Wendy Hodgson

Hodgson is the Senior Research botanist and Curator of the Herbarium at the Desert Botanical Garden of Tucson and is considered one of the preeminent botanists of the US / Mexico border region. Her areas of interest include southwest US and northern Mexico floristics, rare and endemic plants, and taxonomy and systematics of Agave and Yucca, including the study of pre-Columbian agave cultivars. Other current projects include the study and documentation of the flora of the Grand Canyon region, including the evolution and distribution of certain plant groups as affected by the unique factors characteristic of this area. She is the author of Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, considered the definitive volume on the subject.