inventor

Ochoa was the first Hispanic female in space, an astronaut on the nine-day Space Shuttle Discovery mission in 1993.

Last month on these pages, we told you about the invention of the umbrella that can be protection from April showers. Now we’ll tell you about May flowers—specifically the beginnings of intellectual property protection for new plants and the emergence of plant patents—to celebrate passage of the U.S. Plant Patent Act of 1930, 92 years ago this month.