88/51

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

CALIFORNIA WOMEN IN BOTANY

Annetta Carter UC Herbarium Botanist, Collector and

Interpreter of Baja California Plants

Mary DeDecker Botanist and Conservationist of the

Inyo Region

Elizabeth McClintock California Academy of Sciences Curator,

Ornamental Plant Specialist

With Interview Introductions by
Lincoln Constance, Betty Gilchrist,
Peter Rowlands, John Hunter Thomas

Interviews Conducted by
Carol Holleuffer
1985

Copyright (c) 1987 by The Regents of the University of California

This manuscript is made available for research
purposes. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for
publication without the written permission of the
Director of The Bancroft Library of the University
of California at Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office,
486 Library, and should include identification of the
specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited
as follows:

To cite the volume: California Women in
Botany, an oral history conducted in 1985,
Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley,
1987.

To cite individual interview: Annetta
Carter, "UC Herbarium Botanist, Collector
and Interpreter of Baja California Plants,"
an oral history conducted 1985 by Carol
Holleuffer, in California Women in Botany,
Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley,
1987.

Copy No. /|

THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN
May 17, 1991

• . -,<£. . ' •TVjW'-wiKjs

^UC'Berkeleyl
'botanist dies

W-!

Annetta Marjf Carter, a prominent
at,UC,B«t;keley's Herbariuni,
WedneSdi)> at the age of 83,
following a long battle with cancer.!
Carter, frhb Worked a^the Herb-
, arium for nibre thaH 6b)(ears, was
recognized internationally as art expert
on the flora of Baja California. |
•* « During her tenurf BS principal
"J botanist, and after her 'retirement in
rL'1%8, she conducted extensive research
on plant life around California and in
.^jiorthernJMexko. . , ?

lv* Carter served "As president of the
.^ California Botanical Society in 1967,
I \irid wai a fhernber'df'the California
Academy of Sciences and the inter-
_ national Society_of_Wonten Geog
raphers. ?n'»lr.-..<f. H':'»M .«> |

Her work in the Sierra de la Gigari-
r- ta mountain range in Baja California
, }( earned Carter honors from the Socie-
'B dad Botanica de Mexico.' She discov-
(|(,ered several new' pjaht Species, 'many
Ki,of which rjow,beaf:her name, |
Ij. Carter is sufviyed by a nephew,
., Warren Carter;, two nieces, Margaret
,", Annetta .Carter Freeman and Mary
^Lou Carter Pbwellj a cousin, Grace
Zoll; and her lifetime "companion

I

OAKLAND TRIBUNE
May 16, 1991

Annetta Carter,

UC botanist

f '•• . I"— •••-: • ^.,.v X **\; ••-•':. -...••^..•"1

By Carol Brydolf

Tribunt fttft wriltr r-

. ("J :

f 'BERKELEY — Annetta Mary Cart-.
er, Internationally known expert on the
flora of Baja California and former prin
cipal botanist at the UC-Berkeley her
barium, died May 8 in Albany. She was
83. I, ..,

Ms. Carter, who was affiliated with
the University Herbarium for 61 years,
came to UC-Berkeley to study botany in1
1928. She began her long association with
the herbarium during her senior year
when she worked as a plant mounter9
there, ,' f /

She made over 5,000 collections from
Baja California, described several new-
species and boasted numerous plant spe
cies and genera named after her by other

botanists... ,v,; -•,••• . .^;,<-,^r

Ms. Carter was born in 1907 and

raised in Sierra Madre, a small town in

Southern California that her grandfather

Nathanial C. Carter founded in 1882. She

graduated from UC-Berkeley in 1930 and

received her master's degree in botany

'in 1932, -.,',. t ' ' v:.»iY-y T7*

H; She is survived by a nephew.'Warren '

.Carter of , Oak Harbor, Wash.f nieces

'Margaret Annetta Carter Freeman of

Huntington Beach and Mary Lou Carter

>Powell of Alhambra and her lifetime

companion, Florence Mabel Little,

*•'•.• • ' • ' , •

Donations can be made to the Califor
nia Botanical Society, to be used to es
tablish a fund in Ms. Carter's memory
for supporting field work in Baja Califor

nia. , .e» r ;, ^Av.>.:'. b

CAROL HOLLEUFFER
1945 - 1985

On behalf of future scholars, the Regional Oral History Office wishes to
thank those who have made possible the completion of the California Women in
Botany series. Donors to the project are listed below:

Bristlecone Chapter of the
California Native Plant Society

The California Academy of Sciences

In memory of Carol Holleuffer:
Annetta Carter
Mary DeDecker
Jack Easby

J.E. and Mary M. Hopkins
Charles K. and Vera M. Holleuffer

PREFACE

Traditionally, women have been associated with the study of plants and
flowers. When other scientific pursuits were considered too masculine for
women to undertake, botany was the one science open to them: "...the objects
of its investigation are beautiful and delicate; its pursuits, leading to
exercise in the open air, are conducive to health and cheerfulness" (Familiar
Lectures in Botany, 1845) . In this traditional view, then, botany was the
perfect pastime for the "weaker sex."

In fact, women botanists have been strong characters capable of going
alone for months in remote areas, subject to disease and hardships that would
have defeated most men. They have taken on government agencies to protect
endangered flora. They have done the meticulous, dedicated, and sometimes
thankless work of keeping herbaria collections. Seldom have they received
sufficient recognition, and often they have done their work for little or no
pay. The California Women in Botany project was conceived of to tell their
stories.

The women selected as the first interviewees in the series are well-suited
to illustrate the varied accomplishments of women botanists. The vivid tales
of Annetta Carter about her first collecting trip to Baja California with the
eighty-year-old Annie Alexander attest to the hardships, and the joys, of life
in the field. Mary DeDecker's recounting of her battles to protect the fragile
habitat of her beloved desert plants reflects great strength of purpose and
fearless, informed persistence. And Elizabeth McClintock's dedicated work
for the California Academy of Science herbarium is yet a third aspect of the
many contributions of California women botanists.

This series of interviews was conceived of, planned, and executed by
Carol Holleuffer, herself a remarkable woman. Carol was a nature lover, a
photographer, a conservationist. She combined these interests with a rapport
with people of every age and circumstance, a sense of dedicated service, and
an adventuresome zest for life that few can match. Tragically inflicted with
serious illness in her young adulthood, Carol continued to live life to the
fullest and to pursue activities which made a difference.

When diminishing eyesight impinged on her photographic work, she turned
to the field of oral history as a means of documenting the world of people in
nature. In her characteristic manner, she made sure that she was well-trained
in the techniques of oral history interviewing before setting out with her
tape recorder. She first worked with the Sierra Club History Committee,
conducting two significant oral history interviews of prominent conservationists.
Next, she conceived of the idea for a series of interviews with outstanding
women botanists, a project which incorporated many of her interests and concerns.

She worked with the Regional Oral History Office to plan the Women in
Botany series and to raise funds for processing the tape recorded interviews.
Her own work as project director and interviewer was on a volunteer basis. The

ii

three interviews represented in this volume were only the first step in the
projected series. Unfortunately, Carol's work was cut short when she succumbed
to her illness in July 1985.

The interviews have been completed by the Regional Oral History Office,
with generous contributions from friends and family of Carol and from the
California Academy of Science and the Bristlecone Chapter of the California
Native Plant Society. All of us whose lives were touched by Carol Holleuffer —
and we believe that the interviewees represented here would include themselves
in this group — hope that this volume of California Women in Botany will serve
as a fitting memorial to her.

Ann Lage
Interviewer /Editor

January 14, 1987
Regional Oral History Office
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Women in Botany Project

Annetta Carter

UC HERBARIUM BOTANIST, COLLECTOR AND
INTERPRETER OF BAJA CALIFORNIA PLANTS

With an Introduction by
Lincoln Constance

An Interview Conducted by

Carol Holleuffer

in 1985

Copyright (V) 1987 by The Regents of the University of California

Annetta Carter, 22 April 1955. Canon de las Palmas , west side of
Cerro Giganta, Baja California Sur, trip with Roxana Ferres and
Howard Gulick. Photograph by Howard Guliak.

Annetta Carter, Jesus Arias, and Adolfo Garayzar returning from
climb of the Cerro Giganta, 26 November 1947. Photograph by Annie
M. Alexander.

TABLE OF CONTENTS — Annetta Carter

INTRODUCTION by Lincoln Constance i

INTERVIEW HISTORY iii

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION iv

I FAMILY BACKGROUND AND EARLY EXPOSURE TO ECOLOGY 1

Parents' Interest in Outdoors 1

Women Teachers as Role Models 3

II UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY AND HERBARIUM 5

Botany Faculty. Staff, and Students 5

Guidance and Support of William Albert Setchell 9

Lecturing and Research Style of Willis Linn Jepson 11

III UC HERBARIUM COLLECTIONS AND RELATED WORK 13

William Brewer Collection 13

Tovnsend and Katherine Brandegee Collection 14

Purchase Method of Building Collections 16

Harley Bartlett Collection at the University of Michigan 17

Field Trips for Herbarium Exchange Program 19

Editing and Public Information Activities 20

IV BAJA CALIFORNIA FIELD TRIPS WITH ALEXANDER AND KELLOGG 27

Annie Alexander, Participant Scientist and Sponsor 27

Materials, Provisions, and Language Preparedness 30

Trip Log — Traveling. Collecting and Camping Experiences 32

Discovery of Acacia Kelloggiana 36

Adventures of Three Women Without Fear 38

Thoughts on Beauty of Plants and Sites in Baja California 46

New Species Discovered by or Named after Carter 48

V MORE ADVENTURING AND COLLECTING IN BAJA CALIFORNIA 50

La Paz and The Working Methods of Joseph Wood Krutch 50

Cooperation with Mexican Botanists 51

Field Trips with Roxana Ferris 52

Physical Injuries Sustained in Field 55

Interest in Editing and Letterpress Printing 57

International Botanical Congresses 59

Thoughts on Collecting as a Lifework and the Value of Herbariums 61

TAPE GUIDE 63

APPENDIX A - Madrono Dedication. 1966 64

APPENDIX B - Vita 65

APPENDIX C - Baja California — Related Publications 66

INDEX 68

INTRODUCTION

Annetta Carter was born in the small town of Sierra Madre in pre-
metropolitan Los Angeles County in the first decade of this century. Much of
her childhood and early youth were spent out of doors in the then-unpolluted
and justly famous sunshine of southern California, where she early developed
her lifelong interests in natural history, especially plants. These
interests, encouraged by family and teachers at Pasadena and elsewhere, led
her to Berkeley, where she received a baccalaureate in botany in 1930.
Supported by a teaching ass 1st ant ship, she was enabled to pursue graduate work
for two years, securing a Master of Arts degree with a thesis on the aquatic
liverwort, Riccia fluitans.

Beginning in the early 1930s, she was gradually absorbed into the staff
of the University Herbarium, which she essentially managed for several decades
until she chose voluntary retirement from the rank of principal herbarium
botanist in 1968. For twenty years (1943-1963) she served as secretary of the
editorial board of Madrono, the quarterly publication of the California
Botanical Society, which emanated from the herbarium. Herbert Mason, who
served both as director of the herbarium and editor-in-chief of Madrono, was a
scientist of many original ideas and successive enthusiasms, but with little
zest for putting his ideas into publishable form. So Annetta not only served
as the person who had major responsibility for seeing Madrono through the
press but also the one — sometimes with the assistance of Ethel Crum and Dr.
Helen M. Sharsmith — who transformed Mason's rough drafts into skillfully
crafted publications.

Appropriately, the eighteenth (1966) volume of Madrono is dedicated to
her with a text that reads in part: "...during three administrations the
leavening spirit of the University of California Herbarium ... the trusted
advisor of faculty and administrative officers, a generous counselor and
confidante of successive generations of grateful students, and an esteemed
friend to ... associates and herbarium visitors." These descriptions provide
only an inadequate clue to the important roles she played and to the
hospitable atmosphere she managed to sustain.

The Associates in Tropical Biogeography in February 19A7 sponsored an
exploratory multi-disciplinary field trip the length of Baja California. The
participants were Carl 0. Sauer, geographer, Howel Williams, geologist. R. A.
Stirton. vertebrate paleontologist, three graduate students, and myself, as
botanist. The accounts of our findings and adventures as well as earlier ones
by staff and graduate students of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, evidently
stimulated the interest of Annie M. Alexander, who had already added botany to
her long-established enthusiasms for field work in vertebrate paleontology and
zoology. In November of 1947, she invited Annetta to accompany her and her
companion, Louise Kellogg, on a three-month field trip to Baja California.

In Annette's words, this was "an expedition that changed the course of my
life." Indeed, it marked her entry into the sphere of Mexican botany, in
which she has played an outstanding role ever since.

Ira Wiggins, in tracing the history of botanical exploration in Baja
California from the 18th century to 1980, states that, "There are two,
however, who have been outstanding for having devoted much time and tremendous
energy to penetrating areas very difficult of access to pry out information
about the flora of Baja California's inhospitable environment. The first is
Miss Annetta Carter, who has made scores of trips into the high, jagged parts
of the Sierra de la Giganta behind Loreto. into the Cape Region, and to many
of the islands along the peninsula shores. She still returns to the Sierra de
la Giganta far more often than anyone else I know, and always finds something
of intense interest." Two items of intense interest bear her name, the genera
Carterothamnus Robinson of the Compositae and Carterella Terrell, the latter
an appropriate elevation to generic status of the handsome Bouvardia
alexanderae, which Annetta had proposed in 1955.

Part of her field work was supported by the Belvedere Scientific Fund of
the Academy of Sciences, of which she was elected a Fellow in the 1950s, and
for which she has led several members' field trips in recent years. She
served as president of the California Botanical Society in 1965, and she
remains an active member of the Biosystematics. Since her retirement, she has
enjoyed honorary status as research associate in the University, and is
continuing to extend the list of a dozen or so of her publications on Baja
California. If her trips by mule into the Sierra de la Giganta are somewhat
curtailed these days, her excursions into the study of the materials she
collected there over the years show no sign of diminishing. Vaya adelantel

Lincoln Constance

Professor of Botany Emeritus

University of California

6 November 1986
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720

iii

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Annetta Carter was interviewed by Carol Holleuffer on March 19, 1985, and
March 25, 1985. The interview was conducted in the library of the University
of California Herbarium, where Ms. Carter has worked for over half a century
as student assistant, botanist, administrator, and research associate.
Interviewer and interviewee, both outgoing and helpful people with mutual
interests in Baja California, quickly developed a close rapport which is
evident in the tone and quality of this interview.

Ms. Carter has assisted the California Women in Botany Project
immeasurably, not only by sharing her own experiences but also by advising
Carol as she planned the project and later applying her editing skills to her
own and Mary DeDecker's interview transcripts. She has provided this office
with helpful suggestions at every stage of the final processing.

This interview was lightly edited for clarity and accuracy; tapes are on
deposit in The Bancroft Library.

Ann Lage
Interviewer-Editor

12 January 1987

Regional Oral History Office

486 The Bancroft Library

University of California at Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office
Room 486 The Bancroft Library

University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

iv

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I FAMILY BACKGROUND AND EARLY EXPOSURE TO ECOLOGY
[Interview 1: March 19. 1985] *#

Parents ' Interest in Outdoors

Holleuffer: It's March 19th, 1985. I'm with Annetta Carter, research

associate of the University Herbarium. We're in the University
Herbarium Library, a very small room filled with books and rather
stuffy in the Life Sciences Building on UC [University of
California, Berkeley] campus.

I wanted to start at the very beginning with you, Annetta.
and ask where you were born.

Carter: Where I was born? I was born in Sierra Madre. Los Angeles

County, California, a little foothill community that was started
by my grandfather. Nathaniel C. Carter, in 1882 when he purchased
from Lucky Baldwin and from the government quite a bit of acreage
which he later subdivided. He ran excursion trains out from
Massachusetts. He was sort of a beginning chamber-of-commerce
guy. [laughs]

Holleuffer: You mean to settle?

Carter: To settle, yes. I've seen pictures of a train with "Carter
Excursions" on it. Anyway, he was able to start this town.

ff This symbol indicates that a tape or segment of a tape has
begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 63.

Holieuffer: Where did he get his money?

Carter:

I don't know where; he didn't have very much and land was very
cheap then. He had an agency for a Weed sewing machine in
Massachusetts, and then. I think, he started a little sewing
business that made the first sewing-machine-made American flags.
I don't know that he had much money.

Holieuffer:

Carter:

Land was just cheap.

Yes, land was cheap,
owned it, I think.

It remained cheap as long as any of us
[laughs] Never made a million off of it.

Holieuffer: Your family still has property there?

Carter: No, the last is sold now. My brother had the last and he had a
little bit that he subdivided, but it's all gone now. I can
still find the house that I was born in, though. Now, instead of
having seven acres of nice chaparral around it, there are about a
dozen houses on that seven acres. Not the way it was when I was
little.

Holieuffer: Well, when you grew up you had lots of country around you.

Carter: Plenty of country around me. My family was very outdoor-
oriented, and I had the run of the place. I could go anywhere I
wanted. I think I must of even had an early feeling about
ecology, because my father and I were looking at a little spot
where he had burned brush in the winter when it was wet with
rains, and that was the only place where a plant called
whispering bells came up, right on that burned area. It was
KmmonflTit-hg penduliflora in the Hydrophyllaceae. I've learned
later that it's one of the things that's fire responsive; I mean
the seeds have to be heat-treated. There was a Ph.D. thesis by
Robert Sweeney, later a professor at San Francisco State
University, on the effects of fire on chaparral. So I had this
early feeling about ecology.

I think I made a grammar school collection of the local
plants and illustrated it with a drawing, even a colored drawing,
of the Dodecatheon, a shooting star. So I was interested early.

Holieuffer: Was anyone else in your family interested?

Carter: Oh, both my parents were. They were interested in the outdoors.
I don't think my brothers evidenced much interest in plants,
but they enjoyed the outdoors. My father would sometimes be a
summer fire guard back in the San Gabriel Mountains, and we'd go
back into the mountains for part of the summer when I was little.

When I was about four, my father and mother took me on an
animal trip clear across the San Gabriel Mountains from Sierra
Madre to the Mojave Desert. I think we must have been gone three
weeks or more on that animal trip.

Holleuffer: By an animal trip you mean you took burros?

Carter: My first burro experience, yes. [laughs] I'm quite sure they
were burros, not mules. I have a picture of me on one of them,
on a burro. I have a picture of me. on the Mojave Desert sitting
in our little campsite, with very chapped lips. I could hardly
grin my lips were so chapped.

Women Teachers as Role Models

Holleuffer:

Carter:

What other influences did you have in your early years?
there schoolteachers who were interested in botany?

Were

In high school. Pasadena High School. I had the very good fortune
of a biology teacher who was a very good teacher and interested
in the out-of-doors. I had her as a freshman in high school. I
think. Then as a junior in high school I had a botany teacher — at
that time they taught botany as a separate course. The biology
teacher was Ada Neal. later Ada Neal Burns, who later was on the
staff of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The
botany teacher was Ruth Merrill, later Ruth Earl Merrill
Jenkinson. She went to India as a teaching missionary the year I
graduated from high school, and later she married another
missionary, an Englishman. They eventually came to the United
States to live and raise their family.

All these teachers really were a big influence on me. They
took an interest in me and they became friends. I think they
were partly interested because my mother died when I was eleven
and I hadn't had much exposure to women; they really meant a
great deal to me. So I think that they were my first role
models .

Then in junior college. Pasadena Junior College, I had two
people, Florence Brubaker and Margaret Stason. who were both
graduates of UC Berkeley. They also encouraged me. and I worked
for Margaret Stason as a lab assistant after I'd had botany with
Florence Brubaker.

All of them remained friends the rest of their lives.
Margaret Stason who is in her eighties now. is still alive and

went on a Baja California field trip that I led while she was,
oh, probably eighty-one or eighty-two.

Holleuffer: So the student became the teacher.

Carter:

Well, more or less.

Holleuffer: It sounds unusual to me to have had all these women who had
advanced degrees and were teaching at that time.

Carter: None of them had more than a master's degree. At that time you

didn't have to have a Ph.D. to teach in junior college. But both
Margaret Stason and Florence Brubaker had master's degrees that
they had gotten here from Berkeley. When I came here they both
either told me people I should get to know — maybe even gave me
letters of introduction, I don't remember — so I had sort of a
bridge from junior college to here.

The summer after I'd had Florence Brubaker in her botany
course, she was going to UCLA for the summer and encouraged me to
go too. I had the good luck to share an apartment with her that
summer which was a nice experience for me.

Holleuffer: What age were you then, about eighteen?

Carter: Probably. Let's see, probably eighteen, yes. Eighteen,
nineteen. I'd have to do the arithmetic.

II UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY AND HERBARIUM

Botany Faculty, Staff, and Students

Holleuffer: And then you came to Berkeley in what year?

Carter: I graduated from junior college in 1928, came here in the fall of
'28. Graduated in '30 and then stayed on and got my master's
degree here.

Holleuffer: When you came up to Berkeley how many people were there in your
botany class?

Carter: In the senior class at Berkeley there were eight women, no

fellows at all. No men. There were men in graduate school, two
or three, but in the graduating senior class were eight women.

Holleuffer: Were the teachers then women too?

Carter: No, the only woman on the staff was Lucile Mason. [interruption]
There were no women on the Department of Botany staff except
Lucile Roush Mason, then Lucile Roush, who was in charge of the
freshmen botany labs and was Dr. Richard Holman's right-hand
assistant. She should have been an academic professor but at
that time there weren't any on the staff. She did get her Ph.D.
later and still maintained the position of being in charge of all
the freshmen laboratories.

Holleuffer: But she never had a tenured position?

Carter: No. Then later she and Herbert Mason were married and at that
time you weren't supposed to have two in the same family on the
staff. So there couldn't be two academic people. She later
taught at Mills College for a while before she retired. A grand
teacher and a good friend to all the students.

Holleuffer:

Carter:

Did you keep up with your fellow students from that time? Do you
know what happened to them?

I know one, Dorothy Tebbe, became a doctor. I kept up with very
few of them except Mary Bowerman with whom I'd been in junior
college. We came up together and we've been friends ever since.
One who worked in the herbarium with me and sort of introduced me
to the herbarium work in addition to Mrs. Bracelin's introduction
became a teacher [Vivian Giles Weatherhead] in the East Bay
school system in El Cerrito. A very successful biology teacher.
I still know her, but the others I've lost track of. I have a
few ideas on where they are, but I haven't kept in touch.

Holleuffer: When you came up here to take botany what were your expectations
of what you would do with the degree? What did you hope to
accomplish?

Carter: Well, I expected to get a teaching credential and teach high

school and/or junior college. I got both credentials, but I got
out at the height of the Depression in '32 and couldn't find any
jobs. So, I'd been working in the herbarium and I kept on part-
time work in the herbarium, and then gradually it increased to
full-time work. I much preferred that to teaching because I
wasn't really cut out for teaching. I'd had a miserable time in
practice teaching.

Holleuffer: As a student you practiced —

Carter: As a grad student I had practice teaching, and it just about

killed me. I don't know how many pounds I lost that year, but it
was a low period. Especially the second session, which was, I
think, about a fourth level junior high general science class.
It was just awful.

Holleuffer: The students were awful or what?

Carter: The students and trying to get the material across. I just

wasn't cut out for that. The fact that I was able to work into a
position in the herbarium was really a godsend to me and became
very satisfying.

Holleuffer: In your student years there was also an undergraduate club here,
wasn't there, for people who were interested in botany, called
the Calypso Club?

Carter: It was not only undergraduate but graduate too. The faculty also
took an active part in it. I think that more graduate students
went on trips than undergrade, although a few of us undergrads
got to go along. There were weekend field trips in old cars with

good clearance as you saw from the pictures in the Calypso Club
album. We'd all pile into two or three cars. The Masons had an
old Dodge touring car that was wonderful. They'd even lend it to
us sometimes without them being along. So we'd go off in the
Mount Hamilton Range and North Coast ranges or Marin County and
collect plants and just go and have a good time. Sit around the
camp fire and sing.

Holleuffer: In the beginning here in the Calypso Club photo album is a
description of a trip and the sign-up list, and it's three
dollars and fifty cents for the trip. [flipping through it]
It's very cheap. [laughter] Bring your own bedroll, that was
all that was required.

Carter: We didn't have fancy sleeping bags in those days either. A

bedroll was more what it was. just blankets. I know mine was;
the blankets covered by an old piece of canvas that I'd brought
up from home. But they weren't light, so our gear wasn't light.
And we had running boards in those days to tie things onto, which
you don't have now.

