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Alice Eastwood (January 19, 1859 – October 30, 1953) was a
Canadian American botanist. She is credited with building the botanical collection at the
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 18 ...
, in San Francisco. She published over 310 scientific articles and authored 395 land plant species names, the fourth-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist. There are seventeen currently recognized species named for her, as well as the genera ''
Eastwoodia'' and ''
Aliciella''.
Biography
Alice Eastwood was born on January 19, 1859, in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...
, Canada, to Colin Skinner Eastwood and Eliza Jane Gowdey Eastwood.
When she was six her mother died.
The children were cared for by various relatives, and for a time, Alice and her sister were placed at the Oshawa Convent in Toronto.
The family reunited with their father and moved to
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...
, Colorado, in 1873.
In 1879, she graduated as valedictorian from East Denver High School.
For the next ten years, Eastwood would teach at her ''alma mater'', forgoing a college education.
She was a self-taught botanist, and relied on knowledge from published botany manuals including Grey's Manual and the Flora of Colorado.
Her botanical knowledge led her to being asked to guide
Alfred Russel Wallace up the summit of
Grays Peak in Denver. Eastwood was also a member of
Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell
Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866–1948) was an American zoologist, born at Norwood, England, and brother of Sydney Cockerell. He was educated at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, and then studied botany in the field in Colorado in 1887 ...
's Colorado Biological Association.
In 1891, after reviewing Eastwood's specimen collection in Denver,
Mary Katharine Brandegee, Curator of the Botany Department at the
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 18 ...
, hired Eastwood to assist in the Academy's
Herbarium
A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.
The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (calle ...
.
There Eastwood oversaw tremendous growth of the Herbarium.
In 1892, Eastwood was promoted to a position as joint curator of the Academy with Brandegee. By 1894, with the retirement of Brandegee, Eastwood was procurator and Head of the Department of Botany, a position she held until her 1949 retirement.
She died in San Francisco on October 30, 1953. The Academy retains a collection of her papers and works.
Work
In her early botanical work, Eastwood made collecting expeditions in Colorado and the
Four Corners region. She became close with the
Wetherill Family, and visited
Alamo Ranch in
Mesa Verde often, beginning in July 1889. Long before that, she was considered a part of the family, and so did not sign the guest register on later trips. Each time Eastwood visited, she was particularly welcomed by Al Wetherill, who shared a sincere interest in her work. In 1892, he served as her guide on a 10-day trip to southeastern Utah to collect desert plants.
Eastwood also made collecting expeditions to the edge of the
Big Sur
Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big S ...
region, which at the end of the 19th century was a virtual frontier, since no roads penetrated the central coast beyond the
Carmel Highlands
Carmel Highlands is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. It is south of Carmel-by-the-Sea (better known as simply, "Carmel"), at an elevation of 318 feet (97 m). Carmel Highlands is also located just sou ...
. In those excursions she discovered several plants theretofore unknown, including
Hickman's potentilla.
Eastwood was credited with saving the Academy's
type plant collection after the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...
. Departing from the curatorial conventions of her era, Eastwood segregated the type specimens from the main collection.
This
classification system permitted her, upon entering the burning building, readily to retrieve nearly 1500 specimens.
After the earthquake, before the Academy had constructed a new building, Eastwood studied in herbaria in Europe and other U.S. regions, including the
Gray Herbarium, the
New York Botanical Garden, the
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
of Paris, the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...
, and the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.
In 1912, with completion of the new Academy facilities at
Golden Gate Park, Eastwood returned to the position of curator of the herbarium and reconstructed the lost part of the collection. She went on numerous collecting vacations in the Western United States, including
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...
(1914),
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...
and
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and W ...
. Starting in 1928, Eastwood accompanied fellow botanist
Susan Delano McKelvey on several collecting expeditions in the Southwest and they built a lasting collaboration, frequently corresponding and exchanging specimens. By keeping the first set of each collection for the Academy and exchanging the duplicates with other institutions, Eastwood was able to build the collection, Abrams noting that she contributed "thousands of sheets to the Academy's herbarium, personally accounting for its growth in size and representation of western flora". By 1942 she had built the collection to about one third of a million specimens, nearly three times the number of specimens destroyed in the 1906 fire.
Eastwood is credited with publishing over 310 articles during her career. She served as editor of the biological journal ''Zoe'' and as an assistant editor for ''Erythea'' before the 1906 earthquake, and founded a journal, ''Leaflets of Western Botany'' (1932–1966), with
John Thomas Howell.
Eastwood was director of the San Francisco Botanical Club for several years throughout the 1890s. In 1929, she helped to form the
American Fuchsia Society
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the " United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, ...
.
Her main botanical interests were western U.S.
Liliaceae
The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a f ...
and the genera ''
Lupinus
''Lupinus'', commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet etc., is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur ...
'', ''
Arctostaphylos
''Arctostaphylos'' (; from "bear" and "bunch of grapes") is a genus of plants comprising the manzanitas () and bearberries. They are shrubs or small trees.
