The Forgotten Botanist

Sara Plummer Lemmon's Life of Science and Art

Wynne Brown

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781496222817
• eBook ISBN: 9781496229465
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

WILLA Literary Award Winner in Creative Nonfiction
2022 Spur Award Winner
2022 Top Pick in Southwest Books of the Year 
New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist in Cover Design 
Honorable Mention in the At-Large NFPW Communications Contest

The Forgotten Botanist is the account of an extraordinary woman who, in 1870, was driven by ill health to leave the East Coast for a new life in the West—alone. At thirty-three, Sara Plummer relocated to Santa Barbara, where she taught herself botany and established the town’s first library. Ten years later she married botanist John Gill Lemmon, and together the two discovered hundreds of new plant species, many of them illustrated by Sara, an accomplished artist. Although she became an acknowledged botanical expert and lecturer, Sara’s considerable contributions to scientific knowledge were credited merely as “J.G. Lemmon & wife.”

The Forgotten Botanist chronicles Sara’s remarkable life, in which she and JG found new plant species in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Mexico and traveled throughout the Southwest with such friends as John Muir and Clara Barton. Sara also found time to work as a journalist and as an activist in women’s suffrage and forest conservation.

The Forgotten Botanist is a timeless tale about a woman who discovered who she was by leaving everything behind. Her inspiring story is one of resilience, determination, and courage—and is as relevant to our nation today as it was in her own time.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Prologue
• 1. “Now I Am at the Jumping Off Place”
• 2. “Perhaps You’ve Heard Our Sadie Was Killed”
• 3. “It Is Like Death to Me to Be Idle”
• 4. “A Great Botanist from the Sierras”
• 5. “My Dear, Soul-Knit Brother”
• 6. “Into the Matrimonial Vortex!”
• 7. “Try to Touch the Heart of Santa Catalina”
• 8. “An Extreme Outpost of Civilized Life”
• 9. “Eleven Days of Dungeon Life”
• 10. “Happy in Our Work & in Each Other”
• 11. “Rushing, Reckless Life of a True Mining Town”
• 12. “A Botanical Paradise”
• 13. “Considered by Less Ambitious a Fine Season’s Work”
• 14. “Lives Cast in Pleasant Places”
• 15. “Grandest Display the World Has Ever Known”
• 16. “Our Hillock in Cholame”
• 17. “Life, to Me, Seems Sweeter Each Year”
• 18. “The Narrowest Escape from Instant Death”
• 19. “Sell Everything and Move to California!”
• 20. “A Sweet, Sacred Togetherness”
• 21. “Wish We Were Out in the Wild Woods”
• 22. “Safe—Tho’ Tremendously Shaken”
• 23. “I Feel So Helpless and Alone”
• 24. “Partners in Botany”
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Selected Bibliography
• About Wynne Brown