- 328 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
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 Westâalone. 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 courageâand is as relevant to our nation today as it was in her own time.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Prologue
- 1. âNow I Am at the Jumping Off Placeâ
- 2. âPerhaps Youâve Heard Our Sadie Was Killedâ
- 3. âIt Is Like Death to Me to Be Idleâ
- 4. âA Great Botanist from the Sierrasâ
- 5. âMy Dear, Soul-Knit Brotherâ
- 6. âInto the Matrimonial Vortex!â
- 7. âTry to Touch the Heart of Santa Catalinaâ
- 8. âAn Extreme Outpost of Civilized Lifeâ
- 9. âEleven Days of Dungeon Lifeâ
- 10. âHappy in Our Work & in Each Otherâ
- 11. âRushing, Reckless Life of a True Mining Townâ
- 12. âA Botanical Paradiseâ
- 13. âConsidered by Less Ambitious a Fine Seasonâs Workâ
- 14. âLives Cast in Pleasant Placesâ
- 15. âGrandest Display the World Has Ever Knownâ
- 16. âOur Hillock in Cholameâ
- 17. âLife, to Me, Seems Sweeter Each Yearâ
- 18. âThe Narrowest Escape from Instant Deathâ
- 19. âSell Everything and Move to California!â
- 20. âA Sweet, Sacred Togethernessâ
- 21. âWish We Were Out in the Wild Woodsâ
- 22. âSafeâThoâ Tremendously Shakenâ
- 23. âI Feel So Helpless and Aloneâ
- 24. âPartners in Botanyâ
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Selected Bibliography
- About Wynne Brown