Mary DeDecker

Mary Caroline Foster DeDecker (3 October 1909 – 5 September 2000) was an American botanist, conservationist, environmentalist and founder of the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. 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 Barden P. O., later RFD Guymon, in a family of Charles Morrison Foster and Phoebe Arabella Thompson.

In the 1930s and 1940s she started becoming familiar with the natural history of the Eastern Sierra, 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, as well as mounting and labeling many local plants. He taught DeDecker what some of the plants were. He advised him to send unknown specimens to Dr. Philip Munz at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont and John Thomas Howell at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. DeDecker started sending plants to them in early 1950s. In 1954 DeDecker started collecting her herbarium that included over 6,000 specimens. Astragalus ravenii Barneby, Dedeckera eurekensis Reveal & Howell, ), Lupinus dedeckerae Munz & Dunn (now L. padre-crowleyi C.P.Smith ) and Trifolium dedeckerae Gillett.

In 1984, Susan Cochrane of the California Department of Fish & Game proved successful in her bid to name remote canyon south of Eureka Dunes in honor of DeDecker, hence, it is now called Dedeckera Canyon.

DeDecker was active in such organizations as Garden Club, Civic Club, League of Women Voters, 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.

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