Elizabeth May McClintock (7 July 1912 – 19 October 2004) was a

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who was born in

San Jacinto, California San Jacinto ( ; ; Spanish for " St. Hyacinth") is a city in Riverside County, California. It is located at the north end of the San Jacinto Valley, with Hemet to its south and Beaumont, California, to its north. The mountains associated with the ...

, United States, and grew up near the

San Jacinto Mountains The San Jacinto Mountains (''Avii Hanupach''Munro, P., et al. ''A Mojave Dictionary''. Los Angeles: UCLA. 1992. in Mojave) are a mountain range in Riverside County, located east of Los Angeles in southern California in the United States. The mou ...

. She earned a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 1937 and a

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 1939 from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

in 1956 from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. She specialized in

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

and distribution of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s, and focused on

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

natives. She documented

invasive plant An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

s in California, and compiled information on

toxicity Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...

poisonous plants Plants that produce toxins are referred to as poisonous plants. Plants that cause irritation on contact are also described as "poisonous". The toxins in poisonous plants affect herbivores, and deter them from consuming the plants. Plants cannot ...

cultivated in the state.

Works

McClintock was a

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 ...

botanist at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

from 1941 through 1947. From 1949 until her retirement in 1977, she was a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

in the Department of Botany 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 ...

. She added many tree specimens from Golden Gate Park to the herbaria after noticing they were not well documented. She successfully battled the proposed

Panhandle Freeway The Panhandle is a public park in San Francisco, California, so named because it forms a panhandle with Golden Gate Park. It is long and narrow, being three-quarters of a mile (eight blocks) long and just one block wide. Fell and Oak Streets b ...

addition to the

Central Freeway The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile (1.5 km) elevated freeway in San Francisco, California, United States, connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway (US 101 and I-80) with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in 1960 and defended the rare

dune tansy ''Tanacetum camphoratum'' is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names camphor tansy and dune tansy. It is native to the Pacific Coast of North America from British Columbia to California, where it grows in sand ...

. In 1976 she launched Pacific Horticulture magazine, after editing the Journal of the California Horticultural Society (1945–1975) for several years. She was also an Associate at the

Jepson Herbarium The University and Jepson Herbaria are two herbaria that share a joint facility at the University of California, Berkeley holding over 2,200,000 botanical specimens, the largest such collection on the US West Coast. These botanical natural histo ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and a collaborator on

The Jepson Manual ''The Jepson Manual'' is a flora of the vascular plants that are either native to or naturalized in California. Botanists often refer to the book simply as ''Jepson''. It is produced by the University and Jepson Herbaria, of the University of Cali ...

project. In 2002 she was awarded with the Royal Horticultural Society's Gold Veitch Memorial Medal. In 2004, Dr. Elizabeth McClintock died peacefully at a convalescent home in

Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area ...

at the age of 92.

References

External links

*''Trees of Golden Gate Park and San Francisco''. By Elizabeth McClintock. Edited and arranged by Richard G. Turner Jr.

Heyday Books Heyday is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California. Heyday was founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974 when he wrote, typeset, designed, and distributed ''The East Bay Out'', a guide to the natural history of the hills and b ...

, 2001 () This book is based on the writings of E. McClintock, whose column on the trees of Golden Gate Park was a feature of Pacific Horticulture magazine for twenty-five years. Botanists active in California 1912 births 2004 deaths American women botanists People associated with the California Academy of Sciences University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Michigan alumni People from Los Angeles Scientists from California Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American botanists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women American women curators American curators {{US-botanist-stub