Holleuffer: This was also an opportunity to start some field identification
work?

Carter: Yes. Quite a lot of us were taking Herbert Mason's course in

plant taxonomy at that time, so it was an opportunity to do the
collecting that one had to do for the course. Now collecting is
frowned upon, but at that time it was part of the course to
collect a certain number of specimens in different plant families
and identify them correctly, label them, learn how to prepare
good specimens. That's something that isn't done anymore because
of, well, the crunch on the vegetation for one thing.

When I was an undergrad I didn't have much money so I was
working part-time. The first year I was here as a junior I had a
part-time job in the household science department under Agnes Fay
Morgan cutting up prunes and other fruit for the dietary
experiments on rats. It happened that in the house where I was
living there was a young woman who was working for her doctorate
in the household science department, and she got me this job.

Holleuffer: What were you paid for that?

Carter: It may have been twenty-five cents an hour. I know it wasn't as
much as fifty cents; that was later in the herbarium.

Holleuffer: And all the prunes you could eat?

8

Carter: No. I wasn't very hungry for prunes somehow or other. [laughs]
There may have been other fruit, but I remember especially the
prunes and mixing some of their dietary mixes and things. I
don't think I had to clean the cages much; I was spared that.

Holleuffer: What other jobs did you have as a student?

Carter: In my senior year Dr. Holman, professor of plant physiology,

suggested that I apply for a position in the herbarium where they
needed a mounter. So I did and got the position. My first
herbarium job was mounting plants, so I feel I can tell young
mounters how it should be done. I went up to the herbarium to be
interviewed and the herbarium at that time was on the top floor
of the Hearst Mining Building clear at the other end of campus.
Mrs. [N. Floy] Bracelin, who we called Bracie, was the one who
interviewed me. Dr. [Edwin Bingham] Copeland was then curator of.
the herbarium. He had turned the interviewing over to Mrs.
Bracelin so we had a pleasant interview, and I was hired.

Holleuffer: Was she a trained botanist?

Carter: No she wasn't. She had gotten into botany through meeting Ynes
Mexia on field trips (1926).

Holleuffer: With the Calypso Club maybe?

Carter: No, with Harold C. Bryant who was later director of natural
history programs in the National Park Service. (At that time
Bryant was lecturer and instructor in the UC Extension Division,
1916-1930, and much later superintendent of Grand Canyon National
Park.)

Anyway, Harold Bryant was real important later in the
National Park Service. He led these field trips. Mrs. Mexia was
on those, and Mrs. Bracelin became acquainted with her. Mrs.
Mexia was interested in going on field trips and thought that
Bracie could help her take care of the material. So in that way
she worked into botany. She would have been an excellent
botanist — all around botanist — if she'd been able to have gone on
to college and been trained, but she picked it up. a tremendous
amount. She was a real good herbarium curator and very capable.

Dr. Copeland. after Bracie started working for Mrs. Mexia,
put her on the herbarium staff to take some of the load off from
him. That worked out very well for her for a number of years.

Holleuffer: You said something, too, about how she used to sing while she was
working?

Carter: Yes, she was a very joyous person. I think maybe some of her

domestic troubles were covered up by being joyous at work. She
had a lovely voice and would sing as she worked. You could hear
her voice — when we moved to this building you could hear it
through the herbarium. That irritated some of the staff, some of
the academic staff.

Guidance and Support of William Albert Setchell

Holleuffer: I was wondering if you could describe some of the other
departmental personalities other than Mrs. Bracelin?

Carter: Well. Dr. Copeland. who was curator of the herbarium, was quite a
gruff man. He was a specialist on ferns. I got to know him
later, but at that time, as a senior, 1 was quite intimidated by
him. One day I was typing labels for his specimens — Brandegee
labels they were — and I was typing along "JSB" (that's the way
Brandegee1 B writing looked to me.) Dr. Copeland looked over my
shoulder and said. "Any fool would know that was TSB." (Townsend
Stith Brandegee, the most important early botanist to work in
Baja California.) That really made me feel like going under the
table. But later I followed in Brandegee 's footsteps in Baja
California. Now I have his desk and his revolving bookcase as my
own to use here.

I did my master's degree under William Albert Setchell.
who'd been chairman of the department since he came to Berkeley
from Yale and Harvard in 1895. He remained chairman until 193 A,
which is a good long stint. He was a large man — not, well, just
large all over and he had a booming voice. If you were at one
end of the LSB [Life Sciences Building] hall and he was coming
out of a room at the other end, and he just spoke naturally, it
would boom down the whole hall. When you'd go to consult with
him about a problem in your research he would lean back in his
big chair. (He had quite a collection of pipes so he always had
one pipe or another.) He would lean back and look at you. rather
sternly, and then he'd blow big smoke rings that would — . I
would follow these good old smoke rings going up the ceiling
while he was talking or asking me questions.

He had married late. He had a wonderful wife who preceded
him in death a few years, but we got to know her. They would go
on extensive field trips, many of them to the South Pacific, and
bring back collections. But he was also very fond of the
students and had a group that he called his nieces and his
nephews all over the world. Many of the students that he'd had.

10

or professors in other countries, became his nieces and nephews.
I had the good fortune to be a niece.

Holleuffer: Was this a formal title that you — did he address you this way?

Carter: No. were just considered — . He'd have gatherings of his nieces
and nephews. I think he may have had an informal list of them.
We knew we were his nieces and nephews because he'd have us in.
Herbert and Lucile Mason were nephew and niece; Lincoln Constance
and I, both being contemporaries, were nephew and niece, and
botanists all over the world. There were two in New Zealand,
both of whom I've met. You'd go to another part of the country,
and you'd meet somebody who was a fellow niece or nephew. It was
a wonderful relationship.

Holleuffer: Was he very supportive of you in your work?

Carter: Yes.

Holleuffer: Did he encourage you to go for a Ph.D.?

Carter: [pause] He didn't discourage me. but I think I discouraged

myself. I think I could have gone on, but I was scared with the
possibility of a language exam in German, and I just didn't want
to go on. [laughs]

Holleuffer: What languages did you have to have at that time?
Carter: German and French. I didn't have French at all.
Holleuffer: No Latin?

Carter: No. you didn't have to have Latin. Well. Spanish I wouldn't have
wanted to use then. The other way that we knew we were nephews
and nieces were that we called him "Uncle Bill". I went East —
when was it? In 1933. He insisted that I go to visit his
sisters in Providence. Rhode Island, so I went there on my way up
to Harvard and stayed with them a couple of nights. That was a
nice experience, so I came back and brought him news of his
sisters and kept in contact with them until they passed on. He
was one of the highlights of being a student here at that time.

There were other professors too. Professor [Nathaniel]
Gardner, who was the other one working in algae, was a quiet man.
a very gentle, quiet man; quite different from [William Albert]
Setchell. with whom he collaborated on the very famous marine
algae of the Pacific Coast, which really put this institution on
the map as a leader in algological studies.

11

Lecturing and Research Style of Willis Linn Jepson

Holleuffer: What about Willis Linn Jepson. who's been described as the
paranoid personality of the herbarium? [laughing]

Carter: Well. I wasn't one of his students, but working in the herbarium
and his having the need to consult the herbarium from time to
time I got to know him informally. He was always very friendly
with me. He could give the most beautiful, inspiring lectures,
interesting lectures, but he was very much a recluse in his own
office. If he didn't want to see a person he wouldn't see them.
He had — well, perhaps Mrs. Dempster (Laura May Dempster, now a
research associate in the Jepson Herbarium) will tell you that
story when you talk to her — that he gave orders that he wasn't in
unless he wanted to be. [chuckles] There is one story of
Professor [Ralph] Chaney coming to see him. and Chaney was told
that he wasn't in. Chaney didn't believe it, and he was peering
through the keyhole and here was Jepson peering through the
keyhole in the other direction. [laughter]

He felt that anything to do with the flora of California was
his prerogative. No matter how he gained information about the
plants of California it was his right to know because the flora
of California was his. So anything he did to gain that
information was all right in his eyes.

Holleuffer: So there were some underhanded things that went on.

Carter:

There were some underhanded things.

Holleuffer: Would you like to describe some of those?

Carter: I don't know that I should put it on record, but I was working
on some Alexander and Kellogg collections from the Sweetwater
Mountains. I had them all down on the basement floor, and they
were spread out where I was working on them. There were some
really interesting things. I was working there late one
afternoon, and he came along as he usually did after hours. So I
was showing him these interesting plants that they'd collected.
When I finished with them, we sent the list to Miss Alexander,
and she said, "Why I didn't collect this under that number." She
had very careful notes and numbered all her collections. So we'd
given her a name of something she said wasn't on that collection
sheet. We looked at the specimens and discovered that that
specimen had been removed and another one put in its place.
Later those collections turned up in the Jepson Herbarium, which
since then has been curated by Dr. Rimo Bacigalupi and L. R.
Heckard. So he just came and helped himself to whatever he

12

wanted. If there was not enough to split, why he transferred
material. He kept the data all right, correct for himself, but
he didn't care what was right in what remained because he had
what he needed. My fingers were really burned by that
experience.

Holleuffer: You didn't show him plants after that?
Carter: I didn't show him any more plants, no.

13

III UC HERBARIUM COLLECTIONS AND RELATED WORK

William Brewer Collection

Holleuffer: There was also something, as I recall, about the Brewer
collection and Dr. Jepson?

Carter: Well, the Brewer collection was a collection of William Brewer,

who was on the California State Geological Survey of 1864-65. It
came to Berkeley, and it was the nucleus for our university
herbarium. With it was a notebook. The specimens weren't
labeled; they just had his collection numbers on them. Those are
all in the herbarium with his collection numbers, and it just
happened that somehow or other Jepson got hold of the notebook,
and so it wasn't accessible to the herbarium for labeling the
specimens. Not until after some years — I guess it was after his
death — we got that notebook, and then we were able to put the
labels on these specimens as they turn up in the herbarium. It's
just a little slip of paper on the sheet with number, maybe, 465
on it, in pencil, nothing else.

Holleuffer: Absolutely nothing else?

Carter: Nothing else, and an early accession number. One day, one of the
graduate students, who was working in the herbarium, came to Miss
[Ethel] Crum and said. "Can't we throw this out?" Miss Crum. who
was very historical-minded practically went through the ceiling
and told this graduate student what it was and how to take care
of it when we got the notebook. Now the notebook is available,
so whenever those turn up, why we put appropriate labels on them.

Holleuffer: It seems quite amazing that a professor could do these sorts of
things — .

Carter: He was a law unto himself. Everything that furthered the flora
of California was his prerogative.

14

Holleuffer: Was there a great deal of rivalry between himself and other
professors?

Carter: Well, he was the only one in taxonomy to begin with. Then later,
when Professor Mason was put on the staff and began having
graduate students, Professor Jepson was quite bitter about it and
became rather — not bellicose, but unfair to Mason. They had been
friends until Mason began having his own graduate students.
That, from Jepson 's viewpoint, was inadmissible. That was a
source of problems.

Towns end and Katherine Brandegee Collection

Holleuffer: The herbarium was established, as you said, with the collection
of Brewer from the 1860s. I guess that was actually in 1872
[1890] it was put aside as an herbarium. It was added to in
various years with various collections, but one of the important
ones was the Brandegee 's collection in 1906, wasn't it?

Carter: Yes.

Holleuffer: How did that come about? How did the herbarium acquire that?

Carter:

Well, Mrs. [Katherine Curran] Brandegee was on the staff of the
California Academy of Sciences for a number of years and
collected all around California. Mr. Brandegee — I don't know
when he began collecting. His work in Baja California began in
1899 but he'd been collecting — he'd collected wood samples for
one of the eastern institutions. Tale, I think. We'd have to
look it up in the biographical sketch that Setchell made, but he
had collected some.* Then in 1899 he began working with some of
the California Academy of Sciences people in Baja California. He
went down with an ornithologist [Walter Bryant] and a mammal ogist
[Charles Haines] from the academy. They landed at Magdalene Bay.
Brandegee traveled north by animal to San Quint in.

* In 1875 Townsend Stith Brandegee, a Yale graduate, was appointed assistant
topographer and botanical collector with Hay den's Exploring Expedition to
southwestern Colorado. Later he made wood collections — tree trunks — for
Yale.— A. C., 1986.

15

Carter:

Holleuf fer:
Carter:

Holleuffer:

Carter:

Holleuffer:
Carter:

So he amassed a sizable collection. He returned from Baja
California in 1899, and he and Katherine Curran were married
shortly after his return. They moved to San Diego in 1894, and
they continued to live there until 1906. Apparently they had
several pets; included among the pets was a guinea fowl that Mrs.
Brandegee was extremely fond of. I don't know what happened but
in our pictures of the Brandegees there's an annotation saying
that the guinea fowl disappeared — it got away one day and his
letters tell about its disappearance, his not being able to find
it and what good care he'd been taking of it. (Mrs. Brandegee
was away and he was writing these letters to her.) So, in this
annotation for this photograph it says that after the death of
this guinea fowl that Kate couldn't bear to live in San Diego any
more so they moved. [laughs]

Devoted to her pet? [laughs]

And maybe other reasons. Maybe they decided that San Diego was
not a good center for botanical activity, but that's what is
stated. So they came here in 1906, shipped their material and
gave it all to the university with the right of working, having
quarters here to work on it.

They were independently wealthy, then?
collection?

It was their own

He was. It was their own collection, yes. In the meantime he
had started collecting with C. A. Purpus in Mexico and all of the
Purpus things were coming to him too.* That's an extremely
important Mexican collection. He identified all those. They
continued their work, especially Katherine in California. She
was the eminent botanist probably in California at the time.

And again she was not a trained botanist,
doing it.

She just came to it by

By experience, I think so, yes. She was a doctor, a physician,
and I think that in those days peoples' medical training had
more natural science than they ever do now.

Holleuffer: She also started a magazine, the botanical magazine, didn't she?

*For Purpus 's Mexican work, see: Sousa, Mario S.. Las Colecciones Botanicas
de C. A. Purpus en Mexico Perido 1893-1925. Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 51:
v-36. 1969.

16

Carter: The name of it is Zoe, yes.* Both of them published in that.

There are a lot of interesting articles by others as well. Mr.
Brandegee died in 1926. and she'd died two or three years before
[1920] . Dr. Mason, who knew her slightly, and knew Mr. Brandegee
more, said that she would be so interested in getting up to the
herbarium to do her work that sometimes it would look as if she'd
come up in a nightgown instead of stopping to get dressed. But
this may of just been an illusion because she wore a long skirt
that looked sort of like a Hawaiian muumuu, a long dress. Let me
show you the pictures of her.

Holleuffer: Did you say that Ann Zwinger is going to be working on a
biography of the Brandegees?

Carter: She would like to. Well, she'd like to base it on the letters of
T. S. Brandegee. Since she's so fond of the part of Baja
California where he did most of his work she's admirably fitted
to do this. I hope that she carries it through. She said she
has to get the funding, though, to do so. Like everyone else,
yes. [laughs]

Purchase Method of Building Collections

Holleuffer:

Carter:

I'm interested in the early collecting because it seems to have
been a haphazard thing. There were a lot of professional people
out there, and there were a lot of non-professional people. Were
collections being bought by various places, is that why these
people were making collections?

Yes. Universities build up most of their collections by exchange
just the way stamp collectors exchange. You'd send out sets of
material and receive sets back, but in addition there were
private people who either did it as a hobby or as a means of
gaining some income. The Lemmons, J. G. Lemmon and wife — which
is the way his label reads, "J. G. Lemmon and wife" [laughs] —
did that. They collected and sold their material. And a number
of others would just collect as a business and sell — butterfly
collectors did that, too. I don't know whether they still do or

*Zoe was first financed by Dr. H. W. Harkness, mycologist and President of
the California Academy of Sciences and by Mr. Brandegee; later by Mr.
Brandegee alone, cf. Setchell, W. A., Townsend Stith Brandegee and Mary
Katherine (Layne) Curran Brandegee, Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 13:155-178.
126.

17

not. Insect collectors. But it was a way of gaining a little
bit of money. Specimens didn't bring very much, maybe ten cents
a sheet. They're worth a lot more now. There are still
collectors who collect and sell their material.

Holleuffer: Today there still are?

Carter: There still are.

Holleuffer: And do herbaria still purchase things?

Carter: Yes.

Holleuffer: How much today would they pay for a sheet?

Carter: Never under a dollar, and sometimes more. But they only buy

material from remote areas that have not been collected before.
We've bought material from certain parts of Africa. We've bought
material from certain parts of South America. Professor Setchell
left a fund in the name of his wife [Clara Ball Pearson] , and
that's used exclusively for buying specimens.

When I was working in the herbarium as an undergrad, people,
visitors, would come through. One day, a little tiny bit of a
lady, a frail looking lady was visiting and naturally I was
curious to know who she was because she was getting equipment for
fieldwork, considerable equipment. It turned out she was Mary S.
Clemens who was the wife of an army chaplain who was stationed in
the Philippine Islands. She'd been collecting in the Philippines
and was going back, and they were going to go to Borneo, I think.
I think he was about to retire. She wasn't — she must have been
in her fifties then — she looked old to me, but I wasn't twenty
yet [laughing] . So I was interested, and we began buying these
collections from the Philippines and from Borneo.

Harley Bartlett Collection at the University of Michigan

Carter: Then, when I was on loan to the University of Michigan (April-
October 1957 and July 1958-January 1959) to process a lot of
collections that the director of their botanic garden. Professor
Harley Bartlett, had amassed, it fell to me to process her
collections from Queensland, Australia. After all these years I
had a very intimate connection with her collections. She'd been
collecting in New Guinea at the time the Japanese invaded New
Guinea in World War II. Her husband had died, and, as they had
agreed, she just buried him in the field instead of taking him

18

back to someplace else. They had a previous agreement if either
one died, why. they would just take care of it in the local
custom.

So she was evacuated to Queensland in 1941, I think.*
She'd barely gotten settled in there before she decided that she
would go on collecting. Beginning in 1942 until 1950, on her
seventy-seventh birthday, she was collecting, and she sold those
collections. She'd collect duplicates; she collected a number of
plants that were described as new species. She sold all this
material to Professor Bartlett, except for a set which was left
in Brisbane, Queensland.

So these sets — there were maybe ten or fifteen sheets per
collection number — it was my job to get all these dispersed from
the University of Michigan. That was one of the things that I
did when I was back taking care of all the other collections that
Professor Bartlett had amassed through an energetic lifetime of
correspondence and fieldwork. That was the first time that I
ever lived outside of California, in 1957-59. It was interesting
and I enjoyed it.

Holleuffer: What was different about it? What perspective did it give you?

Carter: Well, the weather mostly. The buildings were so overheated you

had to go dressed ready to shed. 1 remember the first snowstorm;
I had a little tiny apartment overlooking the valley. A kid came
along with a sled pulling the morning papers, and I could hear
the sound of the sled on the snow, which was a new sound to me.
Then the sound of the cars spinning their wheels in the snow and
the beauty of icicles after an icicle storm. Things like that.

The other thing that I enjoyed, in addition to the work —
some of which was rather boring but still I was getting a job
done — was the farmers market, which was very active in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Twice a week there was this wonderful farmers market
that you could go to and get fresh produce. I'd never seen so
many squash as came in in the fall, and different kinds of
squash. In addition to being colorful they were delicious. And
the friends I made, too, were very, very rewarding.

Holleuffer: Then you came back in 19 — ?

Mrs. Clemens arrived in Queensland Dec. 31. 1941. Carter. A. M.. "The
Itinerary of Mary Strong Clemens in Queensland, Australia." Contr. Univ.
Mich. Herb. 15:163-169. 1982.

19

Carter: It was a year's appointment, but I did it in two six-month

stretches so as not to be away from here too long. So I was
there in two different periods of six months each.

Holleuf fer: When you came back here you came back to the herbarium as a —
senior botanist? What position — ?

Carter: Yes. I was probably a senior botanist then. I don't remember.
Holleuf fer: A senior botanist would — what were you doing?

Carter: Well, it was quite a lot of administration, still working with
arranging student programs, teaching them how to work in the
herbarium.

Field Trips for Herbarium Exchange Program

Holleuffer: You started some early collecting, too? This was before Baja
California, around various places in California.

Carter: Oh. yes. When I was first working in the herbarium that was when
we were trying to build up our exchange program. Miss Crum — who
had begun working in the herbarium in 1933. after having worked
with Jepson for a while — she and I would go out on field trips.
At that time we would try and collect fifty sheets of each
collection number because we had fifty institutions or more on
our exchange list. So. in good years we'd go down to the desert
and we had a list of things that had been sent out in exchange
previously. We tried to get things that hadn't been sent out or
else get them either in fruit when they'd been gotten in flower
before or get them from a different area. We never eradicated
anything in our collecting, but we had some very good field trips
doing that.

Holleuffer: How many specimens would you come back with, and how long was
your field trip?

Carter: Never more than a week; oftentimes just a long weekend. I think
we had a couple of long ones down on the desert.

20

Editing and Public Information Activities

Carter: Miss Crum was a remarkable person. She'd been educated in
classics and — what was it she said? Oh. she'd taught from
1909-1929 in the public schools, and she said that it was
"traversing an intellectual desert of the most barren sort." So
then she took some courses in botany, got her master's degree in
botany, worked for Jepson and helped him on the Flora of
California. Did considerable work on that. Then, I think, Dr.
Jepson wasn't able to hire anybody anymore, and Dr. Mason, who
was the new curator of the herbarium after Dr. Copeland, jumped
at the opportunity of putting her on the staff.

She and I had a really good relationship. She was secretary
for the California Botanical Society, and then in 1932 Dr. Mason
became editor of Madrono , the quarterly journal of the society.
So she gave up the secretaryship of the society and became
secretary to the editorial board, which position she held for the
next ten years. Dr. Mason, who was the editor, paid attention to
what articles were accepted and rejected — which is an important
function. But Miss Crum was the one who put them into shape for
publishing and saw them through the press.

I worked under her and had a real good apprenticeship under
her very high ideals of editorship. Dr. Mason's obituary
[Madrono 7:33-35. 1943] of her is wonderful; it's something that
I always like to have any new editor of Madrono refer to, because
it gives an idea of what an editor should do for an author and
what the limits of editorship are. She especially thought that
young authors should be given, not rough treatment, but help to
see that they actually said what they meant to say, and that the
titles of the articles would say what they should say.

She passed away in 1943. Then 1 became secretary to the
editorial board. Dr. Mason was editor for, it must have been
twenty-seven years, and I was secretary of the editorial board
for twenty more years. So by that time I really had my fill of
Madrono deadlines and getting it through the press.

Holleuffer: I bet.

Carter: It was an education for me, but I never could have done it if I
hadn't had that experience under Miss Crum. So I recommend the
article about her to everybody who's to become an editor or even
an author.

Holleuffer: How often does Madrono come out?

21

Carter: Four times a year.

So my experiences, my friendships, in the herbarium, not
only with the staff but with the graduate students who were going
through, were the rewarding part of the job in addition to
feeling that I was doing a little bit for science.

Holleuffer: What will happen with your collections from Baja California, for
example? Will they remain here as a research tool?

Carter: Yes. At the moment I have them separate, but they'll all be

incorporated in the main herbarium. One of the requisites for
collecting in Mexico is that two sets of the collections go to
Mexico, one to the National Herbarium at the University of Mexico
and the other to Fprestales [Institute Nacional de Forestales,
Secretaria de Agriculture y uanaderia] which is one of the
Mexican departments from which you get your permit to collect.
But I also send a third one to the herbarium at Polytechnico
[Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, Institute Polytechnico
Nacional] in Mexico City because they have such a very active
collecting program and good botanists there. So three sets, if I
have enough sheets, do go to Mexico. I always try to collect at
least seven. Then one goes to our National Herbarium
[Washington, D. C.], another to Kew in England [Royal Botanical
Gardens and Arboretum, Richmond, England] depending upon how many
I have. Sometimes I have as many as fifteen sheets of the same
species.

Holleuffer: Will they be a discrete collection, or will they be dispersed and
you'll have to look them up?

Carter: They'll be dispersed, sure. If a herbarium has a lot of discrete
collections it's an awful nuisance. At Paris, at the museum in
Paris, you have to know — if you want to work on a certain thing —
you have to know who might have collected it. The collections
are all kept separate, all these innumerable collections, and
it's a terrible headache to go through.

I was checking something also at the herbarium at Madrid,
the National Herbarium, one of the early collections by Ruiz and
Pavon. So the early collections were brought out for me to see,
which was very nice, but it makes a herbarium much less usable to
have that arrangement.

