Remembering California Botanist Helen Sharsmith and a Glimpse of her Children’s Botanical Namesakes

August 26, 1905

On this day, the biologist Helen Sharsmith was born.

A native Californian, Helen and her husband received doctorates from the University of California, Berkeley.

Helen's dissertation, The Flora of the Mount Hamilton Range of California, was published as a book in 1945.
Twenty years later, she wrote another book called Spring Wildflowers of the San Francisco Bay Region (1965).

Helen's husband named a stickseed after her called Hackelia Sharsmithii.
It's a pretty little endangered herb in the borage family.

Hackelia sharsmithii is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name Sharsmith's stickseed.

Adorably, the Sharsmiths had two children - a rich man's family - a boy and a girl.

The boy was named John, after the naturalist John Muir.

The girl was named Linnea, after Carl Linnaeus.