Skip to content
Rebecca Friedel

Rebecca Friedel

Rebecca Friedel is currently a Plant Humanities Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, focusing on the cultural histories of plants from the Americas. Friedel is also a paleoethnobotanist and PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to reconstructing a history of ancient Maya human-plant relationships in the Mopan River valley of Belize. She is also passionate about education and improving access to knowledge more broadly, having co-founded an educational outreach organization in Belize, Fajina Archaeology Outreach.

Ayecohtli (pictured left) as the scarlet Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus): 1931-33 reproduction of The Badianus Manuscript, 1552; Rare Book Collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC
Plant of the Month

Plant of the Month: The Runner Bean

From Aztec medicinal remedies to Darwin’s study of flower pollination, local knowledge about the runner bean reveals the importance of biodiversity.
Mimosa pudica
Plant of the Month

Plant of the Month: The Sensitive Plant

This plant’s animal-like behavior and alleged love-provoking abilities have sparked the imagination of everyone from early modern yogis to today’s scientists.

Support JSTOR Daily

Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news.