Mildred Esther Mathias (September 19, 1906 – February 16, 1995) was an American botanist and professor.
Beginning her college career in the 1920s, Mathias originally had planned to study mathematics, but she instead studied botany, getting her bachelor's, master's degree and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis by the age of 22.
From 1932 to 1936, Mathias was a research associate at the New York Botanical Garden and then at Berkeley by 1937 with Dr. Lincoln Constance for carrot studies.
[citation needed] She studied, classified, and led groups to discover plants across the world, from Southeastern Asia to Australia, to South-Central Africa, to the Amazons, to the western United States, helping popularize "ecotourism".
[4] She placed a strong emphasis on education for the general public, both directing the UCLA botanical garden (which was renamed the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden in her honor) and hosting a weekly television show via NBC on gardening with co-host Dr. William Stewart called "The Wonderful World of Ornamentals".