Another thing that I enjoyed in the herbarium was the part
of public service I did. Sometimes people would just bring in
things to know what they were. There was one lady — a senior
citizen — who came in more and more frequently. She had a hobby
of seeing what weeds were growing on her block. She didn't walk

22

very well, and she'd just go around her block and watch the weeds
that came out. Then she'd want to know what they were, if she'd
had trouble identifying them. After she found out what they
were, why she'd look up their history, where they came from, who
described them. She'd draw them, and she had this little book of
the weeds of her block which is really very nice. It was a
pleasure working with her.

Later, when Helen Shar smith was on the staff, she was the
one that did most of the public service, and she had her little
group of public service friends too, which was rather nice.

Holleuffer: There are sort of herbarium groupies, then, can we call people
who come back again and again?

Carter: Yes, it's open to the public. If you want to consult with

collections you have to show some evidence of knowing how to
consult them and how to handle them. But if you have that
knowledge, well, you're more or less turned loose in the
herbarium; otherwise you may be taken in and shown how. If you
bring specimens in for identification and don't have the ability
to do it yourself, well, you get help on it. It used to be more
advertised as a function of the herbarium than it is now. The
department of agriculture [State of California] refers specimens
to us, from their public, and as a result they give us some
financial salary help. Therefore, in a way, we are committed.
Sometimes the staff members don't realize that we have that
obligation.

Holleuffer: [laughs] They're not so receptive to the public?

Carter:

Not always, but it is something that should be recognized.

Holleuffer: You mentioned Helen Sharsmith. She wrote the botany of —

Carter: — of the Mount Hamilton Range.

Holleuffer: And also there's one under UC [University of California] Press.

Carter: One of the UC Press series — that's Spring Wildflowers of_ the San
Francisco Bay Region. The Mount Hamilton Flora was her Ph.D "
thesis [1940] . At that time she was here two or three years, I
think. I was on the herbarium staff then, and we would go to
Mount Hamilton with her on field trips. Her husband. Carl, would
go sometimes but he couldn't always, and we had a lot of really
good field trips together. Became fast friends.

Later, when Carl got a position at Washington State College,
[Pullman, WA] they were down in the summer. Helen and I went on

23

a two-week backpack trip in the Sierra from Yosemite around to
Devil's Postpile and back, a big circle trip for two weeks, which
was really grand.

Holleuffer: What year was that? Can you recall?

Carter: Must have been in upper forties; mid-forties, it was before there
were any little Sharsmiths. [laughs] (It was in 1938!)

Holleuffer: What sort of equipment did you take on a trip like that?

Carter: Oh, we were backpacking. We had lightweight sleeping bags and
dry food.

Holleuffer: There wasn't very much lightweight equipment then, was there?

Carter: Not too much, but it was all right. We managed all right. We'd
sent our second week's food supply to Devil's Fostpile, didn't
carry two weeks food with us.

Holleuffer: By mule or — ?

Carter: It was taken into the rangers, by some route. At the same time.
Carl was a summer naturalist in the [National] Park Service, and
he knew the way of doing those things. So it was really a great
trip. Introduced me to backpacking, which I haven't done as much
of since, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Holleuffer: It's one way to see the alpine forest.

Carter: Then, some years later, after she and Carl parted company. Helen
obtained a position here on the herbarium staff as senior
herbarium botanist. So we worked together very happily for as
many years as she was here (1950-1969). She retired in '69. She
was a very good teacher, and on the field trips she'd teach
people how to recognize things. She wouldn't just spout
scientific names. She'd point out the characteristics of a
flower or a plant to give you a handle on them. She had the hope
of leading field trips and being very active after retirement.
But. unfortunately, she got Parkinson's disease and couldn't
carry out her desires. So it was very sad.

Holleuffer: You mentioned the California Botanical Society which was founded,
I believe, in 1913.

Carter: Yes, by Jepson.

Holleuffer: By Jepson. yes. But then there's another plant society which was
founded — we don't know the date yet — but — .

24

Carter: California Native Plant Society (Incorporated, August, 1965).

That, I think, grew out of a big fracas that was developing up at
the Tilden Botanical Garden [East Bay Regional Park District] .
There was, I guess, some move to oust Jim Roof as director, and a
group of people rallied around him and became very interested in
the native plants. I think that was the nucleus of the Native
Plant Society, that group of people that rallied around Jim Roof
and kept him there as director. But I think Elizabeth McClintock
could tell you a lot more about that, or maybe Alice Howard. I
was busy in Baja California and I kept out of that battle,
[laughs]

Holleuffer: The California Botanical Society tends to be more professionals.

Carter: It started out with much of the same principles as the Native
Plant Society, but then it became more and more full of
professional people and less full of non-professional people. It
used to have many more field trips; in fact, it used to have lots
of field trips, but those have been taken over by the Native
Plant Society. The California Botanical Society, I don't think
it's had a field trip for several years. Sometimes it would have
one a year, but that's even petered out, because the other
organization has taken over very successfully on field trips.
It's really met a need that was felt that the California
Botanical Society fell down on, I think.

Holleuffer: Does the California Botanical Society have chapters throughout
the state in the way that the Plant Society has?

Carter: No, just the California Botanical Society. But it has members

throughout the state, and it's mostly because of the subscription
to Madrono I think. Here in Berkeley we have monthly evening
meetings with talks. They also sponsor a graduate student
demonstration day once a year that's held at various
institutions. This year it's going to be at [University of
California] at Davis, and students display their research and
give papers on their research. They've even gotten to the point
of making a reward to the best paper presented. So they are
filling a need with the graduate students, more so than they used
to. At first students were afraid to be a member of the
Botanical Society, but that's changed and they're much more
active now.

Holleuffer: Your position now is research associate, is that the right term?
Carter: Yes.

25

Holleuffer: Would you explain the difference between the research associate
and the research assistant? Because you were a research
assistant before* at some point*

Carter: No. I was never a research assistant. A research assistant is
somebody who gets paid for helping a professor, being an
assistant to a professor. A research associate, as far as I
know, is an honorary title with no pay. It usually comes after
retirement, or is for a visiting botanist here for a period of
time.

Holleuffer: It allows you a place to work?

Carter: It gives me a place to work, use of the library, use of the

darkroom and some other privileges too. It's a very nice way to
be able to continue your work. You couldn't have it if you
weren't actively working on some botanical project. I don't
think it would be granted to you unless you kept coming in and
doing your thing.

Holleuffer: I wonder, too, about your retirement and your pension. Did you

get a pension for all the years that you worked at the herbarium?

Carter: I have a mixed thing. At one stage, the university said that it
might pay you to drop part of your university retirement here,
state employees retirement. Non-academic employees have a
different retirement system from the academic, from the faculty.
I was in the non-academic status. So, at that particular point
apparently it was advantageous to drop part of that and take
social security, which I did. So I get all the state retirement
for all the period that I worked for the university but at a
reduced amount and also get social security which is not a great
deal but it's a help.

Holleuffer: Would it have been much more advantageous to have had a teaching
position and get the retirement for that? Is there a big
difference between retirements?

Carter: Yes. there's quite a big difference. There wasn't so much then
as there is now. But with the new ratings that the
reorganization that the herbarium is giving, the top person
(which in a way would be what I was when I retired, as principal
herbarium botanist.) will be getting a considerable salary.

Holleuffer: Something comparable to a professor, perhaps?

Carter: To a beginning professor. No, even to a step-up professor, I
think.

26

Holleuffer: It seems to me that was a form of discrimination against the
herbarium employees in the past in that they were very highly
trained and qualified, and yet they didn't get the same sort of
pay as people who were working in the teaching position.

Carter: Well, about the time I retired that was changed somewhat because
at that time we had more Ph.D.s on the staff. They were feeling
very put upon because they were getting so much less than their
contemporaries in teaching positions. So the whole setup was
changed, and their salary ratings were increased too. But this
incoming person who's going to be collections manager — oh, she
does have a Ph.D. — but she's going to get, I forget how much it
is, but considerably more than anybody would have ever thought
such a position would get.

Holleuffer: Do you think it's because of affirmative action and because of
people raising their voices and making themselves heard?

Carter: Well, the first big change certainly was because they let it be
known they were very unhappy. This current one, I think, is
perhaps because there's going to be a considerable change in the
herbarium — .

27

IV BAJA CALIFORNIA FIELD TRIPS WITH ALEXANDER AND KELLOGG
[Interview II: March 19. 1985] it

Annie Alexander, Participant Scientist and Sponsor

Holleuffer: It's March 19th. 1985. and Annetta Carter and I are in the

library of the University Herbarium for our second interview.

Annetta. you made your first trip to Baja in 1947, is that
correct?

Carter: Yes, right. I object to you saying Baja instead of Baja

California. That's one of my pet peeves. [laughs] It's all
right. Shall we start over again? Dr. [Ira L.] Wiggins
[Stanford University] and I have that as one of our goals in
life, to get people to say Baja California, but it's a losing
battle; we can't really win on it.

Holleuffer: But actually we should say Baja California Norte and Baja
California Sur also.

Carter: You're right, but in 1947 it wasn't divided that way.

Holleuffer: Oh, I see.

Carter: Baja California Sur was just a Territorio in 1947.

I think I should start with a little background of how all
this came about. Miss Annie Alexander, who was founder of the
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Museum of Paleontology on
campus, had been very active collecting mammals for the Museum of
Veterbrate Zoology and fossils for the Museum of Paleontology.
But, in later years — she'd been born in 1867 — she became more
interested in plants; it wasn't quite as strenuous as trapping
animals. So she became coming into the herbarium in the
thirties — . We do have some early herbarium collections that she

28

made in 1907 on some trips north, but she really began
concentrating on plants in the late 1930s. Since about 1907 her
traveling companion and friend was Louise Kellogg, so they would
come in together with their collections, mostly from southwestern
deserts. I got to know them fairly well, and I envied them their
trips into the deserts, thought it would be wonderful to go with
them. I worked up quite a few of their collections.

In 1947. in February. Dr. [Lincoln] Constance of the
Department of Botany staff joined a multidisciplinary group
headed by Professor Carl Sauer of Geography. The group had
zoologists and the botanist and an anthropologist and a
paleontologist and a geologist. They were all supposed to pool
their various interests on this trip. So they went to Baja
California in February of 1947. I helped Dr. Constance a little
bit getting his equipment ready, but he's always good about doing
his own footwork so that was just a little bit of help that I

gave him.

.

Then Professor Camp of Paleontology had the idea of a
multidisciplinary group going to Africa. We had a botanist,
Robert Rodin, from the Department of Botany, a graduate student,
scheduled to go as botanist. Well, that was quite a job getting
his stuff ready because we had to get boxes and boxes of
collecting equipment ready for a year-long expedition. He was
supposed to coordinate with the anthropologist on the trip. So I
was very much involved in getting that packed and shipped.

Then Miss Alexander had provided funds for another graduate
student, Herbert Wagner, to go to the Hawaiian Islands and
continue his work in collecting ferns. During the war [World War
II] he'd been a navigator on planes flying the blood bank and had
become very interested in ferns. With all the many stops of
those planes he collected ferns all over the Pacific islands and
wanted to go on studying them. So I got his equipment ready to
go to the Hawaiian Islands.

By the end of the summer I was pretty disgusted and I
thought, "It's not fair. The fellows get to have all the fun of
field trips and here I am drudging away, getting their stuff
ready for them. It just isn't fair." I was really pretty
disgusted with life. Then — I think it must have been early
October — Miss Alexander and Miss Kellogg came into the herbarium.
They'd come in unannounced, and they'd sort of plant themselves
in the middle of the floor and state what they wanted. So they
planted, and they said to me — I don't know whether Dr. Mason, who
was director then, was there or not — they said, "We want to go to
Baja California, and we want you to go with us."

29

Holleuffer: How wonderful 1 [laughter]

Carter: So that was sort of a wonderful blow because I'd really wanted to
go in the field with them. They collected beautiful specimens,
and I admired their work.

Dr. Mason gave his permission, and it was a three-month
trip, which was just out of this world for me. I went on
herbarium time — well. Miss Alexander paid all the expenses.

Holleuffer: Was she wealthy?

Carter: She was of the Alexander. Baldwin. Cooke families of the Hawaiian
Islands, a big sugar plantation.

Holleuffer: Oh. the Cookes, oh.

Carter: And she was independently wealthy and very generous, doing with
her money things that she felt would contribute to science.
There's a complete biography of her up there [pointing to a shelf
in the room] that Mrs. [Hilda] Grinnell wrote that's very
interesting.

She had purchased a Dodge Power Wagon, which was one of the
first civilian models of the World War II weapons carrier, a
pickup. She had a very sturdy metal cage built on the pickup
body with a solid roof, heavy canvas side curtains. This solid
roof had a railing around it so that we could put light stuff up
there. It had a canvas over all that, on account of dust on Baja
California roads at that time. It was quite a job getting
equipment prepared for three months. She had two fifty-gallon
drums for gas which weighted it down a little bit. and I think,
in addition, three or four jeep cans for gas and four jeep cans
for water. The fellows in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology had
been to Baja California before that, and they gave her a lot of
advice, quite a lot of advice. [chuckles] So we were all
supplied with these things. In fact, we came back with a little
bit of the original gas in one of those fifty-gallon drums
because we were able to buy gas along the way. which we carefully
filtered.

Do you just want me to go ahead talking? Or do you have
some questions now?

30

Materials, Provisions, and Language Preparedness

Holleuffer: I guess one of the things that I was going to ask about was the
sort of preparation, which you've already described some of. and
the purpose of the trip.

Carter: The purpose of the trip was just because she was an adventurous
soul. She wanted to contribute something to the knowledge of
botany of Baja California, and she just wanted to go. She'd
pretty well covered the deserts of the Southwest and some of the
mountains on the east side of the Sierra. Sweetwater Mountains
and places like that. Some of the museum people. Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology people, would come back telling her
interesting tales of Baja California and she wanted to see it.

Holleuffer: Were there stories at that time about the strange and exotic
plants?

Carter: Oh. yes. I had read quite a lot about them. A friend and I used
to pore over the report of the botanist [E. A. Goldman]* who went
on the 1906 expedition. So I was all ready to go to Baja
California at the drop of a hat, but I'd never had the chance.

Holleuffer: In terms of preparations for your collecting, what sort of things
did you have to bring with you?

Carter: Well, we had to bring plenty of presses, blotters, newspaper

stock, and press frames. We didn't have any pickling stuff for
pickled material. That was about it, just drying equipment,
pick, pruning shears. Mostly it was our provisions: we carried a
lot of food and plenty of water, not knowing just what we'd find.
In fact we took more than we needed, but that was before there
was any highway and going was slow.

Holleuffer: That was also before dehydrated food.

Carter: It was before dehydrated food, too. so we took rice and not a

great deal of canned goods; I think they tossed in some, as I'll
tell you about later but — . She [Alexander] took along mate
which was an Argentinian tea which she was addicted to at that
time. We usually had something to drink before dinner. And Miss
Alexander was the photographer for the trip.

*Nelson. E. W.. "Lower California and Its Natural Resources." Memoirs, Nat.
Acad. Sci., 16: 1-194. 1921. Goldman , E. A., Plant Records of an
Expedition to Baja California. Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb, viii 371. 1916.

31

Holleuffer: It was also before instant coffee was popular,
after the Second World War.

That only came

Carter: I forget whether we drank coffer or just mate. I wasn't addicted
to coffee. I know Senorita Luisa, as I got to call Miss Kellogg,
liked her coffee muy caliente y_ negro [very hot and black]
[laughing] especially muy caliente. But that was in a
restaurant.

Holleuffer: Where did you learn your Spanish for the trip?

Carter: I didn't have much on that trip. I'd had high school Spanish for
two years, but that had been twenty years before and you can
imagine how much was left.

Holleuffer: Was it learn as you go.'

Carter: I tried to review a little bit but it wasn't too helpful. I

learned that you should ask questions in a certain way so that
the reply would have to be something besides s_i or no. [laughs]
In other words you'd say. "Where does this road go?" instead of,
"Does this road go — ?" It was a help.

Holleuffer: Did either of the women know Spanish?

Carter: Senorita Luisa had a reading knowledge of Spanish but neither of
them had as much speaking knowledge as I.

Holleuffer: I can see the three of you went off — [laughing]

Carter: The three of us went off like that. [laughs] But I did review a
little bit and some of it came back. Some years later Don Felipe
[Felipe Murillo] , who was our wonderful first guide in Loreto,
said to me, "Either you've got to learn to speak Spanish better
or I've got to learn to speak English." So I began going to
night school and after about two years, I guess, of struggling
along — .

Holleuffer: Was this Berkeley High School?

Carter: Yes, Berkeley High night school, and that helped. Then later I
began to live with a family in Loreto, a Mexican Loreto family,
and that helped. I could understand everything but the jokes —
they went too fast — or when they'd be talking too fast.

Holleuffer: Can you recall at this point what your expectations were when you
went to Baja? Did the trip vary greatly from your expectations?
Were your first impressions very different from what you had
expected?

32

Carter: I didn't have many ideas of what Mexican towns and villages would
be like, but I thought that the whole peninsula would be more
arid than it is, that there wouldn't be as much dense vegetation
as you see after a rain. So it was much more heavily vegetated
than I had expected.

I think my first impressions of a Mexican town were brought
out our first night in Mexico. In Ensenada we were in a little
motel — that I think Senorita Luisa and I stayed at once more and
then it disappeared. In the night, there were all these sounds
of dogs barking and cats fighting and chickens, roosters crowing.
Later I thought it would be fun to have a tape recorder and tape
the sounds of a little Mexican town that hadn't become
modernized, so to speak. I just loved those sounds.

Holleuffer: I'm very familiar with this. [laughs]

Carter: I've heard them in La Paz, too, in the earlier days in La Paz.
But not now.

So we were really pretty well equipped for the trip, over
equipped in a way. I spent quite a few hours with a mechanic in
our garage learning to troubleshoot on a car. Luckily. I didn't
have to use any of that knowledge, but I did have a fair feeling
of ability to find whether it was a fuel pump or something else
that was giving us trouble. [laughs]

Holleuffer: That's quite advanced for the time, a lady mechanic.

Carter: Anyway, I didn't have to use those things. We only used the

winch on the front of the truck to help other people; we never
had to use it to pull ourselves out of anything. The men would
gather around and admire this winch and think it was a wonderful
thing — which it was.

Holleuffer: On this trip you went the entire length of the peninsula on the

old roads?

•

Carter: Yes.

Holleuffer: Over a period of several months?

Trip Log — Traveling, Collecting and Camping Experiences

Carter: The whole trip, the round trip, was three months. Our first
night was in Ensenada. and then we got into jeans and felt a

33

little more ready to cope with the world. South of Santo Tomas.
the graded road ran out just a few miles, maybe five miles south
of Santo Tomas. It was graded before that for a ways, then there
was just a track.

So that second night we spent at the Hamilton Ranch, which,
at the time, was a popular hunting headquarters. People would
fly down in little planes for hunting quail. Hat tie Hamilton was
no longer there and I *ve forgotten the names of the very
attractive woman [Margot Parodi] who was then running it. but she
served wonderful meals and had some little cottages where you
could stay. That was before we really took off.

So the next day we took off. had trouble with the sand dunes
in the San Quint in Valley. At that time there was no development
at all in the San Quintin Valley. Now. it's purely agriculture
and little towns. 1 think there are two or three little ranches
in that whole San Quint in Plain. So it was a very different
thing from what it is now.

Holleuffer: About how many miles would you make in a day?

Carter: Usually we didn't make more than fifty, quite often less.

collecting and traveling. But when we got to Catavina that was
the fourth day, 1 think, and we'd only gone two hundred and forty
miles by the fourth day. One of the days was quite a distance — I
think that's right.

Miss Kellogg and I. Senorita Luisa and I. had a driving
schedule. We'd get up at dawn — this developed very early — and
finally get going after cooking breakfast and getting the truck
loaded again. We'd get going and she'd drive in the morning.
Then, if we'd collected during the previous day. at noon we'd
spread out all the blotters to dry in the sun. (We didn't carry
equipment for drying them artificially, which saves time but I
don't like it. doesn't turn out such good specimens.) So we'd
spread out all the driers, let them warm, eat lunch, pick them up
and put them in — it's good bending exercise — and then we'd be on
our way in the early afternoon with me driving.

About an hour before dusk, why we would start looking for a
place to camp. In those days it was easy to get off the road;
now it isn't with shoulders and narrow roads and very few places
comparatively speaking that you can get off. There were four
days that we didn't see any other car. One day we saw four cars
and that was the maximum that we ever saw in one day.

Holleuffer: Were any of the others groups of women traveling?

34

Carter: No. we were it. [laughs]

Holleuffer: Did people comment as they stopped to talk with you. "What are
you women doing down here?"

Carter: I don't remember whether they did or not. I think we met one
other pair of gringos, once. They may have, but the Mexicans
are — they may have wondered but they didn't ask.

Carter: Miss Alexander didn't like to camp near a pueblo, or a ranch.
She liked her privacy, and so we would usually camp away from
places. On that part of the trip this cut down communication. I
know once or twice we were camped near ranches or pueblos and
people would gather around, and she became quite unhappy about
it. But it worked out pretty well on that score. I would have
liked to have had a little more contact with the people but maybe
my Spanish wasn't up to it. They would always be entertained
when I was blowing up my air mattress. That was a big event. We
let them bounce on it. let the kids bounce on the air mattress
and they thought that was great. I'm not sure whether they
[Alexander and Kellogg] had air mattresses or not — I had one but
I didn't always blow it up. Or sometimes I could leave it blown
up and put it on top of the truck and not have to blow it again,
which was a saving of effort.

Holleuffer: As you went along in the truck, did you also take some side trips
by burro occasionally to get into the mountains?

Carter: Not at the first, of the first part of the trip. We took one

side trip on the way south, to Bahia de Los Angeles, stayed two
or three days there. But when we got to Santa Rosalia after a
week and a half. I think it was. Miss Alexander was thinking
about getting up into the mountains.

Nobody at that time could get into Santa Rosalia without
meeting the Australia dentist. Dr. McKinnon. who was sort of a
greeter for people from other parts of the world. He had a
dental practice in Santa Rosalia, had been there a number of
years and just liked to talk to visitors.

So he told us about the Cerro Giganta. which is the big peak
outside of Loreto. He told us that in Loreto we could have a
very respectable guide if we contacted Sefior Felipe Murillo. He
offered to send a telegram to Felipe so that when we got there
there would be some introduction. Introductions are very
important, and also so that Felipe could start looking for some
animals. So he sent off this telegram. Unfortunately the
telegram said tre£ Americanos . [laughing] So when tres

35

Americanas appeared it was a little shock to the village, but
they bore up pretty well.

It was interesting, at that time, about the only truck of
the kind that we had was the one that Erie Stanley Gardner had
been in two years before. It was [an] exact replica of ours and
he had caused quite a sensation in Loreto. [laughs] If a man
upon a mule came down the street, the mule would immediately
start bucking and going into all sorts of cavorting. So the
rider would have fun to show off his ability of controlling it,
and little kids would run into their house and then peer at you
through the window. It was a real novelty to have this big truck
and three women in it, so we caused sort of a sensation in Loreto
on that first trip.

After we arrived and arranged for Don Felipe to get animals
and guides to go to Cerro Giganta, the biggest peak in that part
of the peninsula, we learned that it was going to take him two or
three days to get animals. So we got into the truck and went
south of Loreto. There was just a track south where the highway
now goes. We got as far as Notri where there's a trail which
goes into the mountains.

We didn't know it at that time but later I was on it and
learned that it was the same trail that Steinbeck took when he
was describing his stay in Loreto. He and his party went up to
La Victoria where there's a lovely little hanging valley, went up
there on a sheep hunting trip. He has a wonderful account of
their stay there.

Holleuffer: Is that in the — ?

Carter: That's in The Log from the Sea of Cortez, yes.
know that little hanging valley quite well.

Later I got to

Then we camped at Notrf; a ranch was there and a man gave us
permission to camp. The next day we thought we'd go a little bit
farther south towards Puerto Escondido. The road led up over a
ridge. We got to the top of the ridge on this tiny track and
here were some stones in the middle of the road, said No pase con
carro [Not passable by car] . [laughs] So that was the end of
that road, and we hiked down the other side on a real zig-zaggy
trail down to the little bay on the other side, Bahia de Chuenque
where the village of Juncalito is. Now there is a playa accesso
[accessible beach] for the public and a quite large fishing
village and people in trailers cluttering it up.

