Female explorer gets credit two centuries later

Jeanne Baret was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. She didn't get credit for her work on that expedition — until now.

In the 1766, the French botanist disguised herself as a man and joined Louis Antione de Bougainville's no-women-allowed expedition to circle the planet as the assistant to naturalist Philibert Commerçon, her live-in partner.

"Commerçon was allowed to bring an assistant, but it could not be Baret. Women were forbidden from traveling aboard French naval vessels," LiveScience reports. So Baret disguised herself as a teenage boy named Jean Baret who offered "his" services as an assistant.

Once on-board, the crew began to suspect Baret wasn't the boy she claimed to be, but no one pressed the issue beyond a verbal interrogation — Baret claimed to be a eunuch — and she was left to conduct her work with little hassle for the next two years.

Over 70 plant species discovered on that expedition have been credited to Commerçon, who left Baret with nothing when he died — they remained unmarried. But now, biologist Eric Tepe, after hearing Baret's story, has named a new-found plant species after her, celebrating the biologists unsung efforts.

"I have always admired explorers, especially botanical explorers," Tepe said. "We know many of their names, and they all have endured hardships in pursuit of interesting plants, but few have sacrificed so much and endured so much as Baret."

Glynis Ridley, the author of the biography, "The Discovery of Jeanne Baret," said of the tribute, "I don't think she ever expected recognition in her own lifetime, just because women who were involved in science were thought of, at best, as something of an oddity, and, at worst, they were thought of as an abomination."