Though Mexía had a short professional career—only 13 years—compared to many other academics, she collected a huge number of plant specimens. According to the British Natural History museum, she collected at least 145,000 plant specimens during her travels, 500 of which were new species (mostly spermatophytes). There have been at least two new genera "Mexianthus mexicanus" Robinson (Compositae) and "Spumula quadrifida" (Pucciniaceae) have been described from her work. During her first expedition, she collected 500 specimens, which is the same number collected during Darwin's voyage on the Beagle. Although curators are still working to catalogue her full selection of specimens, 50 new species have already been named after her.