April 7, 2026 • 9 mins
Dr. Charlotte M. Taylor is one of the most prolific botanists of our time. We break down her story.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I don't come to stuff.
Never told your production. I heart radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And Happy April. I don't know why I had to
begin it that way, but I guess I'll go there.
If you are currently listening as we are releasing, it
is April beginning of April.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That is Happy Easter if you celebrated.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Also April is Earth Month, where we are supposed to
be talking about environmental issues and all of the such.
So we thought for this activist around the world that
we should celebrate a botanist who is one of the
most quote unquote like literally every article starts off with
most prolific female or woman botanists alive today. And I
(00:56):
was like, oh, she is based out of the US,
out of Missouri. If you hear any of her podcasts
or interviews, they talk about the garden and it's talking
about Missouri Botanical Garden, which I'm like, Oh, they just call.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It the garden. I like that.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, we are talking about doctor Charlotte M.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Taylor. So doctor Taylor is a pretty big deal in
the botany world.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
She is a professor and researcher specializing in taxonomy, which
it took me a little bit of time to figure
that out, which is a biologist who studies the origins
and classifications of specific organisms in groups. So it is
very specified with that they study relationships of specific groups
of plants, and they name them, they classify them. She
(01:42):
and we've talked about it with a female first with Eves.
I remember this episode because I really were like fascinated
by the fact that they would go into the woods
and just go and research. Essentially, this is what she does,
and she has done it so well that she has
become prolific in this field. As she explains it to
Saint Louis NPR, a small specialized part that tries to
(02:02):
make sense of the organisms around them so others can
understand better about them. So she gets very like poetic
and trying to put it in layman's terms so that
we understand essentially what this is. And she goes on
to talk about how she studies new organisms and tries
to help classify them to better understand their functioning.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So here's a bit from that interview.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Taylor has spent more than forty years in the field
of botany and taxonomy. The general question is what is
all this life around us? She explained, this is imposing
a scientific framework on stuff that scientists can use. You
have to understand what the plant is doing and who
the plant is before you name it. So if you
go and listen to any of her interviews of the podcast,
(02:48):
different interviews that there's not a lot of interviews that
I could find online, like that's written articles, but the
view that you can see she does talk about how
she takes on the environment when she's classifying these plants.
There's actually very strict rules on how you can name
them as well as she talks about the documents.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
She talks about codes like it's really specific.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It's like, oh, okay, okay, there's regulations upon regulations upon regulations,
and they do it really well. She talked about an
experience where she went to South America and she was
doing a plant that was sweeter, so she named it
something in relations to being sweet. It was like she
talked about like a stevia type of plant, and I
was like, oh, very cool, very cool to listen if
(03:34):
you get a chance to hear her interviews and this
work of discovering and naming plant has again put her
at the top of the list for her work. She
has a record number of naming over five hundred species
as of December twenty twenty three, which puts her in
the top three of the most again prolific female botanists
to describe new species in history of all time. The
(03:58):
other two are no longer alive, like it's been a
long time, so she is literally the only living one
to have hit that number. Huge, and like most people
who are passionate about the work, she didn't realize it
until other people told her so. This is from an
article from Discover and share dot org. In her forty
one year career, Missouri potchnical garden scientist Charlotte Taylor has
(04:20):
described five hundred new species of plants. That makes her
the most prolific female author of new plant species alive.
She's the third most prolific female botanist to describe new
species in history. But until a team of researchers looking
to recognize the work of women in botany reached out
to her, she had no idea of her ranking. I
(04:41):
have never thought about it. You look at the nineteenth
century authors that they describe new species, and they get
twenty thirty thousand new names. She explains, it was a
total shock. I had to read the message twice. You
gotta love that you really didn't know you were making history,
because all you're thinking is I'm doing this job, which,
by the way, I still kind of don't think about
(05:01):
this as a job. And I think I said this
during Eve's episode with female First, because I was like,
that's yeah, naming things, like creating names and like being
able to like really be a part of scientific history.