36

But we went swimming there as soon as we'd gotten down this
rough trail. That was my first experience with the tropical
colored fish that would swim all around. I had a lot of fun.

Holleuffer: Did you wear a snorkel and a goggle?

Carter: No, not then. Not till later. So we got back to Loreto and
Felipe was ready for us with two other men, Jesus Arias and
Adolf o Garayzar.

Holleuffer: Now, again, how did you communicate with them?

Carter: Apparently my Spanish was enough to — I don't know. I can't

remember now that — I apparently had picked up enough, and I had
reviewed some. But Don Felipe told me later that 1 always came
with, as he said in Spanish, a very heavy tongue. It would take
me two or three days to limber up my tongue.

But anyway, we arranged and managed somehow or other,
[laughs] We drove about seventeen miles north of Loreto to San
Bruno and then seven miles west along the mesa to where we left
the car. This took most of the afternoon. Felipe had arranged
to have somebody stay with it while it was there, more or less
abandoned but definitely off the road. We camped there that
night. About seven the next morning. Jesus and Adolf o arrived
with animals (two horses, four mules and five small pack burros).
It was about a six hour ride on the animals up to the north, a
big basin on the north side of the Cerro Giganta. We camped at a
deserted cattle and goat ranch, at about two thousand feet
elevation on the north side of this huge basin.

Discovery of Acacia Kelloggiana

Carter: We were there Thanksgiving week of November '47. The first week
we collected around in the basin and explored there. There was a
real good water spring about a mile up one side of the basin, so
we had ample good water. Then, one morning at dawn. Jesus,
Adolf o and I. with packs on our backs, started for the top of the
peak. It was really a rugged climb. Jesus was just like a
mountain goat. He'd go along — there 're no trails — he'd find a
sort of ledge at the base of a cantil , a cliff, and go along it
and then climb up through a little opening and get up onto
another little ledge. So we went, but the vegetation was no
help. There was an Acacia with horrible hooked spines. It just
tore us to pieces.

37

[brief interruption]

Well, this Acacia was just horrible; it just clawed at you.
Horrible, hooked spines and very stiff and unhelpful, and there
were other spiny things too but that was the worst. I collected
the Acacia in fruit — it was way past its flowering. I don't know
how many times I've gone back to get it in flower. Apparently it
flowered right away the first rains in August. I had tried and
tried and finally, in 1971, I got it in flower and was able to
describe it as a new species and name it for Miss Kellogg, Acacia
kelloggiana, which I was very pleased to be able to do.

Holleuffer: A completely new species of Acacia?

Carter: Yes. Imagine barging into the genus Acacia but a specialist on
legumes [Velva Rudd] collaborated with me on it. Roxie [Roxana
Ferris of Dudley Herbarium, Stanford University] and I were going
to do it, but she passed away before we got it done. I was real
pleased to be able to name that for Miss Kellogg, Senorita Luisa.

We finally got up on top and there was a sort of a long
sloping crest — not the main peak but a slope that ran up to it,
sort of an upland sloping plateau. There was tall grass, there
were oaks, and there was a tree lily, a Nolina, up there which is
very picturesque, that was supposed to just be in the Cape
Region.

And these oaks were supposed to be only in the Cape Region
mountains. Standing up among the grass were a doe and a couple
of fawns — and Jesus, who the day before had brought a deer into
camp for us to eat, knew that there was no chance of shooting it
up there. He just said, "Que bonito," [How beautiful] very
quietly, just stood and admired it and thought that was the place
where it should be.

We did get clear up to the peak, which is sort of a little
granitic outcrop on top of this very much vulcanized mountain.
All these cliffs had been basalt flows, but apparently the peak
was above those. Either they'd worn away or something — I should
have had more geology, should now have had more geology than I
did then. And from there you could see the Pacific and you could
see the Mexican mainland. It was beautiful. So we spent a
little time up there and returned down the slope and then made
camp at the place we had left our packs. Did quite a lot of
collecting. But in the night a horrible wind came up, just a —
practically a hurricane. When we were having dinner — we just
carried one or two canned things and some of the galletas
marineras [sea biscuits], which are made for the fishermen. Real
good — have you had those?

38

Holleuffer: No.

Carter: They're just like a little round biscuit, hard as a rock.

They're real good to carry in your pocket and munch on when you
get starved and to dunk into your coffee or whatever.

Anyway, we're having our supper and opened this can thinking
it was going to be tuna — and it was an unlabeled can which Miss
Alexander and Miss Kellogg had put in from their store at home —
and it turned out to be caviar. [laughs]

Holleuffer: Oh, my goodness 1 [laughs]

Carter: First time ever I had caviar. Anyway, that and coffee were our
dinner.

Holleuffer: Pretty rich dinnerl What did the vaqueros [cowboys] eat?

Carter: That.

Holleuffer: They ate caviar too? [laughing]

Carter: Yes, I think they probably had some dates to chew on. Dates are
a standard thing to carry with you, in date season. They
probably did have those. We didn't starve. I forget what we had
for breakfast. I know we had coffee. But. this wind was
blowing; we couldn't have a fire in the morning, so we couldn't
have had coffee. They made the coffee — each one had a granite
cup and they put a little of the ground coffee and boil it up
right in the cup and then let it settle a little bit.

We tried collecting, but it took six hands to put things in
press. It was just a terrific wind, a north wind and cold as the
dickens. So we finally gave up and started down. It took us
most of the day to get down.

if

Adventures of Three Women Without Fear

Carter: So then we got back to Loreto. Don Felipe was — well, all three
of the men were just wonderful. Jesifs was about my age and he
had a family of six children then; it kept increasing. He lived
on a little ranch, a goat ranch, out in the hills. Adolf o lived
in town. But Jesifs was the one like a mountain goat and I now
know his grandchildren in Loreto. He's since died, and so has

39

Adolf o. But Don Felipe was such a gentleman, and he was so
solicitous of Miss Alexander. He'd make sure* with his machete,
that he'd whacked off all over-hanging branches. Just wonderful,
just great care, if the two of them went clambering around. Why,
in fact the two days that I was up the Giganta he'd just followed
every step to make sure that nothing happened to them, they
didn't bump into any rattlesnakes or anything. Miss Alexander
looked so frail; she wasn't, but she looked frail.

Holleuffer: How old were they?

Carter: Well. Miss Alexander had her eightieth birthday the next month.

Holleuffer: My goodness 1 [laughter]

Carter: 1 guess Senorita Luisa was sixty-eight.

Holleuffer: Well, no wonder he was solicitous.

Carter: Miss Alexander looked frail but she wasn't really. They'd use

walking sticks, as a third leg which was. on that rough country,
really good.

Holleuffer: They were quite intrepid, then, to go off by mules and into the
mountains — .

Carter: Yes. they were. [laughs] In fact, there was a children's book
written about Baja California called Three Without Fear. [It
was] about three children who went up the peninsula and it had
come out about the time of our trip. So, when I wrote up the
article for the California Monthly we called it "Tres Mujeres Sin
Miedo" [Three Women Without Fear], That's where we got that
title: we were asked weren't we afraid and so forth.

Then we started out to go on farther south. At that time
you couldn't go from Loreto right south, and you had to backtrack
almost to Concepcion Bay and go through Comondu. So we got to
Comondu and it was another subtropical oasis, just like San
Ignacio. We came upon an edge of a mesa and here was this long
valley full of palms and papayas and things and a zig-zaggy road
going down it. I've forgotten to say that after San Ignacio we
came to the grade that was then called Cuesta del Infierno, or
the little infernal grade. It zig-zagged down this precipice and
it was definitely one-way. You hoped you wouldn't meet anybody
on it. Now we had come to a similar shorter road that went from
the mesa down to Comondu.

So we, somehow or other, got permission to camp at least one
night in an orchard in a huerta [garden] of a resident of

40

Comondd. A little boy came by in the morning with his slingshot
wanting to kill birds, which I sort of objected to, but that's a
favorite little boy pastime in Baja California. Later I would
tell a little boy in Loreto that they have their right to live
too. [laughs] "Ellos tienen su derecho" [they have their
right] .

The next day we camped in the arroyo [gully] southwest of
Comondu after having a very pleasant time there. There were
clouds gathering over the mountains, and I was a little concerned
because we were right in the arroyo bed. 1 thought that wasn't a
good place to be, but it wasn't the storm season and so 1 didn't
worry about it too much.

But I was sitting up, writing my notes by the light of the
Coleman lantern — Senorita Luisa and Miss Alexander. I guess were
sound asleep — and I heard a little rustling. I looked up and
here was a huge rattler coming right through the camp, just a
great big fellow. So luckily a long-handled shovel was sitting
nearby, and I didn't like him right in camp so I took the long-
handled shovel and chopped off his head. That took care of that.
I think I put him in the place where we'd had the fire, and next
morning I told them what happened. They said. "We thought we'd
heard a little commotion in the night." [laughs] I didn't sleep
very well that night because I thought, "Well, maybe another one
will be coming along."

Holleuffer: Where there's one there's two? [laughs]

Carter: Well, I kept thinking that, plus the clouds over the mountains.

For the next two or three nights I put up my army cot and
slept off the ground. But I soon went back to the ground again:
it was too much trouble to put up the cot.

Holleuffer: The other two ladies slept out in the — .

Carter: Yes. Once in a while they'd put up their tent if we had a

threatening rain or a cold wind. I know in the cirio country
we'd had a storm threatening and a cold wind and they'd put up
the tent. I rigged up some sort of shelter that kept some of the
rain off from me. But nearly always we just slept right out.

Holleuffer: What was the attitude of the guides that you had? Did they

understand what you were doing collecting plants? Did you ever
explain it to them or did they just think that you were crazy
Americans?

41

Carter: No. You'd ask them about the uses of the plant so they would

think that you were collecting medicinal plants. That always is
a help. But I wasn't able to explain at that time, but they
accepted us apparently very well. They did have this feeling of
medicinal plants. Later, when I was doing quite a lot of taping,
the idea became quite firmly implanted that I wanted to know
about the uses. Then they would want to know if I had them
analyzed, which I did in a few cases. But apparently we were
pretty well accepted.

So we got to La Paz on December 8th. a little over a month
from the time we'd left Eneenada with the side trips and the week
trip up into Cerro Giganta. At that time La Paz still had
cobbled streets — no paved streets at all — and you can imagine how
the truck bumped over those cobbled streets. [laughs] We stayed
at the Hotel Perla which was the hotel then and about a fourth
the size it is now. It had a back yard, a courtyard, where we
could keep the truck and where I could dry blotters. We were
there two or three nights before we sort of gathered ourselves
together, got ourselves cleaned up and ready to start on the next
leg of the trip around the cape.

One evening there was a knock at the door, and a woman came
and introduced herself. Margaret Waters. She was a freelance
writer and she wanted to write up these intrepid women. So Miss
Alexander was gracious and talked with her. That was the
beginning of a friendship that I have until now with Margaret
Waters. She lived there for, oh, another ten years, I think, in
La Paz. Her husband did leave her, so she acted as a bilingual
secretary to Serior Rufo of the Rufo store. La Perla de La Paz.
and taught English to Mexicans and had a very good life there.

Holleuffer: Where did she write up the story?

Carter: I don't know where that one did appear, but she was at that time
a contributor to the editorial page or the sort of essay page of
the Monitor, the Christian Science Monitor, and several things
appeared in there. I don't know where that story did appear.
Maybe it never got published, but she did write it up and she has
written some others that I've read since.

So Miss Kellogg and Miss Alexander wanted to go around the
Cape and then go up into the mountains south of La Paz. up into
Sierra de Laguna. But first we made a trip around the Cape.

One day between San Jose' del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas the
collecting was so good — the rains had been so good — that we only
made ten miles that day. just collecting, collecting. I think
that was one of the times when our stack of blotters, our presses

42

with plants in them would have reached six feet if they had been
piled on top of each other.

We found a place to camp right back of the ocean at the tip
of the cape and a wind came up. We were behind some little
coastal shrubs that protected us some, but it was sort of a mean
wind and the sand was blowing in our food. Suddenly Miss
Alexander began to chortle and she said, "I wonder what our
wealthy friends would think if they could see us now." And she
and Miss Kellogg just went into gales of laughter [laughing]
because they were both very well-off and their friends — .

Holleuffer: Millions. I suppose they had.

Carter: Probably. I'm not sure that Miss Kellogg did, but she was

adequately taken care of. Miss Alexander was wealthy, and their
friends weren't accustomed to this kind of life. So they really
had a good chortle over that.

We returned to La Paz before going to Todos Santos. We'd
been told of a man in Todos Santos who could help us: we got to
know some businessmen in La Paz who gave us good advice. We went
to the proper person in Todos Santos and he told us where to go
to a ranch at the Sierra de Laguna. Rancho La Burrera. (I still
can't trill my r's.) We got animals there from Trinidad Castillo
and he went up with us.

It was Christmas week and cold, and we were up there about a
week. The guides, Trinidad and his friend, were afraid of
skunks, zorillos, with rabies, la rabia. and he told us lots of
tales about that. In the morning it got down to freezing. I
know one morning, maybe it was Christmas morning. Miss Alexander
was brushing her teeth and a thin film of ice formed over the cup
while she was washing her teeth, so it was cool. [laughs]

Holleuffer: How did you celebrate Christmas?

Carter: We went on a nice hike to a peak called La Aguja which is the
highest peak in that area overlooking Todos Santos. We found
some interesting things. The collecting up there was really
good. We never did find a little composite, a little plant in
the sunflower family [Faxonia pusilla] that was collected by
Brandegee on one of his trips there. It's never been re
collected since, and people have been looking for it.

Holleuffer: Did you have, then, certain specific plants in mind that you were
looking for that hadn't been found?

43

Carter: Not in general. We had a few but mostly collecting hadn't been
done much so we were collecting everything that was in good
condition. Tried not to re-collect the same things but it was
all so new to us, we just collected everything. Since then
collecting along the highway has been discouraged because it's
the same thing that everybody collects. But we got into these
offbeat places, so collecting was really worthwhile.

Holleuffer: You're known for your offbeat collections. [laughs]

Carter:

I guess so. [laughs]

Holleuffer: — if I may say so
Carter:

Carter:

Did you see what Dr. Wiggins said about me in The Flora of Baja
California?

Holleuffer: No.

I have to show it to you. He was describing the collectors and
mentioned Reid Moran of San Diego Natural History Museum and me
as the recent ones who have added to the knowledge of the flora.

But on that first trip, I think to the north side of Cerro
Giganta. I got an Abutilon in the Mallow family that was
described as new; later it was reduced to another species that
was in the Cape Region but it looked very distinctive. So it was
called Abutilon carterae.

So we came down from La Laguna, a part of the Victoria
Mountains, on the 29th of December. That evening I discovered
that had been Miss Alexander's eightieth birthday. They'd kept
it secret. But we got down and I'd left a whole stack of plants
with the senora of the rancho at La Burrera to change blotters
for me. I'd given her, I thought, careful instructions to take
the blotters out and spread them and then put them back among the
plants, but unfortunately I discovered, when I was going through
them that night, she had not only spread the blotters out but she
had spread the plants out and the wind had come. So things were
pretty well scrambled. Luckily my notes were adequate, and some
of the plants had left stains on the sheets. I don't know how
many hours I spent in the tent that night with a Coleman lantern
unscrambling those collections. But I think I made it all right.

So we got back to La Paz. and a businessman there that we'd
gotten to know suggested that we fly home and let somebody else
drive the truck. Miss Alexander said. "No." So we started back
again on the first of January [1948] , started north. I think it
was that first night, maybe the second night out on the Llanos de

44

Magdalena, it was cold — it got down to 22 degrees that night, and
the afternoon it was up to 92 degrees. Terrific range of
temperature. There was lots of firewood and we built a cooking
fire and then another fire back of us to keep us warm while we
were cooking supper.

On the way back Miss Alexander wanted to go back to Bahia de
Los Angeles again, so we made a side trip out there but it took
us. I think, a little more than four weeks to get back because we
had this side trip. And you just didn't travel fast on those
roads .

Holleuffer: Did you have many breakdowns and flat tires?

Carter: Didn't have one. On the way back, instead of following the road
along Concepcio'n Bay from La Purisima we went along the Pacific
side where the Baja California — "Baja One Thousand" I'd suppose
you'd say — races have been held in later years because it got the
racers away from the paved road and the better known road. That
was just a track at that time. At one place we had to widen the
road; it was a narrow canyon and the truck wouldn't fit. and we
had to widen it some.

Holleuffer: You had shovels with you?

Carter: Oh, yes, we had long-handled shovels. In another place the road
had been gullied so that we had one wheel on one side of the
gully and the other wheel on the other side and you didn't know
when the gully was going to change, [laughs] We saw a little boy
come riding along the mesa on a burro. He had two sombreros on
his head, his old sombrero and his new sombrero. He had just
come in from San Ignacio with a supply of probably sugar and
other staple foods. The road wasn't very plain at that point so
we went to the ranch with him, and the next morning he guided us
back to the road we should have been on. We got into San Ignacio
later that day.

I know we were going up one ridge on a road that was
perfectly visible. I was driving and got to the top of the ridge
and at the top of the ridge the road parted, so I stopped, trying
to decide which half to take, right or left. I guess Miss
Alexander was getting a little tired: it was the afternoon. She
said, "Well, make up your mind." So I plunged down the right
hand, and at the bottom a little ways farther down they both came
together, which is typical of many such choices. It certainly
was true on Laguna Chapala; you'd have half a dozen choices.

Holleuffer: That all end at the same place?

45

Carter: All end at the same place. At least with us they all always
ended at the same place. So that was the first trip, three
months and few days.

It changed my whole life because as we left La Paz on
January first I made a New Tear's resolution which I've almost
kept, to go back every year. I was just checking and — where is
it — in 19A9 I went down. Margaret Waters wrote me and said
they'd had excellent rains in March, that the Cape Region was
just a flower garden. So I flew down by — there was no line up
and down the peninsula then except a freight line. I got on a
plane in Tijuana — there was just a little tiny shack at the
airport there — and got aboard a DC-3.

Carter: The woman sitting across from me, as we were about to take off.
crossed herself and then offered me a drink — I guess it was
tequila — and she said. "The first time you've ever flown? And on a
Mexican plane! I know the dangers." [laughter] And it turned
out she was the wife of the pilot who flew the freight plane up
and down the peninsula. She was the one in the office,
dispatcher and things like that. She was going over to Mazatlan
to make some arrangements. So that was my first flight.

We went to Mazatlan and I got off there and then got another
plane to La Paz and met Margaret and Don Waters who had a jeep,
and we got out in the field. On that trip I collected a
Bouvardia which I was able to name for Miss Alexander, a new
species. So then I kept going every year.

Holleuffer: How were these trips sponsored?

Carter: I was going to get to that in a little bit. I'll just do this

and then — . I've skipped 1954 because Miss Kellogg wanted to go
to Seville where her sister had lived. I skipped 1956 and 1957
because I was on loan to the University of Michigan and there's
something interesting I can tell about that later. I skipped
1968 because I went east to study type specimens of Baja
California, and I retired in '68. Nineteen seventy-six I didn't
have any Baja California trips for collecting because I was in
Cuernavaca settling my brother's estate. In 1978 I went as a
guide for the California Academy of Sciences' tour, but I didn't
collect. In 1982 I skipped, but I've been every other year,
sometimes several times.

As for funding. Miss Alexander took care of the first two
trips; she took care of the trip with Margaret Waters in '49.
Then there was an organization, the Associates in Tropical
Biogeography. which was the one under whose auspices Dr.

46

Holleuffer:

Carter:

Constance had gone to Baja California in '47.
three trips.

They funded two or

Did you have to apply to them?
these grants or — ?

Were you actively going after

I had to apply for that but I had the support of the faculty.

Then, beginning in 1959. I got to know Mr. [Kenneth] Bechtel
through my association with the California Academy of Sciences.
He was interested in Baja California. He had set up the
Belvedere Scientific Fund for the California Academy of Sciences,
and they funded all of my major trips. From then on I funded the
minor ones. Miss Kellogg funded the ones between 1948 and 1953.
We became very good friends and went together on these trips. So
except for small short trips I was pretty well covered, which
made it possible. Professor [Ira] Wiggins told me once. "You can
get more mileage out of a funding than anybody I know." I really
didn't pad my expense accounts a bit.

Miss Alexander died in the fall of 1949. She attended one
of the big lectures on campus by a famous paleontologist and that
night became ill. She was in a coma for a year; if she hadn't
been wealthy I don't think they would have kept her alive but
they did. After Miss Alexander died. Miss Kellogg and I took off
in the fall of 1950 in the same Power Wagon. I guess we were
gone from November 19th to December 28th. We had a trip of more
than a month. We only went as far as Loreto. but we had a good
trip. We were just joggling along south of Catavina where the
road was not terribly rough but very jiggly. and Senorita Luisa
said. "I just don't see how Annie stood this!" [laughs] But she
had.

Thoughts on Beauty of Plants and Sites in Baja California

Holleuffer: Around Catavina there's a first real forest of boojum trees in

Baja California. What did you think when you first saw a boojum
tree?

Carter: I thought it was like a three-ring circus. The cirios. the

boojums, the elephant trees, and then these highly eroded rocks.
I was just completely fascinated by them. I wanted to come back
and spend a lot of time with the camera. I never have had much
chance — I always wanted to camp in them on a night of a full moon
and see what they're like. I did accomplish that once. That's
my favorite part of the peninsula other than the Sierra Giganta.

47

Holleuffer: What would you say is the particular interest in Baja? I noticed
a lot of endemics there, because it has been almost separated,
hasn't it?

Carter: It has been separated, yes. and then not only separated but it

has moved northward. According to the plate theory it was maybe
some four hundred miles farther south when they were more or less
together. That accounts for the fact that in the mountains in
the Cape Region there are quite a few things that are more
closely related to the mainland flora, mainland of Mexico flora
than those in other parts of the peninsula. The Cape Region
mountains, during succeeding geological epochs, never were
submerged, whereas the mountains to the north, north of the
Isthmus of La Paz. went up and down several times and only the
peaks remained above water. That's how come in the Sierra
Giganta and farther north, the mountains back of Mulege. you have
the same oaks that are in the Cape Region mountains. The same
with the Nolina. a tree lily, and some other things. Those are
the conspicuous things. Because the higher peaks didn't get
submerged these plants apparently survived up there. So they
must have been more widespread lower down. So relationships of
the flora of Baja California to that of mainland Mexico are most
interesting.

I presented a paper at a Mexican botanical congress giving
quite a bit of evidence showing that there was a good crossing of
plants north of Guaymas before the Gulf [of California] became so
deep. When there was a land crossing there, plants that you find
in the peninsula at that latitude occur — a few of them — over in
the Guaymas area in the Sonora.

Holleuffer: Is that in the thirty degree parallel?

Carter: A little farther south than the thirtieth, the twenty-eighth.

Holleuffer: It's between the twenty-eighth and the thirtieth parallel on the
mainland that you also find the boojum tree. There's just that
one little strip that's the same flora.

Carter: Yes, and there's one little stand of palo bianco [Lysiloma

Candida] not far from Guaymas, which is the only one in Sonora.

Holleuffer: Is palo bianco restricted to the peninsula?

Carter: Except for that one little stand, yes. The other species of
Lysiloma is very widespread in Sonora and Sinaloa.

Holleuffer: What are some of your favorite plants?

48

Carter: Well, the palo bianco is my favorite tree. I think it's

beautiful. I don't know. I like the burseras. the torotes;
they're quite a few of them, they're very picturesque. I like
the elephant — what should be called the elephant

tree — Pachycormus discolor. There's this confusion of the common
name of Bursera and Pachycprmus .

There are so many it's hard to say.
Holleuffer: About how many endemics are there?
Carter: I don't know.

Holleuffer: I know that it's a figure that's somewhat subject to change,
but — .

Carter: Yes. I don't know. I'd have to look it up. It's become the kind
of thing I find easy to look up and don't remember, but quite a
few hundred.

It isn't as highly endemic as it was one time thought. Dr.
Wiggins has a discussion of that in the flora, but there isn't
quite as much endemism as one might have thought because of the
isolation. But it's high. With more exploration we've found
that things that were thought to be endemic aren't. From the
Nelson and Goldman Trip [1906] to the Cape Region, that whole
length of distance where they collected oaks in the Cape Region,
they described three as new species. One of them has been found
to be very common over in the mainland. So that's happened with
quite a few things that were first described as new species and
then with further exploration it's found out that they aren't all
new species.

Holleuffer: This is almost a general theme in botany, though, isn't it? That
so little is known, maybe half of the world species are really
known, so as we discover things we think at the beginning. "Oh.
it's new." and then we find out late that it's really not new.

Carter: Yes. it happens.

New Species Discovered by or Named after Carter

Holleuffer: How many new species have you discovered in Baja? You mentioned
these two that you named after Miss Kellogg and Miss Alexander.

49

Carter: I only named three or four myself, but I've had quite a few
things described from material that I collected. I haven't
counted them up — maybe six or eight, something like that.

Holleuffer: Are any others named for you other than that?

Carter: Well. Rozie named a sand verbena. Abronia carterae. I think

that's been put down to varietal rank. There's a little plant in
the sunflower family from the southern Cerro Giganta named
^SH^i* carterae for me. Then the genus named Carterothamnus
anomalochaeta, from one of my trips; I think it's a good species
but I'm not sure that it's a viable genus. I think the man who
named it is too much of a splitter, but it's very beautiful and
distinctive hanging rock plant, beautiful thing which I'm fond
of.

I found it first in rather miserable dried condition on a
trip over towards Los Dolores out of Rancho Agua Escondido east
of Ciudad Const it ucion. It was hanging over a pool, very
difficult to get at. and I just got. oh, two or three sheets. It
wasn't in good flower; it was very sad. past fruit stage. I sent
it to a man at the Smithsonian [Institution] working in that
group of plants in the sunflower family. He's a horrible
splitter, and this just had a few — I think it just didn't have
any good fruits in it. but he was quite sure it was new. He
wanted to describe it and I said. "Well, wait until I can get
more material if I'm going to have something named after me." He
told me what he was going to name it. I said. "I'd at least like
it to be fertile." [laughs] He didn't wait, and I did get more
material and he still thought it was good.

Holleuffer: Well, we have a few minutes left on the tape. Could you just
describe what you mean by a splitter?

Carter: Well, some people take a lot of minor characters and feel that
they're worthy of separating one species from another or one
genus from another. Instead of finding similarities among the
plants they look for all the little differences. If you take the
similarities and group them you find that some of the differences
fade in importance, so you — .

50

V MORE ADVENTURING AND COLLECTING IN BAJA CALIFORNIA

La Paz and The Working Methods of Joseph Wood Krutch

Holleuffer: I was going to ask you about a trip that you took again under the
auspices of the Bechtels with Joseph Wood Krutch.

Carter: I don't remember quite how that came about. Mr. Bechtel, Kenneth
Bechtel, was very interested in Baja California. He was a good
friend of George Lindsay, director of the academy [California
Academy of Sciences] . Somehow or other I was invited to go along
on a short trip, flying down in the Bechtel engineering
corporation plane — I think there were about eight of us that
went — and we flew to La Paz. There Mr. Bechtel arranged for a
boat, the Mar Isla of Dick and Mary Lou Adcock, one of the first

We went aboard ship starting in the evening and went as far
north as Los Dolores. Joseph Wood Krutch and his wife Marcelle
were aboard, and Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins of Stanford, Wally Ernst
who was a graduate student at Stanford, and Kenneth Bechtel. We
went ashore at several islands. It was interesting to see how
Joseph Wood Krutch would work. We'd perhaps been climbing around
the islands, and in the evenings would sit down around the
campfire. He'd get out a tape recorder and just talk in the tape
recorder about his impressions and his thoughts. Or he would
just talk to us or he'd recount things that he'd done. I was
very, very pleased to be able to go with him because the year I
was back at Michigan I introduced myself to his Desert Year and
his other desert books. I'd never read them before, and when I
was that far away from the desert this was a real solace to be
able to read his books. So getting to meet him in person was a
real thrill for me.

51

He liked to talk to the people that we — at Los Dolores I
think he spent quite a bit of time talking to the rancher there.
But that was the only place that we stopped where there were
people. It was only a two-night trip aboard this boat.

Then later, several years later, he'd [Joseph Wood Krutch]
never been to San Javier in the Sierra west of Loreto and so.
again. Mr. Bechtel flew us down with George Lindsay and Jerry
Lindsay. We stayed in Loreto overnight. In fact, we got there
and it was the summer and Sportsman Lodge had been closed for the
summer, but somehow or other we managed to get it opened for us
and a cook came in. and we had the place all to ourselves. I
wasn't very fond of Sportsman Lodge, but in this case it worked
out.

Then we got a couple of trucks to take us up to San Javier.
He was very pleased to have seen that; I wish that he'd seen it
before he wrote The Forgotten Peninsula. It really is lacking
from that book, but it was a good trip. I think I stayed in
Loreto. and they came back on that trip.

Then I visited them once or twice in Tucson. Arizona, when
they were still there. His wife, his widow, is now living over
in Marin County. I believe. I haven't — I should have looked her
up but I haven't. Marcelle Krutch, a very delightful person.
But it was interesting to see how he worked, and the kinds of
things that he observed and put down on the tape recorder.

Holleuffer: Were they the same things that he wrote about in the book?

Carter: A lot of them. I should reread that; I think there were one or

two things that I disagreed with, one or two little minor points

I thought were slightly off-beam, but I haven't read it for a
long time.

Cooperation with Mexican Botanists

Carter: With the funds from the Belvedere Scientific Fund I was able, two
or three times, to bring Mexican botanists over to go with me on
field trips which was good international relations.

Holleuffer: Was that your own idea?

52

Carter: I think in my grant proposal I suggested it because I'd felt and
do feel very strongly that we should collaborate with the Mexican
botanists instead of just ripping them off of their "gold" which
I think a lot of botanists have done. Like the American miners
who have gone down and raided the country. I think the botanists
have done much the same, just scraped off the cream.

But I was able to bring the director [Ferdinand Medellin
Leal] at San Luis Potosi over with me on a good pack trip. And
Mario Sousa. who's now director of the National Herbarium
[Institute de Biologia] at University of Mexico. He was here on
exchange for six months, and a couple of years later I was going
to the peninsula and he was able to come over on Bechtel funds.
Belvedere Scientific Fund, and go to the Cerro Giganta with me.
That was a real good trip. He regaled our guides with tales of
the dangers of Mexico City. [laughs] If you let your arm hang
out of the car your wrist watch was apt to be torn off and things
like that. He had those guides just boggle-eyed one night around
the campfire telling of what it was like to live in Mexico City.
Of course he had no language difficulty.

Then one year, George Lindsay in the academy truck drove
three people who were interested in the cacti as far south as
Loreto, he and Jerry Lindsay did. At that point I met them.
George and Jerry had to return, and I was able to take them on
down to La Paz and around the cape collecting cacti. One of
them, Helia Bravo, the woman who's the famous, most famous
student of cacti in all of Mexico, I got to know even better
than I had previously. She and I were on a Mexican botanical
congress field trip in 1960 and we'd been roommates on that trip,
so I'd known her ever since then. We're still very good friends.

Field Trips with Roxana Ferris

Holleuffer: Roxana Ferris from the herbarium at Stanford also went on some
field trips with you. didn't she?

Carter: Yes,

Holleuffer: She wrote a book on Death Valley wildflowers that I use and — .

Carter: Yes, it's good. She had a real flair for making her descriptions
useful and interesting. She did a flora for the Point Reyes
peninsula too. which is excellent. She just had a feeling for
putting herself into descriptions. I've never used the Death
Valley one. but I have the Point Reyes flora. She also did one

53

for University Press, in the series of natural history books.
She had the same position at Stanford Dudley Herbarium that, more
or less, I held here.

Holleuffer: That's senior botanist?

Carter: Yes, she was called a curator, but our responsibilities were much
the same except that I'm sure she was much more of a botanist
than I. She helped Professor [Le Roy] Abrams with the
flora of the Pacific Coast. In fact, the fourth volume on the
composites after his death she did completely. I don't have it
in me what it takes to do a flora.

She had been to Baja California quite a few years earlier
with Dr. [Forrest] Shreve and some others. I forget what
year it was. She liked it down there and wanted to go again.
She and her husband had done some work in Nayarit [1925] ; he was
an entomology professor at Stanford.

So I had this money available from the Associates in
Tropical Biogeography; in 1955 we went to the Cape Region. We
packed up into a place from Santiago; they'd never had much
contact with foreigners before and these two older women appeared
and wanted their services, [laughs] They were a little dubious.

Holleuffer: Well, what age were you then?

Carter: Well, Rozie must have been in her sixties and I was [pauses]

maybe I was — in 1955 — upper forties, I guess. But they got used
to us, and Roxie was real good at making them feel at ease. They
were a little dubious, but they were pretty good guides.

They weren't quite used to our food. We had some salami
which we had for lunches and local bolillos [buns], and we'd
given them salami for lunch the first noon. The next noon they
said, "No somos acostumbrados" [We are not accustomed] , which is
the polite way of saying you don't like something or are afraid
to eat it. So they pulled their dates and things out.

Holleuffer: I bet you ate a lot of goat cheese.

Carter: Quite a lot, yes. Sometimes when I was outfitting for a trip, at
a ranch I would get fresh goat meat and we'd hang it up and let
it dry some, put salt on it. Sometimes we'd have to toast the
ants off from it the next day, [laughs] but it was good. On
the first trip, the deer we had, Senorita Luisa broke a front
tooth on that which made her rather unhappy but it was good
venison, venado [deer] .

54

Holleuffer: Did you ever have a hard time with adjusting when you came back?
It seems like such a different life down there, and the way that
you had to live and the things you had to do were so different
from what — ?

Carter: It would take me. when I'd go down to Loreto. to prepare for a
field trip, about two or three days to get in the swing of life
there. When I came home it would take about a week to get
adjusted.

I didn't finish with Rozie. After that Cape Region trip we
returned to Loreto. There. Howard Gulick. co-author of the very
good Baja California. Lower California Guidebook, joined us. We
got animals and went from Rancho Vie jo. which is near San Javier,
along the old Mission trail from Javier to Comondu and then made
a circle around the north side of the Cerro Giganta and back to
Loreto. I think it was a trip of about a week and it was really
interesting.

Across the mesa north of San Javier, it's a volcanic mesa
just completely covered with basalt, rather medium-sized rocks.
But Mission trails were so heavily trafficked that the basalt
would get pushed aside and so there would be these deep furrows
in this volcanic mesa. You'd see a succession alongside each
other of trails that had gotten too washed out to use.

Holleuffer: But dating back to the eighteen hundreds.

Carter: Yes, it was Junipero Serra's route between San Javier and Comondu
and probably the route he followed heading north.

Don Felipe was such a gentleman. He was on that trip.
There were no bushes to hide behind if you were looking for banos
[bathrooms] . so I went off looking for a rock big enough to serve
[laughs] and when I got back Felipe said, of course in Spanish,
he said, "We thought you were looking for flowers. Why didn't
you tell us? We would have just turned our backs." which I
thought was wonderful.

Don Felipe believed in education and he would try and get
the ranchers to bring their children into school, to go to school
and also to have no more children than they could educate. He
only had two and the son went on to the university in Mexico and
is a Pemez engineer now.

55

Physical Injuries Sustained in Field

Carter: I've been very lucky; I've had very few accidents to myself in
all the rough things I've done. I really lucked out on that.
But, on the trip when the botanist from San Luis Potosi was with
me, we were up above the sheep hunting country that Steinbeck
wrote about. It was rugged and we'd climbed down a cliff.
Franco Mur 11 lo was climbing up again he dislodged a rock. I was
just on a tiny ledge against the wall, and this darn rock came
bouncing down and I couldn't escape it. It hit me right here
[points out] in the ribs and knocked the wind clear out of me.
Just really deflated me.

So Franco said, "Did it hit you hard [Te golpeo]?" And I
said, "Si, bastante fuerte [Yes, quite strong] ." [laughs] It
took a little while for the wind to go back in, but I got back to
camp all right. That night I was miserable and the next day I
was worse, but we climbed the highest peak in the area. [laughs]
I was really exhausted when I got back. It was two or three days
before we got to Loreto, and I didn't tell anybody that I hurt,
but I did hurt. When I got back here I had an x-ray and I had
three cracked ribs.

Holleuffer: Oh goodness!

Carter: So that was the first accident I had. The next one was when I
was trying for the third time to get to Cerro Mechudo which is
the highest peak at the south end of the Sierra Giganta — it's
about fifty miles north of La Paz — and I'd seen it from boats.
Here was this big peak standing up that looked sort of bald on
top, a real interesting looking mountain. I'd already tried to
get there with a friend, Enid Larson, a retired teacher who lives
now at Big Pine.

Enid and I had the academy truck and got animals, and I
thought I'd arranged to get there. It was a long trip up arroyos
and across mesas. On the second day we reached a crest
overlooking the gulf and at the north side of the Cerro Mechudo.
We thought we were going to make it and our guide said, "But we
can't get to the peak from here. We should have taken a side
trail farther down." I thought afterwards that he was afraid to
take us on that route, but we had good collecting and that's
where I re-collected this new genus named for me. Found it in a
beautiful condition, just clumps hanging on these cliffs. And on
these cliffs I collected another member of the composite family
that was named for me, Amauria carterae.

Holleuffer: Maybe you were meant not to get to the top of the mountain.

56

Carter: The next year, Reid Moran came down and we tried again. We had

an academy truck. There *d been heavy storms and we couldn't even
get to La Soledad, which is the ranch where we would have had to
get animals. We couldn't — it was just impossible. The arroyos
were all flooded, so we went up toward Loreto and took a pack
trip back of Puerto Escondido into the high mountains there.
That's the first time I ever saw mountain sheep.

Early one morning I heard a little crackle and I looked up
and no farther from me than the end of this library was a
beautiful horned mountain sheep going through camp.

Holleuffer: Oh, about six or seven feet away?

Carter: It seemed that close. There he was, walking through our camp. I
wakened Reid — I guess the fellows, the two guides couldn't hear —
but Reid saw it too.

So the third time — the next year — tried again for Cerro
Mechudo and we got the same guide [Juan Cruz] that I'd had with
Enid Larson two years before. At that time he'd moved his whole
family into La Paz. We took him out of La Paz and arranged for
animals at ranches on our way to La Soledad. We had to wait half
a day for him to get there with the animals, and we started.
Crossed the first ridge to the El Coyote drainage, which would
lead up Mechudo. Had a good lunch and then were going along. I
was riding a horse — before that Reid was on a mule, he was ahead
of me, and I said to him, "Look out, your mule is going to lie
down." Reid is a big, tall fellow so he just put his feet on the
ground and let the mule lie down. [laughs] But I had a horse.
So we went on.

We came down a real steep, rocky place with a rough trail
and the horse stumbled and then, to gain its equilibrium, it ran.
Then it fell, and I catapulted off. I landed sitting with this
arm in front and my knapsack which had been on the right-hand
side of the pommel was about ten feet in front of me, which shows
the force that the darn horse fell with. But, it got up and
stood there with its head down just looking perfectly innocent.
I sat with this arm in front busted here. So that was the third
time I didn't get to Mechudo. [laughs]

Holleuffer: Did they take you back to Loreto?
Carter: No, La Paz.

We'd left the truck at La Soledad, but two years before I'd
driven the truck from La Soledad into this arroyo where Juan Cruz
had his ranch. At that time it was a fairly passable road. We

57

Holleuffer:

Carter:

got there, but in the interim there 'd been storms. So Reid and
Juan made it back to La Soledad in much shorter time than we'd
come with animals. They really hoofed it back and got to the
truck to come and get me. It took them hours and hours; they had
to practically build the road. Juan would go ahead and say,
"Okay, come this way." Reid just didn't see how they ever got
there because it was dark by then. We got to La Paz, I guess,
three a.m. the next morning and checked in at the Hotel Perla.
We'd made a splint for me out of cardon ribs. We had to stop
once because the gas tank got empty, and it was so cold we could
hardly untie the other jeep can to fill the tank. So we finally
got to La Paz.

I had a friend, an American friend, in La Paz. Next morning
she looked up a doctor for me. So about twenty-four hours later
I got to a doctor. Unfortunately he didn't do too good a job of
putting me together but it works. It was funny because I was
scheduled to lead the first of the academy trips down to Baja
California, the one that just flew to La Paz and went around the
cape. So I led it with my arm in a cast, which was fun.
[laughs] That was a good academy trip, anyway.

Was that a group of maybe twenty or thirty people who were
basically tourists?

Well, they were academy members all interested in natural
history. As all of the academy trips are. It's a wonderful
group of people because they're really interested in the
outdoors; it's not just an ordinary tourist group. They like to
know what's around and all about it, as much as you can tell
them. And they're mostly good sports. Once in a while you get a
headache, but — . As I say, I've had very good luck, considering.

Once in the Cape Region I had a mule do a backflip with me,
but I was lucky to throw myself clear. But the guide who
encouraged the mule to get up, because it just lay there, got
thrown against a rock and he got some cracked ribs. So he was
really interested in the tequila for the rest of that trip,
[laughs] Later I could sympathize with him; at that time I
didn't know how much he might be hurting.

Interest in Editing and Letterpress Printing

Holleuffer: While you were taking these trips to Baja California, what were
your responsibilities back here at the herbarium? What was your
position and what did you do?

58

Carter: Well. I was in charge of training and work schedules for the
graduate students [and] the filing and the whole business of
keeping the herbarium going. I was in charge of loans and
exchange — Helen Sharsmith was really in charge of exchange, but I
collaborated on that. It was just the general administration of
the herbarium, working on budgets and annual reports and things
like that. At that time, for several of those years. Dr. Mason
was editor of Madrono , and I was secretary of the editorial board
[1943-63] and that took quite a lot of time because I was the one
who saw the quarterly issues of Madrono through the press. I was
sort of pleased when one was dedicated to me in 1966 [Volume 18]*
after I'd resigned from that position, or after somebody else was
editor than Dr. Mason.

Holleuffer: Did you do the actual editing and then oversee the actual
printing process?

Carter: Yes. I did editing, proofing, dummy, preparing an issue for a
commercial press.

Holleuffer: Did you learn that step by step?

Carter: Yes. I was sort of interested in printing anyway and my

housemate and 1 — she was in library school. We had here at the
herbarium a little printing press for doing our labels so I
became interested in actual typesetting. We have a printing
press in our basement now, called the Runcible Cat Press which we
do printing on.

Holleuffer: What do you print?

Carter:

Oh, we print our Christmas greetings, usually a little, very
brief annual report just on the largest-sized postcard you can
mail. We believe in brief ones, getting them brief and we hope,
entertaining. I did all my labels for my Baja California
collection. This kept me quite busy when I was more actively
collecting. We do birth announcements for friends and change of
address. Never anything for money, we just play with it. It's
time-consuming but sort of fun, and definitely outmoded now with

all the xerox machines and things like that,
able to set type.

But it's fun to be

Holleuffer:

Does it look something like an old Gutenberg press?
of paper in and crank it down?

Put a sheet

See Appendix A.

59

Carter: No, ours is more modern than that, but it has a flywheel and foot
power. The rollers run over the ink plate, then the platen
hearing the paper comes in against the type. So it's a stage
after Gutenberg. But the one we have is old-fashioned and I saw
one like it at the [Henry] Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in
Detroit. It doesn't have what they call a throw-off lever. The
throw-off lever will let the flywheel keep spinning and you don't
get a printed impression if you put your paper in wrong. With
ours you have to stop the wheel to keep from printing.

Holleuffer: So yours could go into a museum.

Carter: It could, yes. Maybe it'll have to someday.

I went down to Berkeley High [School] and took a course in
printing to help learn about it. That was fun. My grandfather
had been interested in printing and in southern California he
started a magazine in the 1880s called SemiTropic California.
For my father and my aunt he purchased a little printing press,
which it turned out was the same kind we had here in the
herbarium for printing labels. For a year, those youngsters who
were just entering the teen age had a little amateur paper which
was very much in vogue at the time. The paper was called the
"Willowdale Press." When my father saw our press at the
herbarium, he said, "That's just the same as we had as
youngsters." Carey Bliss at Huntingtbn Library was interested in
these amateur presses, and he wrote a little book called The
Willowdale Press which told all about ours plus other amateur
presses at that time. So I guess I did sort of inherit this
interest in printing. I'm sure my grandfather must have done a
lot of typesetting because it was six point type, and that's
horrible, just tiny little stuff, very small. I don't see how
the kids did it. After a year they gave up.

I have a complete set of the little Willowdale press paper
as well as the book about them.

International Botanical Congresses

Holleuffer: You had mentioned that you had been to some botanical meetings.
I remember you said something about Leningrad.

Carter: Yes. Every six years. I think it is. an International Botanical
Congress is held in various parts of the world. In 1975 it was
held in Leningrad; in 1969 it was held in Seattle, and then other
places. Edinburgh, Montreal. The only ones I attended were the

60

one in Seattle and the one in Leningrad. Then, in '81, in
Sydney. Australia — a good excuse to go back to Sydney, or back to
Australia, which I think is a great place, especially the
outback. It's sort of more like Baja California.

I didn't give any papers at these, but I did attend. The
only congresses that I 've given papers at are the Mexican
botanical congress [Congreso de Sociedad Botanica de Mexico] .
Those are held every three years. I've given papers at several
of those.

Holleuffer: So you've given them in Spanish?

Carter: Yes. Once I gave a paper at a local meeting that was held at
Tempe in Arizona. I did attend that. That's about the only
American botanical or scientific society series that I've ever
attended. I concentrate on the Mexican ones. They always have
wonderful field trips after them which are fun to go on with
usually an international group, more Mexicans than others, but
it's really great.

This past year, in conjunction with the Mexican Botanical
Society there was an international group of people interested in
the legumes that are in the Acacia group. So that was really
international, from Australia. France. Sweden. Germany. We had a
field trip of fourteen people afterwards, seven Mexicans and
seven extranjeros [foreigners] . It would have been a fine field
trip but there was a hurricane that interrupted it, or two
hurricanes, right in the middle, and we had to quit because the
roads were all washed out where we were going to go. We were
going to go up the north coast, the west coast, north of Acapulco
to visit some off-the-beat places there, in addition to stopping
at one of the tourist places. But we couldn't get there. We got
about seventy kilometers out of Acapulco — where I'd never been
before [laughs] and never have had any desire to go but it was
on the route — and the bridge was out. There was no way. Then
another hurricane came and things got worse. The papaya orchards
were flooded and cornfields were ruined; it was a mess. So we
went back to Mexico City and visited the Botanic Garden,
[laughs]

If

61

Thoughts on Collecting as a Lifework and the Value of Herbariums

Holleuffer: I wanted to ask you before we stop just a general sort of

question. It seems to me that from what I know about botany that
it's a science that's mostly interested in knowledge for the sake
of knowledge. There doesn't seem to be many ulterior motives
[laughs] of the botanist. They seem to just like to go out and
collect plants and add to the knowledge of plants in the world.
I know some botanists do discover plants that have agricultural
or medicinal uses or some practical use. but this doesn't seem to
be the main objective. What is it that has interested you in
botany, and what's made you devote your life to this field?

Carter: Well, partly, it was a livelihood but, for me. I really am more
interested in the things like ethnobotany. the uses of plants.
One time I thought that maybe I should have gone to UC
[University of California] Davis instead of UC Berkeley to get
more involved in the economic aspects of botany rather than the
purely investigative, but it didn't turn out that way.

A collection of plants like those in the herbarium serves
man as a source of information for people going out to perhaps
look for medicinal plants. During the war. World War II. they
needed to know where in South America they could find plants that
might be a source of quinine. So people who were going to go out
and search for plants that were a source of quinine would come
first to the herbarium as the initial stage of their fieldwork to
find out where those plants might be located.

The same is true for the work on jojoba. They are trying to
build up good collections of jojoba. Simmondsia chinensis . it's
called now, which is an important source of oil. They go to an
herbarium first to find out the best places where they may find
stands of jojoba, ones with big fruits and things like that.
It's an initial stage of research.

You go to the herbarium to find out information about plant
distribution, where plants, related plants, may be found. Then
the whole business of knowledge of history of plants, plant
migration, all those things depend on herbarium collections. You
don't necessarily think that you're going to do that, but your
collections result in that mass of information being available
for future study. I don't know if that answers your question
but — .

The herbarium does sound like a pretty, well, useless place
but it really has a tremendous amount of value for reference
work. There was — what was the study? They were trying to date

62

some pollution, a type of pollution, and they could test for that
pollution in the plant material. So they'd go to the herbarium
and test leaves of plants that were collected before a certain
date and after that date, and then try and derive from that some
relationship to what pollution had done. There are just
innumerable things that keep coming up that the herbarium is
useful for, instead of it's being just a stack of dried hay.

Holleuffer: I think that sounds like a good place to stop.

Carter: There's one thing that I did want to say about my relationships
with the California Academy of Sciences after I began going to
Baja California. The director, George Lindsay and his wonderful
wife. Jerry Lindsay — especially, I think, after they were
married — Jerry got the idea of having field trips or natural
history trips under the auspices of the academy. It hadn't
really been a going thing until she got it started. So, in 1978
they had their first one to Baja California, and I had the good
fortune to be on it. That was just around the cape and since I'd
been working there, why George and Jerry had me go along. So for
four or five years after that I led trips the length of the
peninsula, bus trips down one way (return by air), and I was the
botanist on the trips. It was really a wonderful group of people
to go on a field trip with, to lead on a field trip. That was
one of the highlights of my years after retirement, one of the
things that I did.

I've discouraged these trips now because Baja California is
so changed now. The accommodations that the travel bureaus tie
you in with just don't fit in well with natural history, so I've
discouraged their having any more of those trips. Now they have
the trips by boat around the gulf and out in the Pacific. You get
ashore on those, but it isn't quite as much fun as being on land
all the time.

Holleuffer: You haven't led any of those circumnavigationals?

Carter: On one, yes. Then I was a semi-leader on one of the whale

watching trips on the Qualifier 105, but I did go on one of the
circumnavigated ones.

Holleuffer: Well, that was the end of your Baja piece.
Carter: Fine.

Transcriber: Anne Schofield
Final Typist: Marjorie Larney

63

TAPE GUIDE — Annetta Carter

Interview 1: March 19. 1985 1

tape 1, side A 1

tape 1. side B 15

Interview 2: March 25, 1985 27

tape 2, side A 27

tape 2, side B 38

tape 3. side A 50

tape 3. side B 60

64

APPENDIX A

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To you, ANNETTA MARY
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65 APPENDIX B

"C. V." for Annetta "ary Carter

Born: June 28, 190?. "'ierra ~adre, California (Los Angeles County).

Schooling: Sierra Madre ^lenentary School (Class of 1922).
Pasadena High School (Class of 1926).
Pasadena Junior College (Class of 1928)-

University of California, Los Angeles, Sur.mer Sessions, 1927, 1928
University of California, Berkeley (A.B., 1930 j i!.A. 1932).
[Teaching assistanships, 1930-1932].

Employment: University of California Herbarium, Berkeley (at first part time

in the early 1930 fs and then worked up thru the "ranks" until retirement
in Lecember 1968 -- with the title of Principal Herbarium Botanist (but
by then it was mostly administrative).

Other data: Served as Secretary to the Editorial Board of Hadroffo, California
Botanical ^ociety i9i*3-1963 [had much of the responsibility of seeing
the quarterly journal ^-adrono thru the press],

President, California Botar.ical Society, 1965.

Elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, 1957 or '58 (?)•

"On loan" for two six months periods to the University of -ii

Ann Arbor, to curate the herbarium material amassed by Professor Harley

Bartlett, 1957, 1958.

Itesearch Associate, Herbarium, Dept. o'f Botany, University of California,
Berkeley (a non-salaried title), 1969 to present.

Sociedad Botanica de wexico. In 1975 » at the Sexto ^ongreso 01 the
Sociedad in Xalapa, I was presented with a certificate of Honorary
l^embership.

kajor research interest: flora of southern Baja California, J^exico— especially
of the ^ierra de la ^iganta [ca. Lat. 2l>e30' -- 26°20' tt.]. The first
Baja California field trip was in 19U7-W3 when I accompanied Annie M.
Alexander and Louise Kellogg. This three months expedition changed tfee
course of my life (cf. popular accent in California Monthly . June 19ii9).
[For reports on many later field trips see: the logs for field work in
the Sierra de la uiganta of Baja California SUT, Mexico, I960, 1961, 1962,
1963, 1961*, 1965, 1966, 1970. Belvedere Scientific Fund, California
Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. Copies are also in the Herbarium
Library, UCB.]

January 1987

66 APPENDIX C

TRABAJOS SOBRE 3AJA CALIFORNIA, por AlflJETTA CARTER

Observaciones sobre los encinos de Baja California [Sur], Bol. SQC,
Botanica de "'Ixico, No. 18, 39-12 . 1955.

A new species of Bpuvardia (^ubiaceae) from Baja California, Mexico.
Madroffo l3:lUO-LUiu~1955.

Afinidades florfsticas de la Sierra Giganta, Baja California. Primer

Congreso *>exicano de Botlhica. 2U-26 Octubre I960. Mexico, ^. F.

Correlaci6n entre la distribuci6n de algunas plantas y la historia geo-
Idgica de Baja California, Mexico. Segundo Conrjreso Mexicano de
Botanica. 17-21 Septiertibre 1963. San Luis Potosi, S. L. P.

The genus Alvordia (Cornpositae) of Baja California, Mexico. Proc. Calif on
Acad. Sci. 30: 157-17U. 196U.

Una forma nueva de Lophocereus [Cactaceas] en Baja California, Mexico.
Cactaceas y Suculentas ;>lexicanus 11 (1):13-17. 1966.

Some historical and distributional aspects of the flora of the Sierra de
la Giganta, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Asociaci6n Cultural de las
Californias, VII Symposium, April, 1969. Tecate, Baja California.

Some ethnobotanical notes on the plants of the Sierra de la Giganta,

Baja California Sur Pacific Coast Archeological Survey Quarterly
6 (1): 29-33. 1970. *

Evidence for the hybrid origin of Cercidiura sonorae [palo brea] (Leguminosai
Caesalpinioideae) of Northwestern Mexico. MadrofTo 22:266-272. 197U.

The genus Cercidium (Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae) in the Sonoran Desert o
Mexico and the United States. Proc. California Academy of Sciences
UO: 17-57. 197U

Pollen studies in relation to hybridization in Cercidium and Parkinsonia
(Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae). MadroKo 22:303-3!!. 197HT [»<ith
Nel Hem].

Las relaciones taxon6micas entre los glneros Caesalpinoideos Cercidium

y Parkinsonia. Sexto Congreso Kexicano de Botai ica. 2h26 Septiembre,
1975. Xalapa, Ver.

I. G. Voznesenskii, early naturalist in Baja California, Mexico. Taxon 28:
(1, 2/3): 27-33« 1979. Presented at 7th Congreso, 15-21 Oct. 1978 in
Mexico city.

La vegetacion de la Sierra de la Giganta, su importancia coma potencial
cientifico y econ6rnico. Asociacion ^altural de las Californias,
XVIII Symposium, Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mayo, I960.

A new sp«cies of Acacia (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae) from Baja California
Sur, Mexico. Madrono 28:220-225. 1981. [with Velva Hudd].

Lectotypification of Cercidium floridum (Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae).
Taxon 31 (2): 333-335. 1982.

1^Cik>l—-

Carter, Baja California related publications 2

67

31. 79-96. 1986 (Cd.-^)^ **"™" y Suold«rt"

Annetta Carter
January, 198?

were not

Plants and Ian in the -ierra de la Giranta of Baja California Sur i«xioo

"VTTlDOSiuin nftrtfT nr>ocQw(-^/^ ^4- J- 1 — O — —^ _o.-r ./• >.

New genera based on material collected by Carter in baja California.
Carterothamnus King, Rhodora 69:L5. 1967. (CorapOSitae). c. anpmalochaeta King

Carterella Terrell, accepted by Brlttonia for publication, Jan., 1987, (Rubiaceae)

Based on baja California material collected by Carter a number of new specie
have been described. *ome of them bear the specific epithet carteraL

68

INDEX

Annetta Carter

Abrams, Le Roy. 53

Abronia carterae. 49

Abutilon carterae, 43

Acacia Kelloggiana, 37

Adcock. Dick. 50

Adcock, Mary Lou, 50

Alexander, Annie, 11, 27-46

algae, 10

Amauria carterae, 49, 55

American Museum of Natural History.

3
Associates in Tropical Biogeography,

45, 53

Bacigalupi, Rimo, 11
Bahia de Chuenque, Mexico, 35
Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico, 34
Baja California, 14-16, 27-62. See

also individual place names
Bartlett, Barley, 17-18
Bingham. Edwin, 8
Bechtel, Kenneth, 46, 50. 51
Belvedere Scientific Fund, 46, 51
Bliss, Carey, 59
Bouvardia, 45
Bowerman, Mary, 6
Bracelin, N. Floy, 8
Brandegee. Katherine Curran, 14-15
Brandegee, Townsend Stith, 9, 14-16,

42

Bravo, Helia, 52
Brewer, William, 13-14
Brubaker. Florence, 3
Bryant, Harold, C., 8
Bryant, Walter, 14
Burns, Ada Neal, 3

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. 41
California Academy of Sciences, 14.

15. 45-46. 50. 57. 62
California Botanical Society, 20, 23

California Monthly. 39

California Native Plant Society. 24

California State Geological Survey

(1864-65). 13

Carter. Nathaniel C.. 1. 10
Carterothamnus anaomalochaeta , 49
Catavina, Mexico, 33
Cerro Giganta, Mexico, 34-36, 43,

49, 52. 54

Cerro Mechudo. Mexico. 55. 56
Chaney, Ralph, 11
Clemens, Mary Strong, 17-18
Comundu. Mexico. 39, 40, 54
Constance, Lincoln, 10, 28, 45
Copeland, Edwin Bingham, 8, 20
Crum, Ethel, 13. 19. 20

Dempster, Laura May. 11
Dudley Herbarium, Stanford
University. 37

Emmenanthe penduliflora, 2
Ensenada. Mexico. 32
ethnobotany. 61

Faxonia pus ilia, 42
Ferris, Roxana, 37, 49, 52-53
Flora of California, The, 20, 43
Forgotten Peninsula, The, 51

Goldman. E. A.. 30

Grinnell, Hilda. 29

Guaymas, Mexico, 47

Gulick. Howard. 54

Haine e , Char 1 es . 14

Hawaiian Islands. 28

Hayden's Exploring Expedition. 14

69

Harkness, H. W.. 15

herbariums, 16-17, 21, 60-61. See

also University of California,

Berkeley, Herbarium
Holman, Richard, 5, 8
Howard, Alice, 24
Heckard. L. R.. 11
Hydrophyllaceae, 2

Jepson, Willis Linn, 11-12, 13, 14,

19, 23
jojoba. See STrnmondsia chinesis

Kellogg, Louise, 11, 28-46, 53

La Paz, Mexico, 41, 42, 43, 45, 52,

56

Letnmon, J. G., 16
Larson, Enid, 55
Leal, Ferdinand Medellin, 52
Lindsay. George, 50, 51, 52, 62
Lindsay, Jerry, 51. 52. 62
Llanos de Magdalena. Mexico, 44
Log from the Sea o_f Cortez. The. 35
Loreto. Mexico. 31. 34. 36. 38.

51-54

Lower California Guidebook. 54
Lysiloma Candida. 47

McClintock. Elizabeth, 24

Madrono, 20, 58

Magdalene Bay, Mexico. 14

Mason, Herbert, 5, 7. 10, 14, 16, 20,

28. 58

Mason. Lucile Roush, 5, 7. 10
Merrill, Ruth (Mrs. Earl Jenkins on) ,

3

Mexia. Ynes, 8
Mills College. 5
Mojave Desert, California, 3
Moran. Reid. 43. 56, 57
Morgan, Agnes Fay. 7
Murill. Franco, 55
Murillo. Felipe. 31. 34. 38. 54

National Herbarium. University of

Mexico, 21
Nelson. E. W.. 30
Nelson and Goldman Trip (1906). 48
New Guinea, 17
Nolina, 37, 47
Notri, 35

Pachycormus discolor, 48
palo bianco. See Lysiloma Candida
Parodi, Margot, 33
Pasadena High School, 3
Pasadena Junior College, 3
Pearson, Clara Ball, 17
Philippine Islands, 17
Purpus, C. A., 15

Roof. James, 24

Royal Botanical Gardens and

Arboretum, 21
Rudd, Velva. 37
Runcible Cat Press, 58

San Bruno, Mexico, 36

San Diego Natural History Museum, 43

sand verbena, 49

San Gabriel Mountains, California, 3

San Ignacio, Mexico, 39

San Javier, Mexico, 51, 54

San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. 41

San Quintin. Mexico. 14

San Quintin Valley, Mexico, 33

Santa Rosalia. Mexico, 34

Santo Tomas, Mexico, 33

Sauer, Carl, 28

SemiTropic California, 59

Setchell, William Albert, 9-10, 14,

17

Sharsmith, Helen, 22, 58
Shreve, Forrest, 53
Sierra Giganta, Mexico, 47, 55
Sierra Madre. California. 1
Sinai oa, Mexico, 47
Sonora, Mexico. 47
Sousa, Mario. 52

70

Spring Wildflowers of the San

Francisco Bay Region, 22
Stason, Margaret. 3

Sweetwater Mountains, California. 11
Sweeney, Robert, 2

Tebbe. Dorothy, 6
Three Without Fear, 39
Todos Santos, Mexico, 42

University of California, Berkeley,

1, 3, 5. 13, 61

Herbarium, 1, 13-14, 19-22, 57
Museum of Paleontology, 27
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 27,

29

University of California, Los
Angeles, 4

University of Mexico, 21
University of Michigan Herbarium.
17-18, 45

Wagner, Herbert, 28
Waters. Don. 45
Waters. Margaret. 41. 45
Weatherhead, Vivian Giles. 6
Wiggins. Ira L.. 27. 43. 46. 48. 50
Willowdale Press. 59
World War II. 17. 28, 61

Yale University, 14

Zoe. 15
Zwinger, Ann. 16

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Women in Botany Project

Mary DeDecker
BOTANIST AND CONSERVATIONIST OF THE INYO REGION

With Introductions by
Betty Gilchrist and Peter Rowlands

An Interview Conducted by

Carol Holleuffer

in 1985

Copyright ( 1987 by The Regents of the University of California

MARY DeDECKER
September 1985

TABLE OF CONTENTS — Mary DeDecker

INTRODUCTION by Betty Gilchrist i

INTRODUCTION by Peter G. Rowlands ill

INTERVIEW HISTORY iv

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION v

I BEFORE OWENS VALLEY 1

Childhood Interests in Plants and Science 1

Education and Marriage 2

Decision to Move to Independence 4

II ACQUAINTANCE WITH NATIVE PLANTS ON THE SIERRA NEVADA'S EAST SIDE 6

Help from Prominent Botanists 6

Family Backpack Trips 7

The DeDecker Herbarium and the Botanical Network 8

III DIVERTING OWENS VALLEY WATER TO LOS ANGELES: IMPACT ON THE FLORA 11

Endangered Species: Sidalcea covillei and others 11

One Effect of Water Withdrawal on Habitat: Alkaline Dust 14

IV OWENS VALLEY STRUGGLE AGAINST LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF WATER

AND POWER 18

Environmental Impact Report for the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct 18

The DWP and Inyo County Politicians and Press 21

Water Meters in Owens Valley: A Vindictive Act 22

Devastating Effects of Ground Water Pumps 24

V FIGHT TO SAVE EUREKA DUNES 27

Location of Eureka Valley and Dunes 27

BLM Advisory Committee: Recreationists and Conservationists 27

The Dunes — A Place of Special Interest 29

BLM Plan for the Dunes: Protection for ORVs, not Plants 31

Enforcing a Ban on Off-Road Vehicles 34

VI DISCOVERY OF DEDECKERA; A NEW GENUS 37

Finding a Strange "Buckwheat" in a Remote Canyon 37

Indian Artifacts in the Same Canyon 40

Dedeckera Canyon Becomes an Official Name 41

VII OTHER CONSERVATION AND BOTANICAL ACTIVITIES 42

Death Valley National Monument and the Forty-Niners Organization 42

The BLM and the California Desert Plan 43

Flora of Northern Mojave Desert, California 46

White Mountain Natural History 48

Women Among Botanists, Ranchers, and Miners 49

Politics in the BLM 52

Burro Problem in the Desert 53

The Most Important Achievement 56
Founding of the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native

Plant Society 58

Conclusion: The DeDeckers' Greatest Achievement 58

TAPE GUIDE
APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX D
INDEX

An Exchange of Letters with Mary DeDecker on the
Department of Water and Power

Interview Questionnaire, January 1985
Articles and Publications
Plant Discoveries

59

60
63
65
67
69

INTRODUCTION — Betty Gilchrist

The beauty of the awesome, towering eastern High Sierras forms a backdrop
for the warm, welcoming home of Mary and Paul DeDecker. Each time I cross
the manicured green lawn, observe lovely shrubs and flower-beds nurtured and
tended by Paul, and see Mary at the door to welcome me, I realize that this
setting in the little desert town of Independence is truly appropriate as
home base for this world-traveled couple. For fifty years Mary and Paul
climbed, backpacked, and camped with their growing family over most of these
mountains and the deserts of Inyo County.

I first met Mary DeDecker in the late 1970s in the Alabama Hills. I had
joined a wildflower identification field trip for the Eastern California
Museum. After 1967 when my husband and I became weekend residents of the
Owens Valley, I had become a distant admirer of Mary's precise written and
verbal statements on the effects on valley plant life of underground water
pumping. Reading of her presentations at public hearings for City of Los
Angeles and for Inyo County officials did not prepare me for the actual lady
and her simple, charming manner with which she drew me into a consuming
interest in botany "just for the joy of it." Following her eager footsteps
up the side of a mountain to seek out some elusive rare and endangered species
became a favorite pastime for me, along with many others.

One of Mary's natural talents and great interests is sharing her
specialized knowledge with all manner of people, from well-known professionals
to the youngest students in elementary schools. From the lecture platform
of the structured classroom setting of UC Extension to the informal lunch
break in the Last Chance Mountains, the fortunate student is constantly
learning and enjoying it. The effect of this manner of teaching is evident
in the DeDecker extended family. Their two daughters and their grandchildren
have been subtly influenced in their choice of partners and professions in
the various fields of natural science.

In any year, dozens of questing students with an unknown plant or flower,
or a question on local history, are welcomed at the DeDecker front door. Mary
may consult her extensive library or her own herbarium which shares an out
lying building with Paul's workshop. More often with one bright-eyed look
that lovely smile of recognition lights Mary's face and the common name,
scientific name, genus species, habitat, soil and moisture conditions and
other appropriate information is forthcoming.

In my experience, Mary is constantly writing at her desk in the window
that looks across the desert toward towering Mt. Williamson. Author or co
author of books, monographs, newsletters, and magazine articles, she explores
botanical subjects, conservation issues, and local history and mining. Over
decades, she has devoted much time, energy, and thought to the development of
the Eastern California Museum in Independence. She has been instrumental in
the museum's becoming an educational, cultural, and research center.

ii

Concerned over water management issues in the Owens Valley, this fiery
little lady with the soft firm voice has been able to stand up to all manner
of bureaucrats and politicians, using her knowledge and experience. She has
been instrumental in organizing the Owens Valley Committee, a non-profit
organization. I was swept into this group of citizens whose goal was to
focus public attention on public actions affecting present and future welfare
of the environment of the Owens Valley.

After participation in the early stages of the California Native Plant
Society, Mary helped organize the Eastern Sierra Chapter, appropriately named
Bristlecone. This, again, gives the opportunity for more people to be aware
of and participate in learning the unique botanical aspects of this area.
Field trips, an important activity of this organization, have often been
overnight camp-outs. The storytelling ability of Mary and Paul at the evening
campfire establishes an easy camaraderie and the start of long-lasting
friendships along with a continuing interest in botany.

No activity of Mary's will ever surprise me. Flying in to Tin Mountain
by helicopter with a fellow botanist; spending a chilly night on Cerro Gordo
after mechanical difficulty with the jeep; chasing madly across Saline Valley
in pursuit of an elusive plant; roasting marshmallows on an open fire with
family and friends; this to me is the delightful world of Mary DeDecker.

Betty Gilchrist

December 1985

Lone Pine, California

ill

INTRODUCTION — Peter G. Rowlands

When I arrived in Death Valley to take a job with the National Park
Service, one of my first tasks was to go through the files of my predecessor,
Mr. Pete Sanchez, a resources management specialist who had been a fixture
here for about seventeen years. As I perused voluminous, dusty files crammed
with information on desert pupfish, burros, springs, geology and other
accumulations of letters, pamphlets and assorted bits of knowledge both
trivial and profound, I came across a file labeled "rare plant species."
Among its contents were a number of letters to Pete from Mary DeDecker, some
of which dated from the early 1970s. I should not have been surprised as I
have a similar collection which I gathered over the seven years I labored as
a botanist for the BLM [Bureau of Land Management] (a sometimes thankless
job, were it not for people like Mary). I dare say that Pete Sanchez and I
are not unique in this regard; I'll wager that more than a few California
desert botanists and ecologists have been the recipients of Mary's advice,
counsel, and knowledge.

You see, Mary DeDecker is one of those rare people who make a difference.
I doubt that there's a public agency in California east of the Sierra that
has not benefited in some way or another by her knowledge and expertise. As
a result, Mary has had an immeasurable influence on land-use management to
the betterment of all the people of California, and in particular the citizens
of the Owens Valley and northern Mojave Desert. Her constant vigilance over
our natural resources has affected us all, both indirectly and directly. I
needn't dwell on Mary's many professional accomplishments; these are legion.
What is worth noting is that in my longer conversations with her the subject
usually turns to her family: her husband, Paul, her daughters, their
families, and especially her grandchildren. There is no doubt about the depth
of her love and the pride she feels for those close to her. Mary loves the
land and its resources, but she also loves people. There is no hint of
nihilistic misanthropy which sometimes tarnishes the shining armour of many
involved with environmental conservation.

I distinctly remember one conversation with Mary concerning Dedeckera,
a brand-new California plant genus, overlooked until Mary discovered it in
the Eureka Valley area in 1976. Mary explained to me she was so happy to have
a genus named, not for herself, but for her family. She has two daughters
and this would assure the continuance of Paul DeDecker 's name in the absence
of sons to carry it on. What an incredible gift and sentiment!

Peter G. Rowlands

Resources Management Specialist

October 1985

Death Valley National Monument

California

iv

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Mary DeDecker is a self-educated botanist. From her home base in Indepen
dence, a small town in California's Owens Valley on the eastern side of the
Sierra Nevada, she has become the acknowledged expert on the plants of Owens
Valley and the Northern Mojave Desert. Not content just to identify and collect
plants, she is a forceful activist for preservation of the environment that
supports the desert flora — most prominently in the battles to protect the
Eureka Dunes and to limit the damage inflicted on the Owens Valley by the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Mrs. DeDecker was interviewed for the California Women in Botany Project
on January 16 and January 17, 1985, in her Independence home. Carol Holleuffer
shared Mary DeDecker 's feeling for the desert and desert plants and her concern
for conservation of these fragile resources. Their mutual interests helped
create a lively dialogue, and the interview transcript reflects a warm and
spontaneous conversation between the two women. Letters in the project files
show that Carol had intended to record one more session with Mary DeDecker and
hoped to accompany her on upcoming Mojave Desert field trips.

The interview was edited by Annetta Carter , whose familiarity with the
botanical nomenclature and experienced editor's eye made the task of this
office much easier. Mrs. DeDecker also reviewed the transcript, answering a
few additional questions, clarifying information where necessary and providing
supplementary material for the appendices.

Ann Lage
Interviewer /Editor

January 5, 1987
Regional Oral History Office
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

Room 486 The Bancroft Library v Berkeley, California 94720

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please print or write clearly)

Your full aame Mary Caroline Foster DeDecker ;

Texas County, Oklahoma
Date of birth Oct. 3, 1909 Place of birth Barden P.O.^, later RFD Guvmon

Father's full name Charles Morrison Foster ^^

Birthplace Monticello, Illinois

Occupation Farmer, Office Manager for Los Angeles DWP

Mother's full name Phoebe Arabella Thompson

Birthplace Independence Township, Osborne County, Kansas
Occupation Housewife

Los Angeles County, California
Where did you grow up ? Northridge (formerly Zelzah) San Fernando Valley

Present community Independence, Inyo County, California

Education Van NuYs High School; 1 year at UCLA

Occupations ) Secretary to Supt. in Owens Valley Unified School;
Title Officer, Title Insurance and Trust Company. __ -

Special interests or activities Family, native plants, local history.

I BEFORE OWENS VALLEY

[Interview 1: January 16, 1985 ]////

Childhood Interests in -Plants and Science

Holleuffer: I'm here in the Owens Valley to talk with Mary about her life as
a botanist and a local historian. She and her husband Paul have
lived in Independence since 1935.

When you first came to Independence, Mary, you had two small
children and had studied some art at UCLA. But you didn't have a
background in botany?

