Delayed Gratification: Pursuing Botany in Retirement

October 3, 1910

On this day, the botanist George Dexter Butler died.

George was born in 1850 in Grundy County, Illinois. He grew up in Iowa. Like many, he ended up going to West California.

In 1896, George was admitted to the bar in California and began practicing law.

Here's the rest of his story as told in the Madrono Vol. 1, No. 13, November 1928:

George Butler's passion for botany had always been such that he did not dare trust it.

On coming to California, he determined to [leave] the science of botany entirely alone.

If he gave himself to it at all, he feared that his proper profession as a lawyer would be largely or too much neglected and that his first obligation, the support, and education of his family, would suffer.

[When his old friend and botanist Dr. Engelmann wrote to him,] he was much puzzled... as to what he should do... Therefore, he deliberately ignored [the letter].

In 1906, [George] chanced to be in a bookshop in Oakland where his eye caught sight of a second-hand copy of Jepson's Flora. 

Seeing that Flora made him realize that his time to pursue botany had come. 

George quickly made up for lost time and collected in every direction.

He built a herbarium on his property, started buying Floras, and worked like crazy on building his collections. He planned to build a herbarium for his local county.

But sadly, on this day in 1910, George had a stroke and passed away.

After George died, his herbarium was gifted to the University of California. At the time, it was regarded as the most complete Flora of Siskiyou County.