[1] She specialized in taxonomy and distribution of flowering plants, and focused on California natives.
From 1949 until her retirement in 1977, she was a curator in the Department of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences.
She added many tree specimens from Golden Gate Park to the herbaria after noticing they were not well documented.
In 2002 she was awarded with the Royal Horticultural Society's Gold Veitch Memorial Medal.
[2] In 2004, Dr. Elizabeth McClintock died peacefully at a convalescent home in Santa Rosa, California at the age of 92.