And this woman who was still alive is doing so today.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yes, that's definitely iconic.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
It's pretty awesome that she was like, huh, right, Not
only is she doing these things which not many people
can do, she didn't realize how much she has done.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And if you look at her family history, it isn't
too much of a shock to see her in this field.
Again from that same article, Taylor's upbringing also helped guide
her toward a career studying the natural world. Her mother
had a degree in natural history and her father was
a wildlife biologist. Both were avid birdwatchers, and her family
spent much of their time outside, and though she always
(05:54):
knew she wanted to study the environment around her and nature,
it wasn't until a bit later she decided to pursue taxonomy.
I think, she said she got thought it was going
to be an ecologist, which kind of like hand in hand,
but there's differences. But she realized that this type of
work was like unraveling a mystery. And she goes on
saying that quote, I love mysteries and I love puzzles,
(06:15):
and plant taxonomy is a puzzle. So her work is
focused on ruby Asia, specifically plants that include those used
for coffee in coining uh you know, always in the
good Tonic. She has traveled to different countries around the
world to collect specimens and plants, including Chile, Colombia, and
also in the United States. And back to that discoverer
(06:37):
share and share dot Org article, they write Taylor's work
has focused on Latin America, where the highest number of
species can be found. She went on to talk about
how she loved winter, but now she says, I went
to the tropics and that was it.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No more winter. Like She's just like, okay, well, this
is my life now.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And when she spoke again with the Saint Louis in NPR,
she said this about her work. In order to study something,
you have to know what it is. We do this
with documentation and careful delimitation of information so that people
can find it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I basically write reference books. Yeah, so she goes on to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Talk about how she went from the field to doing
this work and writing and documenting and making sure that
it is all processed, which we talked about how important
of work that is. But yeah, she kind of was like,
I'm I'm gonna let the young ones take those now.
And there are several articles talking about her mentorship how
she really did open up pathways for a lot of
(07:29):
women to be in botany. There were so many articles
because I wanted specifically to look at this type of
field that talk about how it's.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Been slow rolling.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Even though women have always been a part of the field,
doesn't mean they weren't always welcomed. Again, back to that
Eve's Female first episode we talked about because she was
a pioneer and she was a woman of color doing
this work, and it's kind of like, oh, it took
these measures, and even today, even though there's a lot more,
they definitely talk about how they had to have each
other's backs and push forward diversity. So we love to
(07:59):
see that, and yeah, you an't want to talk about
again her achievement, and they write this. She was contacted
by researchers from Royal Potanical Gardens Q and the University
of Cambridge. Their twenty twenty study Acknowledging Female role Models
in Botanical and Mycological Taxonomy, documented the contributions of women
scientists across decades and found that Taylor's five hundred use
(08:20):
plant species made her the third most prolific female botanist
of all time.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And again she talks about it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It was actually very exciting, very satisfying, and very surprising
because I simply never thought about it. I worked at
the Missouri Botanical Garden. That's what we do. This is
who we are. We're the big time. Of course I
have a lot of species. I love that because I
talk about how there's like sixty other taxonomists in the garden,
as they say, but obviously she's high up there and
(08:46):
has done a lot of work. So it's definitely awesome
when you find and discover people like this who do
such incredible work that rarely understand how big of an
impact they have.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I'm glad you got to hear it when she was alive.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, And I just love the passion and determination of
not even thinking about that. You're just right going to jab.
That's my job, all right, if you say so. Well,
listeners as always. If you have any thoughts about this
or any suggestions for future episodes, you can contact us.
(09:23):
You can email us at Hello at stuff iever Told
You dot com. You can find us a blue skyt
Mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at coom Bureau, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
always to our super produced Christine, our executive produce, and a.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Contributor, Joey. Thank you. Thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Stuff Whenever Told You question by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app Apple podcast wherever you listen to your
favorite show
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I don't come to stuff.
