A Sunflower Among the Ruins: The Indomitable Alice Eastwood

January 19, 1859

On this day, dear readers, we celebrate the birth of a true botanical heroine, the indomitable Alice Eastwood.

A self-taught botanist of remarkable tenacity, Alice's life reads like a thrilling novel, with acts of courage that would make even the most stoic gardener's heart flutter.

Picture, if you will, the tumultuous scene of San Francisco in 1906.

The earth trembles, buildings crumble, and flames lick at the sky. What would you do in such dire circumstances?

For Alice Eastwood, then curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences, the answer was clear: save the plants!

In a display of bravery that puts many a swashbuckling hero to shame, Alice rushed headlong into the ruins of downtown San Francisco. With fire nipping at her heels, she ascended a treacherous metal spiral staircase to the 6th floor of the Academy building.

Her mission? To rescue her life's work - the largest botanical collection in the Western United States.

Carola DeRooy, chronicler of this botanical derring-do, paints the scene vividly:

On the day of the 1906 earthquake, Alice Eastwood, curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences, rushed straight into the ruins of downtown San Francisco as a firestorm swept toward her beloved Academy building.

Arriving to find the stone steps dangerously crumbled, she and a friend nevertheless climbed the metal spiral staircase to the 6th floor with a single-minded mission: to rescue what she could of the largest botanical collection in the Western United States, her life's work.

Can you imagine it, dear readers?

Our intrepid Alice, then a sprightly 47-year-old, standing amidst the chaos, her arms full of precious botanical specimens?

Eastwood saved 1,497 plant type specimens from the Academy but lost the remainder of the collections to the all-consuming fire. Just three days later, she joined Geologist GK Gilbert to inspect a fault trace resulting from the earthquake, north of Olema, within what is now the Point Reyes National Seashore.

This moment was immortalized in a captivating photograph, showing Alice posed next to the fault line's surface rupture.

One can almost feel the earth's raw power emanating from that image.

But what of the specimens that didn't survive the inferno?

Alice's response is nothing short of inspirational:

I do not feel the loss to be mine, but it is a great loss to the scientific world and an irreparable loss to California.

My own destroyed work I do not lament, for it was a joy to me while I did it, and I can still have the same joy in starting it again.

Such words! They stir the soul, do they not?

How many of us, I wonder, could face the destruction of our life's work with such grace and optimism?

True to her word, Alice set about rebuilding the herbarium with gusto.

Over the next four decades, she amassed an astounding collection of over 300,000 specimens.

A protégée of the esteemed botanist Kate Brandegee, Alice continued her curatorial duties until the ripe age of 90. One can only imagine the wealth of knowledge contained in that remarkable mind!

In 1959, the California Academy of Sciences paid tribute to Alice's contributions by unveiling the Eastwood Hall of Botany.

A fitting honor, to be sure, but perhaps not as poetic as the naming of Eastwoodia elegans.

As Dale Debakcsy so eloquently put it in his 2018 article:

In 1959, the California Academy of Sciences unveiled the Eastwood Hall of Botany, which is very nice, but I think the most fitting tribute is the naming of the Eastwoodia elegans.

There is only one species in the Eastwoodia genus, and it is a sunflower, and both of those facts match so well with everything we know of Alice Eastwood that nothing more need be said.

Indeed, what could be more apt?

Alice Eastwood - unique, radiant, and ever-reaching for the sun.

As we tend to our gardens this winter, let us remember Alice Eastwood.

May her passion for botany, her indomitable spirit, and her joy in the face of adversity inspire us all. After all, is not each seed we plant, each cutting we nurture, a small act of faith and resilience in itself?