Alice Eastwood facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alice Eastwood
Born	January 19, 1859 (1859-01-19) Toronto, Canada
Died	October 30, 1953 (1953-10-31) (aged 94) San Francisco, California, United States
Resting place	Toronto Necropolis
Scientific career
Fields	Botany
Institutions	California Academy of Sciences Gray Herbarium New York Botanical Garden British Museum Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew
Author abbrev. (botany)	Eastw.

Alice Eastwood (born January 19, 1859 – died October 30, 1953) was a famous Canadian American botanist. A botanist is a scientist who studies plants. She is known for building a huge collection of plants at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

Alice wrote more than 310 scientific articles about plants. She also named 395 new types of land plants. This was the fourth-highest number of plant names given by any female scientist. Today, seventeen plant species are named after her. Also, two groups of plants, called Eastwoodia and Aliciella, are named in her honor.

About Alice Eastwood's Life

Alice Eastwood was born in Toronto, Canada, on January 19, 1859. Her parents were Colin Skinner Eastwood and Eliza Jane Gowdey Eastwood. When Alice was six years old, her mother passed away.

Alice and her sister were cared for by different relatives. For a while, they lived at the Oshawa Convent in Toronto. In 1873, the family moved to Denver, Colorado, to be with their father again. Alice finished high school in 1879. She was the top student in her class.

Becoming a Botanist

Instead of going to college, Alice taught at her old high school for ten years. She taught herself about plants by reading botany books. These books included "Grey's Manual" and "Flora of Colorado." Her deep knowledge of plants was impressive.

Because of her skills, Alice was asked to guide a famous scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, up Grays Peak in Denver. Alice was also a member of the Colorado Biological Association. This group was led by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, another important scientist.

Working at the California Academy of Sciences

In 1891, Mary Katharine Brandegee saw Alice's amazing plant collection in Denver. Mary was the Curator of the Botany Department at the California Academy of Sciences. She hired Alice to help in the Academy's Herbarium. A herbarium is like a library for dried plant specimens.

Alice helped the Herbarium grow a lot. In 1892, she was promoted to be a joint curator with Mary Brandegee. By 1894, Mary retired, and Alice became the head of the Botany Department. She held this important job until she retired in 1949. Alice Eastwood passed away in San Francisco on October 30, 1953. The Academy still keeps her papers and works.

Alice Eastwood's Discoveries and Work

Alice Eastwood loved exploring and collecting plants. Early in her career, she went on trips to Colorado and the Four Corners region. She became good friends with the Wetherill Family. She often visited their Alamo Ranch in Mesa Verde National Park.

Alice was treated like family there. In 1892, Al Wetherill guided her on a 10-day trip to Utah. They collected many desert plants together.

Exploring New Areas

Alice also went on plant-collecting trips to the Big Sur region. Back then, in the late 1800s, this area was wild and had no roads. On these trips, she found several plants that no one had ever seen before. One of her discoveries was Hickman's potentilla.

Saving the Plant Collection

Alice Eastwood is famous for saving the Academy's most important plant specimens during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. These special plants are called "type specimens." Alice had a clever system: she kept these type specimens separate from the main collection.

This smart idea allowed her to quickly grab nearly 1500 valuable specimens when the building was burning. Her quick thinking saved a huge part of the Academy's collection.

Rebuilding and Expanding the Collection

After the earthquake, the Academy needed to build a new home. During this time, Alice studied plants in museums and gardens in Europe and the U.S. She visited places like the Gray Herbarium and the New York Botanical Garden.

In 1912, the new Academy building in Golden Gate Park was finished. Alice returned as the curator of the herbarium. She worked hard to rebuild the lost parts of the collection. She went on many collecting trips across the Western United States. These trips included Alaska (1914), Arizona, Utah, and Idaho.

Starting in 1928, Alice worked closely with another botanist, Susan Delano McKelvey. They went on many trips together in the Southwest. They often wrote letters and traded plant specimens. Alice kept the best specimens for the Academy. She traded duplicate plants with other institutions. This helped her build the Academy's collection. By 1942, she had grown the collection to about 330,000 specimens. This was almost three times the number of plants lost in the 1906 fire!

Writing and Editing

Alice Eastwood published over 310 articles during her career. She was an editor for the journal Zoe and an assistant editor for Erythea. After the earthquake, she started her own journal called Leaflets of Western Botany (1932–1966) with John Thomas Howell. Alice also led the San Francisco Botanical Club for many years in the 1890s. In 1929, she helped create the American Fuchsia Society.

Her main interests were plants from the western U.S., especially Liliaceae (lilies) and the plant groups Lupinus, Arctostaphylos, and Castilleja.

Gallery

How Alice Eastwood Was Honored

Alice Eastwood received many honors for her important work.

• Seventeen plant species are named after her.
• Two groups of plants, called Eastwoodia and Aliciella, are also named in her honor.
• She became an honorary member of the California Academy of Sciences in 1942.
• In 1959, the Academy opened the Eastwood Hall of Botany, a special place for plant studies.
• In 1903, she was one of only two women listed in "American Men of Science" to be marked as a top scientist in her field.
• The American Fuchsia Society gave her its Medal of Achievement in 1949.
• A type of mushroom, Boletus eastwoodiae, was named after her. It is now called Boletus pulcherrimus, but people still call it Alice Eastwood's bolete.
• Alice worked to save a redwood forest in Humboldt County. This beautiful area was later named the Alice Eastwood Memorial Grove.

Plant Species Named After Alice Eastwood

Here are some of the plant species named after Alice Eastwood:

• Agoseris apargioides var. eastwoodiae (Eastwood's seaside agoseris)
• Amsinckia eastwoodiae (Eastwood's Fiddleneck)
• Delphinium parryi ssp. eastwoodiae (Eastwood's larkspur)
• Fritillaria eastwoodiae (Butte County fritillary)
• Salix eastwoodiae (Eastwood's willow)
• Aliciella latifolia
• Erigeron aliceae
• Eastwoodia elegans
• Erythranthe (Mimulus) eastwoodiae (Eastwood's Monkeyflower)

Plant Genera Named After Alice Eastwood

Two plant genera (groups of species) are named after Alice Eastwood:

• Eastwoodia
• Aliciella

See also

In Spanish: Alice Eastwood para niños