Not only is this an amazing biography about a 19^th-century female scientist, but it is also beautiful book. Sara Plummer Lemmon had a fascination with plant life, among other interests. She was also an accomplished artist. Brown includes some of Sara’s watercolor botanical illustrations in full-color plates.

Sara Plummer was thirty-three and single when she left her New England home and set sail for California. She had spent some time as a nurse during the Civil War. Various bouts with illness convinced her that another harsh winter would be the death of her. Making the trip alone, she settled out West in Santa Barbara.

Money and health concerns continued to plague Sara, but she gamely purchased property and opened the first public subscription library in the southern California community she called home. She wrote many letters to her father and her younger sister, Mattie, back home. Mattie was married with children and Sara was also close to her nieces and nephews.

Brown drew from the wealth of correspondence between Sara and her family, friends, and botanical colleagues. There is also a collection of her art, papers, and specimens at the University of California and Jepson Botanical Archives at UC-Berkeley.

Eventually, Sara’s interest in botany brought her like-minded friends, including a war veteran named John Gill Lemmon. J.G., as he was called, had been imprisoned at Andersonville. While he survived, his health was permanently impaired. This duo of malady-ridden botanists, neither with two nickels to rub together, originally felt that to marry would be doing each other a disservice.

But it was clear that they had a destiny together and they made it work. And work it was! But it was also their passion. Along the way, the Lemmons jointly found many new plant species throughout the Southwest. They became acquainted with some of the best-known names in botany and the environment, including Asa Grey, Charles Parry, and John Muir.

Together, they created books and pamphlets on various botanical groups, such as ferns, and conifers of the West Coast. This latter work was commissioned by the Board of Agriculture for the State of California, which body continually refused to pay the Lemmons the monies due to them. Petitioning the legislature, they won time and again, yet still the money was withheld.

The Forgotten Botanist is as much a love story as it is a scientific biography. You will be impressed by the relationship between Sara and J.G. (who have adorable botanical pet names for each other). You’ll also marvel at the work they undertook and the often-dangerous explorations they made in remote parts of Arizona and Mexico. Sara Plummer Lemmon, for whom Mount Lemmon near Tucson is named, is forgotten no longer.