__NOTOC__ Alice Eastwood (January 19, 1859 – October 30, 1953) was a

Canadian American Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to Citizenship of the United States, American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadians, Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can ...

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 1853 ...

, 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 ''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 Endemism, endemic to California. This ...

'' and ''

Aliciella ''Aliciella'' is a genus of plants in the phlox family. These plants have been treated as members of genus ''Gilia'' until recently, when it was proposed they be moved back to ''Aliciella''. This genus was created in 1905 to include certain gili ...

''.

Biography

Alice Eastwood was born on January 19, 1859, in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, 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 Unit ...

, 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 Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

up the summit of Grays Peak in Denver. Eastwood was also a member of Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell's Colorado Biological Association. In 1891, after reviewing Eastwood's specimen collection in Denver, Mary Katharine Brandegee, Curator of the Botany Department at the

, 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 (called ...

. 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 The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area ...

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 Sur ha ...

region, which at the end of the 19th century was a virtual frontier, since no roads penetrated the central coast beyond the Carmel Highlands. 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 sha ...

. Departing from the curatorial conventions of her era, Eastwood segregated the type specimens from the main collection. This

classification system Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes. It may also refer to: Business, organizat ...

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 Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University at 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Botanical Museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural ...

, 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 7 ...

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 docum ...

, and the

Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botany, botanical research and education institution, it employ ...

. In 1912, with completion of the new Academy facilities at

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

, 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 state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

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 it ...

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 Wyom ...

. Starting in 1928, Eastwood accompanied fellow botanist

Susan Delano McKelvey Susan Adams Delano McKelvey (1883–1964) was an American botanist and writer, noted for her work at the Arnold Arboretum. Early life McKelvey was born as Susan Magoun Delano on March 13, 1883, in Philadelphia and was a member of the prominent ...

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 John Thomas Howell (November 6, 1903 – May 7, 1994) was an American botanist and taxonomist. He became an expert of ''Eriogonum'' (buckwheat) species, which are widely represented in the native California flora. He was the assistant of Alice ...

. 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. 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 fair ...

and the genera '' Lupinus'', '' Arctostaphylos'' and '' Castilleja''.

Gallery

File:Bergen's botany - key and flora - Pacific coast ed (Page 19) BHL18868236.jpg File:Bergen's botany (Page 22) BHL13296275.jpg File:Bergen's botany - key and flora - Pacific coast ed (Page 21) BHL18868238.jpg File:Bergen's botany - key and flora - Pacific coast ed (Page 163) BHL18868399.jpg 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 File:Foundations of botany (Page 24) BHL23642288.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 351) BHL23642197.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 54) BHL23642318.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 371) BHL23642219.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 187) BHL23642027.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 137) BHL23641969.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 75) BHL23641903.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 79) BHL23641909.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 365) BHL23642213.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 81) BHL23641911.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 321) BHL23642163.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 138) BHL23641970.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 341) BHL23642187.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 343) BHL23642189.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 182) BHL23642446.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 22) BHL23642286.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 140) BHL23641972.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 70) BHL23641898.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 209) BHL23642049.jpg File:Foundations of botany (Page 37) BHL23641865.jpg

Recognition

* There are currently seventeen recognized species named for Eastwood, as well as the genera ''

'' and ''

''. *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 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'' (Butte County fritillary) *''

Salix eastwoodiae ''Salix eastwoodiae'' is a species of willow known by the common names mountain willow, Eastwood's willow, and Sierra willow. It was first described by Bebb in 1879 as ''Salix californica''. This name was later found to be illegitimate, as Lesq ...

'' (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

* ''

'' * ''

''.

Selected publications online

Bergen's botany
(1901) With Joseph Young Bergen.
A flora of the South Fork of Kings River
(1902)
Leaflets of western botany
Vol. 1–10 with index (1932–1966) With J.T. Howell.
Zoe: a biological journal
Vol. 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

External links

Works by Alice Eastwood
available online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Fourth series, Vol. XXV
available 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