DeDecker: No, my only background was just an interest in plants.
Holleuffer: Had your family sparked that interest at all?

DeDecker: Well, I think my father [Charles Morrison Foster] did. When I was
a small child — he was a farmer at that time — he encouraged me to
always have a little plot to grow something.

I'll never forget a very tragic, to me, experience when he
gave me seeds for nasturtiums and petunias and verbenas because he
knew those were my favorite flowers in the garden. Almost every
hour, I watched for those things to come up. And finally, I saw
some little green things coming up, but they didn't have the leaves
like the flowers I was expecting. So I started pulling them out.
I thought they were weeds.

////This symbol indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has
begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 59.

DeDecker :

Holleuffer:

DeDecker :

And then my father explained to me that those were the baby leaves
for those plants and that they would change as the plants grew
and be the ones that I was expecting. So I was completely crushed
to think I'd been pulling up my flowers!

But anyhow, he taught me a lot about observing plants. He
seemed to have a feeling for them. Of course I didn't realize
all that then. All the years that I was growing up, I always had
a little garden of some kind. Maybe it was just a little flower
garden or a bed of strawberries, or something. None of my
brothers or sisters ever had this, so it must have been a special
interest I had that my father realized.

You were what age when you started growing these plants?
or five?

Four

Oh, probably. I was just a little tot. I don't know what age I
was, but I was very young. I probably wasn't more than four.

I think, too, that while I never knew my maternal grandmother
[Arabelia Cowell Thompson] as I grew up — she died when I was maybe
six years old and she lived in Ontario, California, after retire
ment, while I lived in the Panhandle of Oklahoma at that time. I
knew her, but I didn't see much of her — she was a woman doctor
[practiced in Osborne, Kansas] when women didn't do such things.
And knowing what it took to be a woman doctor, to be able to be
accepted in med school, and to put up with all that she must have
had to put up with from the men students — in other words, I think
I inherited her perseverance and probably her scientific trend.
So I feel that my father and grandmother were probably behind my
deep interest in botanical things.

Education and Marriage

DeDecker: Then when I was in high school [Van Nuys High School in the San
Fernando Valley], I took biology, which was my first science
course. And I loved it. We were told to develop a project on
plants or some form of animal life. Most of the students chose
plants, probably because they were easier to find. At the end of
the term when they were checking in their projects, the teacher
put me in charge of checking them over and making the basic
comments on them to be sure that they were being turned in as
they were supposed to be. I didn't think of it at the time, but
looking back I must have showed some kind of a special interest
or ability in plants for her to turn all that over to me.

DeDecker: I didn't take any more biology in school. I belonged to the

school Science Club, which in those days was kind of an exclusive
club limited to, I don't remember how many kids. But it was
limited, which they wouldn't get away with now. It was composed
of students especially interested, or gifted in, the science
classes.

So then I went to UCLA, and I was interested in crafts. At
that time, I thought I would like to teach something in the craft
line, so I majored in art. I did do well in the crafts part; I
was no good at all in painting or that sort of thing. But I took
a course in geography that I loved. And I soon realized that I
should be in a science major. Then that summer I worked to earn
money to go back to school.

Holleuffer: Was this about the beginning of the Depression?

DeDecker: Just before the Depression. Things were slowing down, and my
father, at that time, worked in a commercial office for the
Department of Water and Power [Los Angeles DWP] . He was head of
the North Hollywood office when he retired. But the family was
really having financial problems at the time and couldn't afford
even to send me to UCLA. When I'd earned money to go back, they
needed it for taxes.

Holleuffer: Can you recall how much it was to go to UCLA at that time?

DeDecker: It wasn't very much. It was tuition and, of course, expenses of
-buying books and supplies. Even though it wasn't a lot, it was
just more than I had. I did work for my room and board. I worked
for a family as a sort of mother's helper, they called it, which
helped a lot.

In the meantime, Paul [DeDecker] was urging me to forget it
and get married. I saw that going back to school then was hope
less, so I did get married. We were married in 1929. Then a
year or so later I was planning to go to UCLA again. By that time
it had moved over to Westwood, just over the hill from where we
lived on Ventura Boulevard out from North Hollywood. I was all
ready to go back to school, and I was very excited about it. But
we were into the Depression by that time, and Paul had managed to
get the job with the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles.
They put him on the split shift. Well, jobs were so scarce you
didn't question anything if you had a job, but that was the end of
my hopes of going to school. I would have had to have the car to
go back and forth. There was no public transportation between the
two points. So, I wasn't able to use the car because he needed it
during the day, when I would have had to come and go.

DeDecker: Then we had our first daughter in 1932, and a second one in 1933.
In the meantime, DWP started the Mono Basin Project up here, and
my husband had been coming and going. He was in the transportation
section and drove trucks and heavy equipment. Also, part of the
time he ran a bus back and forth hauling workers because they were
hiring lots of workers to work on the Mono Basin Project near Lee
Vining. The headquarters were in Independence.

Decision to Move to Independence

DeDecker:

Holleuffer;
DeDecker :

Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

So he finally had the idea that he would like to move up here.
And I think, probably, they encouraged him to do it so he would
be up in this area. At that time we had the only two grand
children, and we had a lot of family around that was sort of
getting in the way of raising our children. So we thought it would
be kind of nice to go.

Get away from the family?

Yes, to go up and just be on our own. Paul had told me how
beautiful it was up here. And I had never been here. He brought
me two bouquets of flowers. One was the Kennedy mariposa
[Calochortus kennedyi], the flame-colored mariposa, and the other
was apricot mallow [Sphaeralcea ambigua] . They were both new to
me. And they were just beautiful! I was just overwhelmed, so I
thought any place that grew such flowers as that would be a nice
place to live. So we moved up in November 1935. It was very
cold.

How many people were in Independence at that time?
population?

What was the

It was close to a thousand. In fact, it's smaller now than it was
at that time. The next morning after we had moved up — we got up
here in late afternoon — I looked out the window and saw the
mountains were all snowy and were pink from the sunrise. And I
was so thrilled! I really fell in love with the place.

Of course, we were very busy and tied down. Paul worked a
lot of overtime during this project, and I was busy with the
little children.

The children started to school when they were school age. We
had thought we would probably move back to Los Angeles when they
were ready for school, but we were so in love with the place we
didn't go. There was no kindergarten then, but they started in
the first grade. They went all the way through school, twelve

DeDecker: grades here. We had thought when they were in high school we'd

move back because there were only fifty-four students in all four
grades of high school at that time. But they did well; they were
happy and we were happy. We did have some very fine teachers at
that time. So we just stayed.

II ACQUAINTANCE WITH NATIVE PLANTS ON THE SIERRA NEVADA'S EAST SIDE

DeDecker r

Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

Help from Prominent Botanists

About 1940, we took our first trip up in the Sierra on horses. And
Paul just really enjoyed the fishing. You can only eat so many
fish, so I spent the time making notes on the plants that were all
new to me. I would write notes about the details of the plants and
draw little sketches and then come home and try to find them in
Jepson [W.L. Jepson, Manual of the Flowering Plants of California, 1921

Of course they didn't exist in Jepson.

No, Jepson didn't cover this area too well. Oh, I'll go back to
the time that we came up here, and I saw these plants that were
completely different from those I knew down in the San Fernando
Valley. So I tried to use the books that I had used down there,
and they just didn't fit the case at all. They were different plants.
So I was at a loss to know what they were. I was eager to learn
these new things but had no way of doing it.

So I became acquainted with a naturalist in Independence. His
name was Mark Kerr.* He was a very sensitive person and really

*When the Museum at Independence was started in 1928, Mark Kerr
(1883-1950) was the first curator. He made an exhibit of the plants
and their uses by the Paiute Indians, as well as mounting and label
ing many of the local plants. During the period that Charles Irwin,
an anthropologist, was director of the Museum (1976-1982) , he edited
and published Mark Kerr's manuscript on the Ethnobotany of the Inyo
Indians (The Shoshoni Indians of Inyo County. California: The Kerc
Manuscript, edited, annotated, and with introductory preface by
Charles N. Irwin. Ballena Press Publications in Archeology, Ethnology
and History, No. 15. Editors: Philip J. Wilke & Albert B. Elsasser,
1980.) Mark Kerr served in the Seabees in Hawaii from 1943 to the
end of World War II. He remained there until his death in Honolulu
in 1950. —M.D., October 1985.

DeDecker: tuned in to the plants and the natural scene here. He taught me
what some of the plants were, and he suggested that I get a copy
of Jepson because it was the only one that covered things at all.
And even though it wasn't the best for this area, it was all that
was available.

So after a lot of weighing values, wondering if I could afford
to put out eleven dollars for a copy of Jepson, I finally did.
Then I found I had to learn all these botanical terms that were
new to me. We never went into that depth when I was taking biology
in high school. So I learned to use the terms and to understand
them. But there was still some frustration because there were so
many things I couldn't figure out. Mark Kerr again came to the
rescue, and he said, "If you are at a loss to know what a plant is,
send a specimen down to Dr. Philip Munz at Rancho Santa Ana
Botanic Garden in Claremont or to John Thomas Howell at the Academy
of Sciences in San Francisco." And he said both of them had been
very helpful to him, and he was sure that they would be to me.

I started sending things to them in the early 1950s. And they
were so eager to get plants from this area; they were very pleased
to get anything I would send them. They told me how to press
things and the procedure to follow. They were wonderfully helpful
and patient. Well, it just made all the difference in the world
because it gave me every encouragement and all kinds of help in
handling the plants and encouraging me to send specimens and
letting me know what they were.

As time went on, Dr. Munz remarked on several occasions that
he was amazed that I could do as well as I did at determining what
the plants were without an herbarium.

Holleuffer: Was this the beginning of your herbarium?

DeDecker: No, I had not started an herbarium at that time. I would send
specimens out, and I did number them and I did keep a record of
them, but that was as far as I went.

Family Backpack Trips

DeDecker: And then, time went on and I just kept at it whenever I had time.

Of course our summer trips added a lot to my knowledge of the area.
In fact, my best knowledge of the plants in this region were the
Sierra plants because we took backpacking trips. We first started
out using horses and then eventually found we had lots more freedom
backpacking. At that time there was very little in backpacking
equipment — things were pretty primitive for that — but we improvised
and we had some very wonderful trips.

8

DeDecker: When the children were eight or so, we took them on trips with pack
animals, and then eventually they started backpacking and they just
loved it. We had some very wonderful family trips. All this time
I was adding to my knowledge of plants in the Sierra.

Eventually the time came when we got into the Inyo-White
Mountains more, in the desert ranges. We didn't have four-wheel-
drive vehicles in those days, but we were able to do a lot of
hiking. We'd go to a roadhead and hike from there. I became
fascinated by these desert ranges, and one beauty of that part of
the country was that they're open so much longer than the Sierra
during the spring and fall seasons. So it came to the point that
I liked the desert so much and enjoyed it so much that it almost
eclipsed my interest in the Sierra, although I love them both.

Then our daughters grew up, and they went all through high
school here, and it came time to go to college. We felt that it
would be a disaster to send them to a university with thousands of
students, so they went to Pomona College. We had friends who
recommended Pomona College, and it was a limited enrollment, and
we thought that sounded good. Well, the girls actually chose it.
They went down and visited it. Our older daughter, Joan, went,
and then the next year Carol was ready to go. In the meantime she
was a national winner in a Westinghouse National Science competi
tion and was offered scholarships all over the country, but she
had been down visiting her sister at Pomona College and decided
that's where she wanted to go, so she did.

Holleuffer: Your interest in science, then, was transferred to your daughter.
DeDecker: Oh, she has a great mind for science.

The DeDecker Herbarium and the Botanical Network

DeDecker: So they went all through Pomona College, and really enjoyed it;
it seemed to have been just right for them. Joan was married at
the end of her junior year to a young engineer, but she went on to
summer school and finished, graduating early. Then Carol, in her
senior year, brought a botanist home, a classmate, and he was, of
course, quite interested in what I was doing with plants up here.
He told me that I should start my own herbarium. He said it would
be very valuable — would be helpful to me, it would be valuable to
others, and as long as I was collecting plants, instead of sending
them out, that I certainly should keep specimens and build up my
own herbarium. So I did. That was about 1954, I guess.

Holleuffer: And you now have how many?

DeDecker: Over 6,000 specimens! But he was so right. It has been invaluable.
In the work I'm doing now, I just couldn't get along without having
it.

Holleuffer: Are these duplicates? You have a type specimen collection, and
then you send off others?

DeDecker: I collect these things and, of course, keep the data on where and
the date and type of habitat and anything else, and I've sent out
lots of duplicates. I've sent many, many duplicates to the Rancho
Santa Ana Botanic Garden, mostly because of Dr. Munz. I've sent
quite a few to the California Academy of Sciences. I send things
in the mustard family, the crucifers, to Reed Rollins at Harvard
[Gray Herbarium] because that's his specialty, and he's been very
helpful in identifying them. And to others that specialize in a
certain field, I try to send them specimens of special interest
and plants in their field. And I send to other botanic gardens.
Some to New York [Botanical Garden, Bronx, N.Y.], and to Peter
Raven at Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

Holleuffer: Botanists seem to have quite a network around the world.

DeDecker: Yes, they do.

Holleuffer: You all know each other through the mail.

DeDecker: Well, this is an extremely interesting area. We call it the Inyo
Region. It's rich in endemics, and it has the mountains and the
deserts and isolated pockets that make it an extremely interesting
place, and it's remote enough that it hasn't been botanized too
thoroughly. So botanists that are dealing in a particular plant
family may be very eager to obtain specimens from this area. They
may write and ask if I can find a certain plant that they're eager
to have, and it saves them a long trip. They're very grateful if
I can get it and send it to them.

Holleuffer: So they have want lists that they send you.
DeDecker: Yes, they have want lists.

I remember one time Peter Raven, working on the evening
primroses, wanted something for chemical analysis, and he wrote and
asked if I would collect it. I thought, "No problem. It grows all
the way from Big Pine northward." So the next time I went up, I
looked for this plant, but it happened to be a dry year, and I
couldn't find it in any of the usual places.

10

DeDecker: So then I made another trip, and I thought, "Well, I'll go up as

far as Bishop and find it," but I didn't find it, and I kept going
north. North of Bishop I found a place that was a very likely
place for it, but the sheep had just come through. I found half
a plant. [laughing] So I kept going north, up toward Fish Slough,
which is several miles north, and I did find a few sort of
depauperate specimens because it was such a dry year. These were
inside a fence, and the sheep didn't get to them. So I sent them
to Peter Raven, with some apology because they were pretty poor
specimens, and he was so delighted to get them that apparently it
didn't matter to him what they looked like! So that's just one
example.

I've found that the most cooperative people in the world seem
to be botanists. They've always been so helpful if I had any
problem plant or needed information. They've just been so suppor
tive and so cooperative. Of course I cooperate with them too, but
I'm not a professional, I don't claim to be, and yet they seem to
have a real healthy respect for what I do, and I appreciate their
support.

I guess the next major turning point — oh, my daughter married
this botanist, by the way!

Holleuffer: Oh, that's good. Keep it in the family.

DeDecker: Yes. He's Delbert Wiens, who is a professor of botany at the

University of Utah. He's now a worldwide authority on the mistle
toes. While we haven't had much occasion to work together, we have
had some real good trips together, and he's very supportive. It's
nice to have him in the family.

if

Holleuffer: You said that this area hadn't been botanized very much, or to this
point hasn't been botanized very much. Who are the other people
who are known for the Inyo botany?

DeDecker: Well, there are some who came through here at various times and did

quite a bit of work, but as far as the area as a whole goes, there are
many places that haven't been explored by botanists.

11

III DIVERTING OWENS VALLEY WATER TO LOS ANGELES: IMPACT ON
THE FLORA

Endangered Species: Sidalcea covillei and others

Holleuffer: Because of the big changes with the drainage of water down to Los
Angeles in the aqueduct, do we have good evidence from before the
aqueduct, I mean the diversion of water, of what the plants were
like? Was it very different from what it is now?

DeDecker: I'm sure it was different. There's very little data on it,

unfortunately. As an example, there is a plant here, Sidalcea
covillei, which is a mallow and the type locality was Haiwee
Meadows. Coville, on his expedition, found it there, and he said
it was in the meadow near the house. Well, of course, all that is
under Haiwee Reservoir now, which is a Los Angeles water reservoir.

Holleuffer: Coville came through in 1891. He was botanist on a government

survey [The U.S. Department of Agriculture 1891 Biological Survey
of the Death Valley Region].

DeDecker: Right. Anyhow, there was very little collection of this.

Holleuffer: Did they collect at all on that survey or just describe things?

DeDecker: He collected.

Holleuffer: And where are those specimens?

DeDecker: I think they are in the National Herbarium, back in Washington, D.C.
But there was a collection made later. [Brief tape interruption]

When Coville found this it was June 20, 1891, and he found it
in Haiwee Meadows, Invo County, in a natural alkaline meadow,
directly in front of the house.

12

Holleuffer: Which is now many hundreds of feet under water.
DeDecker: Now the meadows have been inundated by Haiwee Reservoir.

And then, apparently, there were almost no collections of this
plant all through the years until Leo B. Hitchcock found it in 1952.
He found it one-and-a-half miles north of Lone Pine, about 200
yards east of the highway in an alkaline meadow along the river
bottom. He said there were thousands of plants, nearly a solid
stand, but no connections of rhizomes between them. [reading]
"The stand at Lone Pine covered several acres and when in blossom
resembled a large meadow of Dodecatheon, as viewed from the highway."

Holleuffer: Have you gone to look for that particular spot?
DeDecker: It's wiped out.
Holleuffer: What's in its place now?

DeDecker: It's dried up. The river has been cut off to go into the aqueduct.
I've really searched for that population of plants, and that's
about the only record in existence of this mallow.

Holleuffer: This is essentially an extinct plant that no longer exists?

DeDecker: Well, I'll go on. I started looking for it. I thought maybe it
was completely wiped out. I looked where it had been known. Of
course it was gone at Haiwee and it was gone along the river bottom
north of Lone Pine. I looked other places and didn't find it.
Finally, someone said they thought they had seen a plant up north
west of Bishop, where Horton Creek comes in, that they thought might
be that plant. So I went up, and there it was. It was in a meadow
that had had a ditch running through it to the stream. The ditch
had been dried up, and the plants were showing stress, but they
were in what had been a meadow that was being invaded by rabbit
brush. It was a drying meadow, but the plants still existed there.

So I became very excited. It was on Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power land. I asked them if they would fence it and
protect it, and it got to be quite a political hassle before it was
over! The Department of Water and Power's so-called biologist got
together with someone from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and they decided
they would fence the meadow and divide it into four portions. In
one portion they took out all the plants except the mallow and, I
don't know, they did something with each portion. Anyhow, if you
take out all the plants except the mallow you're exposing it to the
hot sun, you're removing the grass cover, and all that. It was the
stupidest thing I ever heard of in trying to take care of a rare
plant.

13

DeDecker: Well, since then there have been traces of it found in a good many
places. There is some in the Alabama Hills, where there's quite a
lot of high ground water and spring activity. Quite a few remnants
of it have been found up toward Bishop, in wet pastures. Bishop
used to be a very wet place. So I've come to the conclusion that
this was a very abundant plant before Los Angeles started drying
up the valley, and that what we have now are just little relic
populations where there's still enough moisture to keep them alive.

Holleuffer: Is it considered now a rare or endangered species?

DeDecker: Well, Los Angeles has made every effort to have it taken off the
rare list. They have even gone so far as to say — they have a
biologist that will say whatever she's told to say. So she went
to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife rare plant session one time. I
couldn't go, and I wrote and told them that I couldn't go, but I
had given them my recommendations on all the plants on the rare
list. I am a member of the California Native Plant Society Rare
Plant Committee. So one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife men got up
after talking to this Los Angeles, so-called botanist, and said
that they had found now that this Owens Valley mallow would grow
in dry places, and there were many, many populations. He used that
as an example that we should be very cautious about putting any
plant on the rare list when it might prove to be very abundant.

Of course, when I heard that I nearly had a fit! In fact, I
wrote to this fellow and suggested that he touch bases with me
before he used some recommendation I had made as a bad example,
[laughing] And the place where they said it grew in a dry place —
I eventually located where that was, and I went up and looked at
it. It was a place that was fed by spring activity, up near the
Wilkerson tract, south of Bishop. The surface of the ground does
look dry, but the plants growing in this little area with the
mallow are all dependent on high ground water, and obviously the
high ground water situation still exists because they're still
growing, even though it's probably a lot drier than it should be
for the best health. As far as these numerous places where it's
found, you'll find a half a dozen plants here and a few there, but
they're all just remnants.

Alabama Hills is a good example. There's one population in
a roadway, beside a road through a tract, a tract of acre plots or
so. They're along the roadway, it's a county road, and right in
front of the home of one of our Bristlecone Chapter members. She
was very thrilled that it was there.

Holleuffer: This is the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native Plant
Society?

14

DeDecker:

Yes, it was in front of the Gilchrist home. So we knew that we
had a good watchdog there, that she would guard that population.
Well, one week when they were away the county road crew came in
and dug a big drainage ditch all along there — not only wiped out
the plants but drained the roadside.

Then another place where it was growing, it was kind of a
moist meadow, a swale, and it was really nice, it was quite a nice
little population of the Sidalcea there. And I went in there one
time to check on it and found that the property owner had dug
another one of those very deep ditches down at the bottom of the
swale to drain it so it could be made a building site.

So that's it. They're going, one by one. They are just
wiping out these places, because they have no place in the develop
ment picture and they have to be drained. Then even the pumping in
the Alabama Hills for private residences is decimating some remnants.
So the plant is far from secure. It's just teetering on the brink
of extinction because it depends on moist places, high ground water
sites. They're going rapidly.

Holleuffer: Are there other ones that you know of that were described before
the aqueduct? When was the aqueduct built?

DeDecker: I think it was 1913.

Well, I don't know of any plants that have been actually
wiped out. There is a mariposa, Calochortus excavatus . It's one
that grows in alkaline places with the mallow. It isn't quite as
sensitive as the mallow, but with it too, the sites are being dried
up.

One Effect of Water Withdrawal on Habitat; Alkaline Dust

DeDecker: I think the disastrous effect of the taking of water in Owens Valley
has just been the general drying up of habitats. The riparian
plants mostly have a wide distribution, but when we lose all our
riparian sites we're losing a very important segment of our natural
habitats, and that's serious.

Holleuffer: I seem to recall also reading in your column that you write in the
Inyo Register— is it a once-a-week column that you have on nature
in the area? — that you and someone else who had worked in the White
Mountains had found that alkaline dust from the upper part of the
basin, near Mono Lake, was showing up on the trees in the Bristle-
cone Forest at 14,000 feet in the White Mountains,

15

DeDecker: Well, it's not quite that. New York Butte is a peak [10,668 feet

high] that's just a little bit northeast, mostly east, of the north
end of Owens Lake, and it's a high, exposed peak on the crest of
the Inyo Mountains, and on that peak are limber pine [Pinus
flexilis] . The bristlecone [Pinus longaeva] are not on New York
Butte; even though they're on the eastern slope of it and they're
in the general vicinity, they're not actually on the summit. The
bristlecone occurs on dolomite or limestone. The summit of New
York Butte is sandstone or granite, and there are lots of limber
pine up there.

And we drove up there one time [May 31, 1975] — it was over
a very rough, four-wheel-drive road — drove up to the roadhead and
we were going to hike over into Beveridge Canyon on the east side
of the Inyos. When we reached the end of the road, I had the
feeling that I was in a fog, and it was very puzzling because it
was a bright, sunny day. It took me a minute to come out of this
feeling that I was in a fog as I tried to analyze what in the
world it was. Then I realized that all the trees and shrubs at
the roadhead were covered with a whitish coat and this was alkaline
dust from Owens Lake. The twigs and needles of the pine trees were
coated, oh, maybe three-fourths to seven-eighths of the way around;
there was just a little clear place on the far side of the twigs
and the needles.

The mountain mahogany, which was growing there on the edges
of the pine area, also had coated leaves. The leaves of mountain
mahogany are very shiny and slick, so the dust had sort of peeled
off from those fairly well; they weren't completely covered, even
though there was a lot of it. But on the pine trees, it was
really clinging tightly to the parts of the trees.

So I gathered some and I sent it somewhere, but I didn't
find anyone that was interested in trying to analyze it. I did
go to some effort to try to get some grad student lined up to
study this. In fact, some girl came from, I don't know which
college or university it was, maybe it was Santa Barbara. She
came to the Bureau of Land Management office in Bishop and
wanted to go up there. I had alerted the BLM Area Office in
Bishop that this was going on on their land.

