Lester Gertrude Ellen Rowntree (1879–1979), a renowned field botanist and horticulturalist, was a pioneer in the study, propagation, and conservation of California native plants.
In numerous journal and magazine articles, books, and public lectures, she shared her extensive knowledge of wildflowers and shrubs while arguing tirelessly for their protection.
[4] A sample of Rowntree's lively prose follows, taken from her article “The Lone Hunter” published in the June 1939 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
Not until after my domestic happiness had gone to smash did I realize that I was free to trek up and down the long state of California, and to satisfy my insistent curiosity about plants, to find them in their homes meeting their days and seasons, to write down their tricks and manners in my notebook, to photograph their flowers, to collect their seeds, to bring home seedlings in cans just emptied of tomato juice.
In March and April I have long shining days on the desert, in May happy weeks in the foothills, where a chorus of robins wakes me and my morning bath is in a rushing stream of just-melted snow.