A Botanical Love Story: Kate Brandegee’s Legacy of Plants, Mentorship, and Adventure

April 3, 1920

On this day in botanical history, we mark the passing of the remarkable Kate Brandegee, the third woman to enroll at Berkeley's medical school and the second woman professionally employed as a botanist in the United States. A pioneering spirit in the garden of academia, she departed this world leaving behind a legacy as verdant and enduring as the specimens she so lovingly collected.

After obtaining her medical degree from Berkeley, Kate found the prospect of establishing a medical practice rather daunting for a woman of her era. Fortune favored her botanical inclinations, however, as her passion for plant life had been cultivated during her medical studies. Having learned that plants were the primary sources of medicine—a fact that should intrigue any gardener with an interest in herbal remedies—she shed the mantle of physician to pursue the leafy corridors of botany.

Five years after this fortuitous change in direction, Kate ascended to the position of herbarium curator at the San Francisco Academy of Sciences. During her tenure at the academy, she personally mentored Alice Eastwood, preparing her protégée to eventually assume her position when Kate moved on to new horizons. One must admire Kate's generosity in nurturing the next generation of botanical minds!

In a delightful twist of fate at the age of 40, Kate found herself, as she put it, "fallen insanely in love" with fellow plantsman Townsend Brandegee. Their union was one of true botanical compatibility.

Can you envision a more perfect honeymoon for gardeners than their 500-mile nature walk, collecting plant specimens from San Diego to San Francisco?

The couple subsequently established themselves in San Diego, where they created a herbarium that contemporaries praised as nothing short of a botanical paradise.

Their collecting expeditions—sometimes undertaken together, occasionally individually—became their shared lifelong passion. They traversed much of California, Arizona, and Mexico, often utilizing the free railroad passes generously extended to botanists of the day. Despite challenges to her health, Kate embraced these adventures with undiminished enthusiasm.

In 1908, at the rather advanced age of 64, she wrote to Townsend with characteristic determination:

"I am going to walk from Placerville to Truckee (52 miles!)"

Following the devastating 1906 earthquake that destroyed the Berkeley herbarium, the Brandegees demonstrated extraordinary generosity by donating their entire botanical library—including numerous rare volumes—and their impressive plant collection of some 80,000 specimens to restore it. The couple enjoyed financial independence thanks to Townsend's inheritance but wielded it with exceptional selflessness.

The Brandegees subsequently relocated to Berkeley alongside their beloved plants and books, where both worked pro bono for the remainder of their lives. Botanist Marcus Jones paid Kate perhaps the highest professional compliment when he remarked:

"She was the one botanist competent to publish a real [book about the native plants of California]."

Regrettably, Kate had postponed writing this definitive work. At the age of 75, while walking on the Berkeley University grounds, she fell and broke her shoulder. Just three weeks later, this remarkable woman—who had walked hundreds of miles in pursuit of botanical knowledge—took her final journey from this world.

For today's gardeners, Kate Brandegee's legacy reminds us that studying plants connects us to medicine, science, adventure, and love. Her story encourages us to look more closely at the specimens in our own gardens and to consider the passionate collectors who first documented and classified the varieties we now cultivate with such ease.