Sara Plummer Lemmon (1836-1923) was a transplanted easterner, moving from New York to California in her early 30s hoping to find a climate to improve her health. She settled in Santa Barbara, establishing a library and becoming interested in the native flora.
A decade later, she married John Gill (“JG”) Lemmon (1831-1908), a survivor of the notorious Andersonville prison in the Civil War, who had also moved to California for his health. Together they explored the mountains of Arizona, California, and Mexico, developing an important herbarium, now housed at the University of California, Berkeley. Sara was also a skilled botanical illustrator. Her and JG’s story is told in “The Forgotten Botanist” by Wynne Brown.
Sara was an advocate for having the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) named the state flower. Although first proposed to the state legislature in 1895 and passed by both houses nearly unanimously, two succeeding governors refused to sign the bill for unrelated political reasons, postponing enactment until 1903.
The joint headstone for JG and Sara in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery lists them as “partners in botany. Author Brown reflects, “The actual balance of that partnership between JG and the woman known to the world as ‘& wife’ is still—and probably always will be—up for question,” but she concludes that many future ecologists will “rely on the work of this determined couple.”
Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin