Ximena Londoño de la Pava (born 1958 in Cali, Colombia) is a Colombian botanist, specializing in

agrostology Agrostology (from Greek , ''agrōstis'', "type of grass"; and , ''-logia''), sometimes graminology, is the scientific study of the grasses (the family Poaceae, or Gramineae). The grasslike species of the sedge family (Cyperaceae), the rush family ...

. She has done extensive research on the bamboo genus '' Guadua'' in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

Biography

In 1979 she began plant collecting. In 1983 she graduated in agricultural engineering from the National University of Colombia at Palmira. After graduation, she studied bamboo taxonomy under

Thomas Robert Soderstrom Thomas Robert Soderstrom (9 January 1936 Chicago – 1 September 1987) was an American agrostologist His special field of study was the grass family Gramineae or Poaceae. He was Curator of Grasses at the National Museum of Natural History in Was ...

at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. Her bamboo research has received funding from the Smithsonian Institution,

Colciencias The Administrative Department of Science, Technology and Innovation ( es, Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación), also known as Colciencias, is a Colombian government agency that supports fundamental and applied researc ...

, the

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, an ...

, the American Bamboo Society (founded in 1979), and the

International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation The International Bamboo and Rattan Organization (INBAR) is an independent intergovernmental organization established in 1997 to develop and promote innovative solutions to poverty and environmental sustainability using bamboo and rattan. Histor ...

. She has over fifteen co-collectors, but the primary two are Lynn G. Clark and Thomas Soderstrom. Primarily collecting among the

Bambusoideae Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

, Ximena Londoño has also collected among the family

Gesneriaceae Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), wi ...

. She has worked primarily in Latin America but also studied bamboos in Indonesia, China, and India. She has collected plant specimens in Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. In Colombia's

Quindío Department Quindío () is a department of Colombia. It is in the western central region of the country, crossed by the Andes mountains. Its capital is Armenia. It is famous for the quality of the coffee plantations, colorful architecture, benign weather, ...

, she owns and manages an organic farm, growing coffee, bamboo, bananas, and tropical flowers. The farm, at 1250 meters altitude, is an estate she inherited from her father, an engineer, and her mother, an artist, who were the owners and managers. Ximena Londoño grew up there and her mother, Doña Sofi, hired two teachers to teach village children in the mornings and village adults in the afternoons. (The school graduated more than 85 students and closed when Doña Sofi died at age 93.) Ximena, with her parents, eventually moved to Cali for her higher education; although the family went back to their farm on weekends. At the National University of Colombia at Palmira, she was one of only eight women in a class of one hundred twenty students. She became a scientist, a traveller, and an adventurer, but always retained her love for her farm and the people in the nearby village. She told an interviewer that at the farm, “''todo se resuelve con una guadua: si había que apuntalar un techo, coger una fruta, fabricar un banco, arreglar uno mesa''” (everything is solved with a ''guadua'': if you had to prop up a roof, pick a fruit, make a bench, fix a table). The farm, with over 70 different bamboo species, is now a center for research and education, as well as a ecotourism destination. In the bamboo subfamily of the family Poaceae, Londoño has described over 50 new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

spanning several different genera, including '' Guadua'', ''

Alvimia ''Alvimia'' is a Brazilian genus of bamboo in the Poaceae, grass family. It is native to the eastern coastal regions of the State of Bahia in eastern Brazil. ;Species # ''Alvimia auriculata'' Soderstr. & Londoño # ''Alvimia gracilis'' Soderst ...

'', '' Arthrostylidium'', '' Aulonemia'', '' Chusquea'', '' Eremocaulon'', and ''

Rhipidocladum ''Rhipidocladum'' is a genus of New World woody bamboo in the grass family). It found in Mesoamerica, Trinidad, and South America. The genus is characterized by 1) erect, non-pseudopetiolate culm leaves, 2) numerous branchlets arising in an aspid ...

''. In 2017 at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the National University of Colombia, the ''Consejo Superior Universitario'' (Higher University Council) honored her in the category ''Investigación o Creación Artística y Cultural'' for her research.

Selected publications

Articles

* maría ximena Londoño de la Pava, eneida Zurita Soto. 2008. ''"Two New Species of Guadua (

: Guaduinae) from Colombia and Bolivia"''. Journal Botanic Research Institute of Texas ISSN 1934-5259 Brit 2 (1 ): 25-34 * ----------------------------------------, l.g. Clark. 2002a. ''A revision of the Brazilian bamboo genus Eremocaulon (Poaceae: Bambuseae: Guaduinae)''. Syst. Bot. 27:703–721 * ----------------------------------------, l.g. Clark. 2002b. ''Three new taxa of Guadua (Poaceae: Bambusoideae) from South America''. Novon 12:64–76 * Judziewicz, emmet, l.g. Clark, x. Londoño, m.j. Stern. 1999. ''American bamboos''. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington & London * lynn g. Clark, ximena Londoño, mikio Kobayashi. 1997. ''Aulonemia bogotensis (Poaceae: Bambusoideae), a New Species from the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia''. Brittonia 49 ( 4 ) : 503-507 * ximena Londoño, p. Peterson. 1992. ''Guadua chacoensis (Poaceae: Bambusoideae), its taxonomic identity, morphology and relationships''. Novon 2:41–47 * --------------------, p. Peterson. 1991. ''Guadua sarcocarpa (Poaceae: Bambuseae), a new Amazonian bamboo with fleshy fruits''. Syst. Bot. 16:630–638

Books

* 1996. ''Diversity and distribution of New World bamboos: with special emphasis on the Bambuseae''. Nº 8 de INBAR working paper. Ed. International Network for Bamboo & Rattan. 25 pp. * 2004. ''Bambúes exóticos en Colombia''. Ed. Sociedad Colombiana del Bambú. 74 pp.

Honors

* President of the ''Sociedad Colombiana de Bambú''

Eponyms

* '' Aulonemia ximenae'' * '' Chusquea'' ''londoniae''

References

External links

* * (with CV for Ximena Londoño) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Londono, Ximena 1958 births Living people 20th-century Colombian botanists Colombian agronomists Agrostologists Colombian women botanists 20th-century Colombian women scientists People from Cali Women agronomists 21st-century Colombian botanists 21st-century Colombian women scientists Colombian women biologists