There are about 60 species, of ''Arctostaphylos'', ranging from ground-hugging a ...
'' and ''
Castilleja''.
Gallery
File:Bergen's botany - key and flora - Pacific coast ed (Page 19) BHL18868236.jpg
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File:Bergen's botany - key and flora - Pacific coast ed (Page 22) BHL18868239.jpg
File:A flora of the South Fork of Kings River (Page 6) BHL7377732.jpg
File:A flora of the South Fork of Kings River (Page 7) BHL7377733.jpg
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File:Foundations of botany (Page 37) BHL23641865.jpg
Recognition
* There are currently seventeen recognized species named for Eastwood, as well as the genera ''
Eastwoodia'' and ''
Aliciella''.
*A member of the California Academy of Sciences since 1892, she was unanimously elected an honorary member of the Academy in 1942.
*In 1959, the CAS opened the Eastwood Hall of Botany
*In 1903 she was one of only two of the few women listed in American Men of Science to be denoted, by a star, as being considered to be among the top 25% of professionals in their discipline.
*In 1949, in recognition of her achievements, the American Fuchsia Society awarded her with its Medal of Achievement.
* She was honored in the binomial name of ''Boletus eastwoodiae'', an attractive though poisonous
bolete
{{refimprove, date=July 2020
A bolete is a type of mushroom, or fungal fruiting body. It can be identified thanks to a unique mushroom cap. The cap is clearly different from the stem. On the underside of the cap there is usually a spongy su ...
of western North America which she collected. However, this was renamed ''
Boletus pulcherrimus'' due to a misidentification of type material. It still bears the common name of Alice Eastwood's bolete.
*Eastwood worked to save a redwood grove in Humboldt County, which was later named
Alice Eastwood Memorial Grove
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
.
Plant species named after Eastwood
*
''Agoseris apargioides'' var. ''eastwoodiae'' (woolly goat chicory, Eastwood's seaside agoseris, Beach Dandelion)
*''
Amsinckia eastwoodiae
''Amsinckia eastwoodiae'' is a species of fiddleneck known by the common name Eastwood's fiddleneck. It is endemic to California, where it grows in the varied plant habitat of the hills, mountains, valleys, and coastlines.
''Amsinckia eastwoodia ...
'' (Eastwood's Fiddleneck)
*
''Delphinium parryi'' ssp. ''eastwoodiae'' (Eastwood's larkspur)
*''
Fritillaria eastwoodiae
''Fritillaria eastwoodiae'', also known as Butte County fritillary or Eastwood's fritillary is a rare member of the Lily family (Liliaceae), native to the foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada, and Cascade Mountains in California and southern ...
'' (Butte County fritillary)
*''
Salix eastwoodiae'' (Eastwood's willow)
*''
Aliciella latifolia
''Aliciella latifolia'' (formerly ''Gilia latifolia''),Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, 2nd. Ed. p.314 also known as broad-leaved gilia, is a foul smelling annual plant in the Phlox family (Polemoniaceae) found in deserts of the southwester ...
''
*''
Erigeron aliceae
''Erigeron aliceae'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name Alice Eastwood's fleabane, or simply Alice's fleabane. It was named for American botanist Alice Eastwood, 1859 - 1953.
''Erigeron aliceae'' is ...
''
*''
Eastwoodia elegans
''Eastwoodia'' is a North American genus of plants in the family Asteraceae. It contains the single species ''Eastwoodia elegans'', a flower known by the common name yellow mock aster or yellow aster. It is endemic to California. This plant is f ...
''
*''
Erythranthe (Mimulus) eastwoodiae''
(Eastwood's Monkeyflower)
Genera named after Eastwood
* ''
Eastwoodia''
* ''
Aliciella''.
See also
*
Rare species
*
Monterey Peninsula
The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach.
History Monterey
Monterey was founded in ...
*
Timeline of women in science
Selected publications online
Bergen's botany(1901) With Joseph Young Bergen.
A flora of the South Fork of Kings River(1902)
Leaflets of western botanyVol. 1–10 with index (1932–1966) With J.T. Howell.
Zoe: a biological journalVol. 3–4. (1892) With K.L. Brandegee and T.S. Brandegee. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
A Handbook of the Trees of California(1905) San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
Works by Alice Eastwoodavailable online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Fourth series, Vol. XXVavailable online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Inventory to the papers of Alice Eastwood at the California Academy of Sciences Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastwood, Alice
19th-century Canadian botanists
American taxonomists
Botanists active in California
1859 births
1953 deaths
Women taxonomists
People associated with the California Academy of Sciences
American women botanists
Canadian women botanists
American science writers
Canadian science writers
Botanists active in North America
Scientists from Toronto
Writers from Toronto
People from San Francisco
Scientists from California
19th-century American botanists
20th-century American botanists
20th-century American women scientists
19th-century Canadian women scientists
20th-century Canadian women scientists
19th-century American women scientists
20th-century Canadian botanists