Never told your production. I heart radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And Happy April. I don't know why I had to
begin it that way, but I guess I'll go there.
If you are currently listening as we are releasing, it
is April beginning of April.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
That is Happy Easter if you celebrated.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Also April is Earth Month, where we are supposed to
be talking about environmental issues and all of the such.
So we thought for this activist around the world that
we should celebrate a botanist who is one of the
most quote unquote like literally every article starts off with
most prolific female or woman botanists alive today. And I
(00:56):
was like, oh, she is based out of the US,
out of Missouri. If you hear any of her podcasts
or interviews, they talk about the garden and it's talking
about Missouri Botanical Garden, which I'm like, Oh, they just call.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It the garden. I like that.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, we are talking about doctor Charlotte M.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Taylor. So doctor Taylor is a pretty big deal in
the botany world.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
She is a professor and researcher specializing in taxonomy, which
it took me a little bit of time to figure
that out, which is a biologist who studies the origins
and classifications of specific organisms in groups. So it is
very specified with that they study relationships of specific groups
of plants, and they name them, they classify them. She
(01:42):
and we've talked about it with a female first with Eves.
I remember this episode because I really were like fascinated
by the fact that they would go into the woods
and just go and research. Essentially, this is what she does,
and she has done it so well that she has
become prolific in this field. As she explains it to
Saint Louis NPR, a small specialized part that tries to
(02:02):
make sense of the organisms around them so others can
understand better about them. So she gets very like poetic
and trying to put it in layman's terms so that
we understand essentially what this is. And she goes on
to talk about how she studies new organisms and tries
to help classify them to better understand their functioning.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So here's a bit from that interview.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Taylor has spent more than forty years in the field
of botany and taxonomy. The general question is what is
all this life around us? She explained, this is imposing
a scientific framework on stuff that scientists can use. You
have to understand what the plant is doing and who
the plant is before you name it. So if you
go and listen to any of her interviews of the podcast,
(02:48):
different interviews that there's not a lot of interviews that
I could find online, like that's written articles, but the
view that you can see she does talk about how
she takes on the environment when she's classifying these plants.
There's actually very strict rules on how you can name
them as well as she talks about the documents.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
She talks about codes like it's really specific.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
It's like, oh, okay, okay, there's regulations upon regulations upon regulations,
and they do it really well. She talked about an
experience where she went to South America and she was
doing a plant that was sweeter, so she named it
something in relations to being sweet. It was like she
talked about like a stevia type of plant, and I
was like, oh, very cool, very cool to listen if
(03:34):
you get a chance to hear her interviews and this
work of discovering and naming plant has again put her
at the top of the list for her work. She
has a record number of naming over five hundred species
as of December twenty twenty three, which puts her in
the top three of the most again prolific female botanists
to describe new species in history of all time. The
(03:58):
other two are no longer alive, like it's been a
long time, so she is literally the only living one
to have hit that number. Huge, and like most people
who are passionate about the work, she didn't realize it
until other people told her so. This is from an
article from Discover and share dot org. In her forty
one year career, Missouri potchnical garden scientist Charlotte Taylor has
(04:20):
described five hundred new species of plants. That makes her
the most prolific female author of new plant species alive.
She's the third most prolific female botanist to describe new
species in history. But until a team of researchers looking
to recognize the work of women in botany reached out
to her, she had no idea of her ranking. I
(04:41):
have never thought about it. You look at the nineteenth
century authors that they describe new species, and they get
twenty thirty thousand new names. She explains, it was a
total shock. I had to read the message twice. You
gotta love that you really didn't know you were making history,
because all you're thinking is I'm doing this job, which,
by the way, I still kind of don't think about
(05:01):
this as a job. And I think I said this
during Eve's episode with female First, because I was like,
that's yeah, naming things, like creating names and like being
able to like really be a part of scientific history.
