Argentine botanist, Silvia Botta de Miconi became a botany teacher in 1966 while simultaneously studying at the Universities of Buenos Aires and La Plata. She began her research in 1971 at the Darwinion Institute of Botany in San Isidro, Buenos Aires, working on an illustrated flora of Entre Ríos with Arturo Burkart. At this time she developed an interest in the family Verbenaceae which would remain with her throughout her life. In 1985, thanks to a grant from the Natural History Museum of Paris, Botta de Miconi worked with Alicia Lourteig on the delimitation of Verbena, Glandularia and Junellia. Later this year she would marry the sculptor Carlos Miconi. Her travels continued in 1989 when she received a grant from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, to visit herbaria all over the U.S.A. and in 1991 she would return to France to work with G.G. Guittonneau at the University of Orleans. This same year she continued her taxonomic work on the Verbenaceae at the Jodrell Laboratory of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (England) creating a revision of the tribe Verbenae. In South America she undertook many collecting trips including travelling to Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, and assisting in the creation of provincial floras of Argentina including Jujuy, Patagonia and San Juan. She also created Verbenaceae monographs for the floras of Argentina and Paraguay. Unfortunately Botta's life was cut short by an untreatable illness at the age of 52.

Sources:
Guaglianone, E. R. and Múlgura de Romero, M. E., 1995, "Obituario: Silvia Margarita Botta de Miconi (1942-1994) ", Boletín de la Sociedad Argentina de Botánica 30(3-4):251-252.