In 1982 DeDecker founded the Bristlecone Chapter of the

. In 1984, Susan Cochrane of the

California Department of Fish & Game The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), formerly known as the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), is a state agency under the California Natural Resources Agency. The Department of Fish and Wildlife manages and protect ...

proved successful in her bid to name remote canyon south of Eureka Dunes in honor of DeDecker, hence, it is now called Dedeckera Canyon. In 1989 DeDecker, as a botanist who spent many years getting acquainted with the California desert, made a statement at the Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs House of Representatives on California Desert Protection Act of 1989. DeDecker was active in such organizations as Garden Club, Civic Club,

League of Women Voters The League of Women Voters (LWV or the League) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization in the United States. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for vot ...

, botanical organizations, Inyo Associates, Death Valley '49ers. She has served a number of years as Park Liaison Chairman and as second vice-president of the Death Valley '49ers, a supportive organization for

Death Valley National Monument Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

. DeDecker was a community activist in relation to the Owens Valley Committee and Inyo County water issues. She was also active in the Eastern California Museum, mostly a disillusioning experience, and in the Concerned Citizens, an activist organization to fight for the rights of

Owens Valley Owens Valley (Numic Numic is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Pl ...

in the water issues. As a hard-working environmentalist she fought to preserve

and Eureka Dunes in California. She was active in the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

being on the Democratic Central Committee in Inyo County, and was appointed to the State Central Committee by Senator Charles Brown. In DeDecker's memory and for her many contributions to the botany and history of the

Nevada and northern

, The Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society founded Mary DeDecker Botanical Grant, a small-grants program.

Publications (selection)

* 1966 – ''Mines of the Eastern Sierra'' * 1982 – ''Eureka Dunes Recovery Plan'' * 1984 - ''Flora of the Northern Mojave Desert, California'' * 1993 – ''White Smith's Fabulous Salt Tram'' * 1996 - ''Bob Eichbaum's Resort and His Toll Road to Death Valley''

References

External links

Mary DeDecker on Findgrave

Mary DeDecker Golden Bunches of Shrubs , The Daily Gardener

* CNPS Bristlecone Chapter
Tribute to Mary DeDecker (1909–2000) , CNPS Bristlecone Chapter
{{DEFAULTSORT:DeDecker, Mary 20th-century American botanists American women botanists 20th-century American women scientists 1909 births 2000 deaths