And this woman who was still alive is doing so today.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yes, that's definitely iconic.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
It's pretty awesome that she was like, huh, right, Not
only is she doing these things which not many people
can do, she didn't realize how much she has done.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
And if you look at her family history, it isn't
too much of a shock to see her in this field.
Again from that same article, Taylor's upbringing also helped guide
her toward a career studying the natural world. Her mother
had a degree in natural history and her father was
a wildlife biologist. Both were avid birdwatchers, and her family
spent much of their time outside, and though she always
(05:54):
knew she wanted to study the environment around her and nature,
it wasn't until a bit later she decided to pursue taxonomy.
I think, she said she got thought it was going
to be an ecologist, which kind of like hand in hand,
but there's differences. But she realized that this type of
work was like unraveling a mystery. And she goes on
saying that quote, I love mysteries and I love puzzles,
(06:15):
and plant taxonomy is a puzzle. So her work is
focused on ruby Asia, specifically plants that include those used
for coffee in coining uh you know, always in the
good Tonic. She has traveled to different countries around the
world to collect specimens and plants, including Chile, Colombia, and
also in the United States. And back to that discoverer
(06:37):
share and share dot Org article, they write Taylor's work
has focused on Latin America, where the highest number of
species can be found. She went on to talk about
how she loved winter, but now she says, I went
to the tropics and that was it.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
No more winter. Like She's just like, okay, well, this
is my life now.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And when she spoke again with the Saint Louis in NPR,
she said this about her work. In order to study something,
you have to know what it is. We do this
with documentation and careful delimitation of information so that people
can find it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I basically write reference books. Yeah, so she goes on to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Talk about how she went from the field to doing
this work and writing and documenting and making sure that
it is all processed, which we talked about how important
of work that is. But yeah, she kind of was like,
I'm I'm gonna let the young ones take those now.
And there are several articles talking about her mentorship how
she really did open up pathways for a lot of
(07:29):
women to be in botany. There were so many articles
because I wanted specifically to look at this type of
field that talk about how it's.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Been slow rolling.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Even though women have always been a part of the field,
doesn't mean they weren't always welcomed. Again, back to that
Eve's Female first episode we talked about because she was
a pioneer and she was a woman of color doing
this work, and it's kind of like, oh, it took
these measures, and even today, even though there's a lot more,
they definitely talk about how they had to have each
other's backs and push forward diversity. So we love to
(07:59):
see that, and yeah, you an't want to talk about
again her achievement, and they write this. She was contacted
by researchers from Royal Potanical Gardens Q and the University
of Cambridge. Their twenty twenty study Acknowledging Female role Models
in Botanical and Mycological Taxonomy, documented the contributions of women
scientists across decades and found that Taylor's five hundred use
(08:20):
plant species made her the third most prolific female botanist
of all time.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And again she talks about it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
It was actually very exciting, very satisfying, and very surprising
because I simply never thought about it. I worked at
the Missouri Botanical Garden. That's what we do. This is
who we are. We're the big time. Of course I
have a lot of species. I love that because I
talk about how there's like sixty other taxonomists in the garden,
as they say, but obviously she's high up there and
(08:46):
has done a lot of work. So it's definitely awesome
when you find and discover people like this who do
such incredible work that rarely understand how big of an
impact they have.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I'm glad you got to hear it when she was alive.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, And I just love the passion and determination of
not even thinking about that. You're just right going to jab.
That's my job, all right, if you say so. Well,
listeners as always. If you have any thoughts about this
or any suggestions for future episodes, you can contact us.
(09:23):
You can email us at Hello at stuff iever Told
You dot com. You can find us a blue skyt
Mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
some merchandise at coom Bureau, and we have a book
you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as
always to our super produced Christine, our executive produce, and a.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Contributor, Joey. Thank you. Thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Stuff Whenever Told You question by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app Apple podcast wherever you listen to your
favorite show
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