So one of the BLM staff was going to take this girl up to
see it. Well, the road is very rough, and they got up to the
edge of the pinyon and didn't see any on the pinyon trees, so
they turned around and came back. Well, I had told them very
definitely it was not on the pinyons, so I was a little bit
disgusted, and that was the end of that.

What I think happens is that the prevailing west winds go
right over New York Butte, and it doesn't take much of a breeze

16

DeDecker: to pick up this alkaline dust, and all the larger particles, of
course, drop out very soon, but this very fine dust is carried
high up in the air and sweeps over the crest of the Inyo Moun
tains. I suspect that there had been a little rainfall so that
the surface of the trees was all wet or moist, and as this fine
dust blew over it stuck to the moist needles and stayed there.
Now, we have no way of knowing how long it stayed there, whether
it gradually came off or whether it stayed until another rain
washed it off, and those are things that should be determined.

I did go up later, just to check on it some more, and there
was no dust at that time on the needles. Then I went contouring
around the peak, on the shoulder of the peak or near the summit,
and there was an abnormal amount of dead trees. Not only that,
but the live trees around the shoulder of the peak had very
sparse foliage, abnormally sparse foliage. So I feel that that
is evidence that those trees were suffering the impact of that
lake dust. How often it happens of course I don't know. But
to me it's obvious that this dust is having an adverse effect
on those trees, and apparently it happens often enough to do
that. So I consider that something that should be taken into
account when they dry up Mono Lake because —

Holleuffer: Now, this was Owens Lake that was putting out the —

DeDecker: This was Owens Lake, and Owens Lake has been dry for a long time.
Now, Mono Lake —

Holleuffer: I've seen terrific dust storms over Mono Lake.

DeDecker: Oh, I have too, and of course I've seen it greatly increased

since the lakeshores have been more exposed. There's an awful
lot of exposure there of the alkali surface as the lake has been
increasingly dried up, and the least little whiff of breeze will
just take that dust up in a whirling cloud. So the bristlecone
pines, the ancient pines in the White Mountains, are east of
Mono Lake, and that is the first major mountain barrier east of
Mono Lake. If this affects the trees on the crest of the Inyos
out from Owens Lake, it's something to think about, having this
alkali exposure in Mono Lake that would directly blow over the
crest of the White Mountains where these ancient trees are.

Holleuffer: Now, in the White Mountains we do have the U.C. Research
Station.

DeDecker: Yes.

Holleuffer: Hopefully, they'll monitor this sort of thing.

17

DeDecker: Well, it was kind of interesting. We were just getting into this
controversy over pumping in Owens Valley — this was probably the
late seventies, yes, the late seventies — and the Washington Post
called up and wanted to know if I could give them anything for
a story for their paper, and they said, "We want something of
national significance, not just a local thing."

So I said, "Well, I think it would be interesting that this
could develop into a threat for the ancient trees in the White
Mountains." I told them what I had seen, just briefly, and I
said, "If Mono Lake is increasingly dried up and creates a major
dust problem and it blows right over these ancient trees and
affects them like it does the trees on New York Butte, man might,
in a hundred years or so, wipe out trees that have been existing
for thousands and thousands of years, and that's something to
think about."

Holleuffer: Did they write it up?

DeDecker: Yes, they did. I didn't see it. Of course we don't have any
way of seeing that paper. Duane Georgeson, the chief engineer
of the aqueduct, called from Los Angeles. And at one time Duane
and I were real good friends, until I started taking a stand
against what they were doing to Owens Valley, so then he became
very irritated with me, but he is a very intelligent, bright
person. He called and said, "I have a copy of the Washington
Post here. It quotes you." And I said, "Oh, did it? What did
it say?" So he read it to me, and he said, "Is that a correct
quote?" and I said, "Yes, it's exactly what I told them." He
said, "Well, we certainly would appreciate it if you had told us
before you gave it to the news media, told us of your concern."
I said, "Well, I had no reason to believe you would be the least
bit interested." He hung up the phone, and he's never called
since!" [laughter]

But that's what you were referring to anyhow. And I think
it is something that should be taken seriously, because I saw
what I'm convinced were the effects of the dust problem up there
on New York Butte.

18

IV OWENS VALLEY STRUGGLE AGAINST LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF
WATER AND POWER

Environmental Impact Report for the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct

DeDecker: I started, way back, to say that another turning point in the

plant picture, as far as I was concerned, was when the California
Environmental Quality Act [CEQA] was enacted [in 1970], requiring
environmental impact statements. Of course we're so far from any
university or any source of such knowledge that all of a sudden
here was the east side of the Sierra with things going on that
required environmental impact reports, and there was no one
available but me to know what the plants were that they were
talking about!

Anyhow, I was called on for many projects, just because there
was no one else. Fortunately, I did know the plants and have been
able to be very valuable in that way. But that suddenly sort of
brought me into the limelight, where otherwise I wouldn't have
had any particular role in all that was going on.

If

When the environmental requirements came up, there were lots
of needs for someone who knew the plants in the area, and there
was really no one but me who was available. If it had been around
a university or college, there would have been people, grad
students, or undergraduates even, who would have been available,
but here there was nothing. Even people working for the public
agencies, such as Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management,
just didn't have any botanists. Anyone who was available at all
seemed to be more interested in animals than plants.

So when Los Angeles put in the second aqueduct, the second
barrel, as they call it, it was completed just after the California
Environmental Quality Act was passed.

19

Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

What year was that?

I think it was 1970. It was about that time. And the county of
Inyo became alarmed over what this meant. When Los Angeles
started in to build the second aqueduct, they went to the chambers
of commerce — those are the people they always contact — and told
them that there was nothing to be concerned about , all this
aqueduct would do would be take surplus water that would otherwise
go to waste, so there was no reason to be worried about it.

Well, ^ was worried about it, but I was in no position to
have any input on it, and the public officials didn't seem to be
alarmed at the time. But after the aqueduct went in, then they
started diverting water into the aqueduct that had been left alone
before. They were drying up springs and sloughs and were doing
things that began to worry the people living here.

So Inyo County finally started suit against Los Angeles to
require an environmental impact report. Los Angeles claimed that
they didn't need to follow the laws of CEQA because the aqueduct
was constructed — in fact, it may have been completed — before CEQA
went into effect, but they didn't start using it until after it
did. So the court upheld Inyo in saying that the DWP had to have
an environmental impact report. Then, to do that, they needed a
vegetation study, and so they asked me if I would do it. They
knew I had a pretty good reputation, and I guess they figured
they would use me to give them credibility.

I didn't want to get involved in something where I had to
hire people to help. I knew that I couldn't do it alone, and I
didn't want to be in the position of hiring people and writing
the necessary reports and things. So I told them that I would do
the work on the local scene if they would hire some consulting
firm to head it, and I would work for them.

The Department of Water and Power and the City of Los Angeles
hired Earth Satellite in Berkeley to be the consulting firm to do
the vegetation study, and I did a lot of the ground work in Owens
Valley, with the help of one or two of their field people, and I

felt pretty good about it. We were limited for time, but we did
a reasonably good job. And I, at that time, felt that the
knowledge gained from the study would be used to advantage. In
fact, when the Los Angeles people asked me to do it, they told
me that with this information they could rotate pumping and avoid
impacting any particular area too much and all these good things.

In reality, when the study was finished, the Los Angeles DWP
falsified the results and tried to twist it to their advantage.

20

DeDecker: I became completely disillusioned when I finally realized that
they were doing this deliberately, not out of ignorance or any
thing like that.

When Inyo County Board of Supervisors first filed suit
against the Los Angeles DWP and was — well, the case finally reached
the appeals court, the Third Court of Appeals, and the DWP was
making one big effort to get judgment against the EIR [environ
mental impact report] requirement. First Inyo got judgments
saying that an EIR was required. When the DWP finally submitted
an EIR, we complained that it was not adequate, that the definition
of the project was misleading, and there was a lot that was bad
about it, including twisting our input.

Finally, I was so disillusioned by that time that I joined
in and gave testimony against the Los Angeles DWP, and my
testimony was pretty damaging because they had hired me to do
this job. So then they tried to say that I was good on taxonomy
and knowing the plants, but I didn't know a thing about plant
communities and therefore they shouldn't take me too seriously.

So then in some agreement between Los Angeles and Inyo,
probably as ordered by the Court of Appeals, they decided they
would get some impartial professional people in to make judgment
on who was right or wrong in some of these arguments. So they
got some of the —

Holleuffer: Now, who hired these professional people?

DeDecker: I think maybe it was Inyo County, but I'm not sure. Or they may
have both contributed to this. But the EIR and comments on it
were sent to authorities in the various fields, including botany,
for judgment. Instead of siding with Los Angeles against that
person in Owens Valley that didn't even have a botanical degree
or anything, these professional people upheld me very strongly.
They said I was right on all that I had said and that Inyo was
very fortunate to have someone on the scene who understood the
vegetation so well. So now Los Angeles, since that time, has
absolutely refused to ever hire any impartial professional people
to make judgment on anything!

Holleuffer: Only partial people, [laughter]

DeDecker : Yes .

Holleuffer: Previously disposed to their point of view.

21

The DWP and Inyo County Politicians and Press

DeDecker: And that was eleven years ago, when the Court of Appeals in

Sacramento first ordered an EIR. The Los Angeles DWP has since
produced two, and they're thick books, and the court has not
accepted either one of them. And now Los Angeles has trapped Inyo
County into this agreement, and by doing that they thought they
were going to evade the EIR requirement. Our Inyo County officials
are ignorant: they're naive, and they're not — well, they have a
very limited base of experience. Our own supervisor was a cook
and a bartender in a small town cafe all his career, and now he's
making big judgments that are affecting our whole future about
things that he just isn't qualified to act on, and yet he will
never admit he's wrong. He goes to Los Angeles and these slick
PR men pat him on the back and tell him how wonderful he is, that
he's the only one who can understand the situation and that they're
depending on him and he's such a great person. He just falls for
it, hook, line, and sinker. And those of us who dare question it
are put on the blacklist, including myself.

Holleuffer: How many supervisors are there?

DeDecker: We have five supervisors, and sometimes I wonder if the IQ of any
of them is 100! But regardless of that, their backgrounds are so
limited. One fellow ran a service station, and, you know, that's
not a very broadening background. They're very suspicious of any
thing that resembles professionalism, and they resent very much
anyone who knows more than they do on any subject, and that's an
awful lot of people. So it's pretty discouraging.

Well, anyhow, to come back to this agreement. Our supervisors
made commitments to Los Angeles before even bringing it forth to
the people of Owens Valley, and we have a lot of well-informed
people in Owens Valley. Of course Los Angeles didn't want it to
be brought before the people until they had it all sewed up. So
they persuaded the supervisors that they knew best, better than
the people, what was good for Owens Valley, and to keep the people
out of it because they would just mess it up.

So the first thing we did was to get this news reporter, this
very perceptive, analytical woman reporter —

Holleuffer: You can name names, it's all right.

DeDecker: All right. This is Benett Kessler for the Sierra News Service, and
she had exposed some of the things that the Department of Water and
Power had tried to pull before, so they felt they had to get rid
of her before this agreement was reached.

22

DeDecker :

Holleuffer:
DeDecker:

About that time the radio station in Lone Pine that she was on changed
hands. It's under a Department of Water and Power lease, so the
land agent for the Department of Water and Power informed the new
people at the radio that they would not sign the lease until she
was put off the air. So she was put off the air in September, 1983.
Everyone knew the agreement was supposed to be finished, but they
couldn't figure out why it wasn't released. Well, the day that
she was off the air they released this agreement, and we were in
more or less a news blackout.

The newspaper only comes out three times a week?

Well, at that time the Chalfant Press paper came out once a week,
and a daily paper, the Sierra Daily News, was five days a week.
But the Department of Water and Power had really worked on these
papers and had them pretty well brainwashed, and it took—well,
the Sierra Daily News eventually woke up and began to realize that
Los Angeles had really hoodwinked the people of Owens Valley, and
they came through and gave some pretty good news coverage from
then on. Chalfant Press was more cautious, and they apparently
were afraid of offending Los Angeles too much. While they gave
fairly good coverage, it was always a little bit cautious. But
when Benett was put off the air, it seemed sort of like a news
blackout. It was in southern Inyo.

Holleuffer: What time are we up to now? What year?
DeDecker: I'm leaving out things! This was 1983.

Water Meters in Owens Valley; A Vindictive Act

DeDecker: I'm going back now. When Inyo County filed suit against the Los

Angeles DWP in the request of an EIR, then the City of Los Angeles,
who had always been very arrogant with the Owens Valley, just to
show us that they were in the driver's seat and that we couldn't
get away with being so independent, they put meters in our towns
in 1980— in Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine, and Laws — because
they owned the water companies. So they put meters in our town
and jumped from a flat rate of $8.40 a month to metered rates,
which they said were the same as they were in Los Angeles. They
claimed that they had to charge us the same as the people of Los
Angeles because it was the same water system.

Well, of course, to me, they're very different water systems,
but they say whatever they want to say and have the power to get
away with it. It was a vindictive act, and they got away with it.
For some reason, Inyo never took that to court, and I still feel

23

DeDecker: that they should have. I think they could have proven that the

Los Angeles DWP had no right to charge us this rate because these
were different systems, and we are at the source of the water and
why should we pay the same as Los Angeles; they have to transport
it 250 miles to get it down there. But regardless of that, our
water rates jumped from a flat rate of $8.40 to —

Holleuffer: That's $8.40 a month?

DeDecker: Yes.

Holleuffer: For unlimited use?

DeDecker: Yes, unlimited use. But they jumped to a metered rate, which in
the wintertime isn't bad, but in the summer — Paul and I are very
cautious, we've never been wasteful, we have two lots, and we raise
a garden in the summer, but he's very careful about changing the
water and making sure that he doesn't waste water. In fact, you
can't afford to now. We don't have any teenagers taking showers,
requiring laundry, and all that extra water, just the two of us,
and our water bills were fifty dollars or more a month in the
summer months. They're not that much in winter, but it makes it a
real hardship in carrying our place through these hot summers.

The first summer that we were metered we had, I think it was,
six weeks that the temperature didn't drop below 100 degrees, and
we never have any dew. The soil is largely decomposed granite
from the alluvial fan, so it's very porous, and it just takes one
heck of a lot of water to keep plants alive. We lost a peach tree
that summer because it was just too hot and dry. Most of the
people in town just gave up. They didn't try to keep their lawns
or their shrubs alive because they felt they couldn't afford it.
The shock of that sudden increase in water bills just — well, they
just didn't try to keep things alive.

Now, Paul and I gave that priority. To us, having a green
spot where we live is very important, and that was a priority, and
we could afford it. But a family with children, who have to put
feeding the kids and clothing them ahead of keeping their yard
green, just let things go. The sad part of it is that this used
to be sort of a garden spot. Independence has always been noted
for its nice gardens and yards and lilacs and things, and to see
it—

Holleuffer: Looking out the window right now, I can hardly see a green thing
growing!

DeDecker' Well, of course this is wintertime. But anyhow, it has been very,
oh, sort of demoralizing. Some of the elderly people who grew
gardens, vegetable gardens, as sort of good therapy for them,
besides saving on the grocery bill, they could no longer afford
to do that. So it's been a very sad state of affairs.

24

Holleuffer:

DeDecker :
Holleuffer:

DeDecker :
Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

Although it is just a continuation of the long story of Los
Angeles coming up and taking the water.

It's all part of this battle.

It was Mark Twain I think— I'm paraphrasing him, I'm not quoting
him exactly— but he said, "Whiskey is for drinking; water is for
fighting about." [laughter]

That's just about it.

And that's certainly what they do out here.

Well, then, during that time [1980] there was a group in Lone Pine
that started up. They called themselves the Concerned Citizens.*
Unfortunately, they were not too well informed on water matters,
but they were very sincere, and they were trying to fight this.
One thing they did, as sort of a gesture, they went up and down
the valley and tied red streamers on the dead trees along the
highway. They fought the meters, but of course they didn't have
the power to win.

I helped them. They came to me and wanted my help. So I
joined them and participated in putting out newsletters and things
to try to — we did do a lot in getting the word outside the county,
what was going on. We sent newsletters to people, biologists and
university people all throughout the state, and did get a lot of
information out about what was going on, which made it very
difficult for Los Angeles to answer some embarrassing questions.

Devastating Effects of Ground Water Pumps

Holleuffer; I was just going to say, I wonder if we could shift gears for a

minute, because I would like to get hack to the plant communities
in the area. Maybe you would like to talk about your work on the
Eureka Dunes, which are now a National Landmark — is that the
correct designation? [Also designated by BLM as an Area of
Critical Environmental Concern. M,D., November, 1985]

DeDecker: Well, the plants — this is a very, very important part of the water
issue. They started the groundwater pumping program to put water
in the second aqueduct, which we didn't consider surplus water,
but with Los Angeles, whatever they want to do is what they claim.

*cf. Stegner, Wallace & Page, American Places, "There it is; Take
it." On p. 175 they speak of the Concerned Citizens, and on p.
177 they quote DeDecker.

25

DeDecker: So they were pumping water to the point that we were very much
concerned. They did admit that they would kill some of the
native shrubs. But instead of rotating the pumping, they concen
trated it all in a few main well fields, including around
Independence, between here and Lone Pine.

So they caused a cone of depression around these wells that

just devastated very large areas and killed the shrubs. Well,

within a ten-year period, I don't know, I think it went into

thousands of acres, the shrubs were killed. Of course that's
created dust problems, it's very serious in terms of ecological

values. It wipes out habitats for all kinds of animal life. It's
just a very ugly, sad state of affairs.

When they started doing this and admitted that they would
kill some of the plants, they said, "Well, don't worry about it
because the desert plants," they called them, by which they meant
the plants on the alluvial fan, "will come down and replace those
that died down there because they don't require ground water."
I said, "Well, that is not so, because the plants that are on the
alluvial fan are there because they require good drainage, they
can't stand the alkali down on the valley floor, and they're just
not adapted to conditions there."

Well, they claimed that, and they put that in their EIR
statement. So that was one of our bones of contention. We told
them absolutely that would not occur, and yet they insisted on
saying it, and they told our county officials that.

The plant community on the valley floor is greasewood scrub,
which is tolerant of alkali. It can take these heavy clay soils,
it can stand intense heat and an awful lot of cold. They've
adapted to all of these unfavorable conditions or a combination
of them, while plants that aren't adapted to those things just
can't replace them.

So then the plants along the base of the fan — you get into
saltbushes, different species of Atriplex — and they all have
different requirements for water and tolerance to alkalinity. So
by understanding those plants, the different saltbushes, you can
pretty well tell what's going on, because they're indicator plants.
Well, great areas of Nevada saltbush [Atriplex torreyi] out here,
south of town, died. That is one that responds very quickly to
water withdrawal, so if you notice those plants dying, you know
that water is being withdrawn pretty fast.

So that's sort of the picture on plants. We've lost an awful
lot of native vegetation, and there's no effort to do anything
about it.

26

Holleuffer: The land is owned, isn't it, by the Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power? The valley part?

DeDecker: The land on the valley floor, most of it is owned by the Department
of Water and Power, and they claim that gives them the right to do
what they please: "It's our land, it's our water." And yet
they're affecting land that doesn't belong to them and they're
affecting the lives of a great many people who are not their
subjects. We don't have a vote on what they do, and yet they're
charging us Los Angeles rates. I mean, the whole thing is a very
arrogant state of affairs.

Holleuffer: Taxation, without representation.

DeDecker: Right. And they give huge amounts of money to the Los Angeles
General Fund, money that they collect from water bills.

Holleuffer: And they don't have to redistribute that back up here, in
accordance with how much came from here?

DeDecker: No. We've never sued them to demand it. We should.
Holleuffer: Why not?!

DeDecker: Well, that's what J[ say. But they collect water receipts from us,
water and electricity, and they give it to the Los Angeles General
Fund without any accounting for it to us or any representation
from us or word from us . *

*See Appendix A for additional comments on the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power.

27

V FIGHT TO SAVE EUREKA DUNES

Location of Eureka Valley and the Dunes

DeDecker: Well, do you want to talk about the Eureka Dunes?

Holleuffer: Yes.

DeDecker: The Eureka Dunes are on Bureau of Land Management land.

Holleuffer: Let's describe just about where they are.

DeDecker: They're in Eureka Valley, which is really a basin without any

drainage, but there's no water either! Eureka Valley is a valley
just north of Saline Valley, and it's between the Last Chance
Mountains and the Inyo Mountains on east and west, and on the
south it's the Saline Range, which is between Eureka Valley and
Saline Valley. And just across the Last Chance Mountains is the
very northern end of the Death Valley drainage. The Eureka Dunes
are in the southeast part of Eureka Valley, and the northwestern
corner of Death Valley National Monument is just a matter of a
few miles from the Eureka Dunes .

fi

BLM Advisory Committee: Recreationists and Conservationists

Holleuffer: Yesterday, as we finished up, we were just starting to discuss the
Eureka Dunes. This is an area on BLM [Bureau of Land Management]
land that was subject to a lot of degradation by off-road-vehicle
use, and Mary was on a study committee, sometime in the 1960s, I
believe, to see what could be done to protect the dunes.

DeDecker: Our attention was focused on Eureka Dunes first when BLM and other
agencies were beginning to work on some kind of control of off-road-

28

DeDecker: vehicle use. All the agencies [Forest Service, BLM, Park Service,
and Inyo County] were becoming concerned over the damage done by
off-road vehicles, and of course the public was demanding that
there be some control in various places.

The Eureka Dunes, being extremely high for sand dunes — they're
almost 700 feet high — was a favorite place for off-road-vehicle
activity. It's remote, and yet people go out there and have big
events and gatherings and just run all over the dunes. The
distressing part to those of us who appreciated the uniqueness of
those dunes was because of the unusually rich flora and fauna
there; of course, vehicular activity was very destructive.

As time went on, we found there were three endemic plant
species there, a number of endemic insects, and probably other
things yet to be discovered. So we opposed the activity. I think
this was possibly as late as 1970. I don't know the exact year,
but it was just before the California Desert Plan. So the Bureau
of Land Management designated a committee of five people to be an
advisory committee for working on a plan for the Eureka Dunes as
a place of special interest.

On that committee there was a man from Deep Springs who
represented the Sierra Club. This was John Mawby. And there was
a woman from Bishop who represented off-road vehicles' use of the
dunes. And then there was one man representing what was supposed
to be passive recreation; he happened to have some interest in
hang gliding, and they were doing a little bit of that. The woman
I mentioned was representing dune buggies' type of activity. Then
there was an aggressive man representing motorcycles. And myself.

Holleuffer: It sounds sort of weighted in favor of recreation!

DeDecker: It was weighted for use, of course, and that's the way most of
those things were going in those days.

The man representing motorcycles was very demanding and very
belligerent over any suggestion of controlling such use. Their
attitude was, "Well, by God, we invested in these machines, and
we're going to use them, and we have a right to use them." So
they, of course, were completely insensitive to any damage they
did. They claimed they helped the dune system by stirring up the
sands, so seeds would be covered and — . [laughter] Their
rationale was a little ridiculous.

I realized right away that I was very much outweighed by the
other element, and unfortunately John Mawby, representing the
Sierra Club, was very low key. He really didn't take much, of a
stand. He felt that it was a hopeless situation, and he wasn't a
bit aggressive about it. So I was sort of alone; I didn't

29

DeDecker: get much help from him, where I should have. But he was a geolo
gist, and probably not quite as much tuned into the living things
as 1 was .

So we started out, and I was a strong advocate of some kind
of compromise. I felt that if we could get some kind of compromise,
it was the best we could possibly hope for, and I wasn't very
optimistic about that. So we had a number of meetings, and as
ideas for compromise, I suggested first closing the dunes during
the germination period of plants, from, oh, perhaps the end of
January to summertime. And they said, "Oh, we can't do that, we
can't consider that because we have to have our activities during
Easter week." So I then suggested maybe having one side of the
dunes closed, or the big dune mass closed, and one side left open
for their activities. "Oh, we can't do that, because we want to
run all over the crest of the dunes."

So everything I suggested, that was their answer. They
wouldn't tolerate any restriction on their activities. They
wouldn't even consider a compromise. They wanted what they
wanted, and we were supposed to be content with what they didn't
want , which wasn ' t much .

So my stand was that the main dune mass — the sand mountain
they call it, which is the high northerly part of the dune and
probably about one-third of the area of the dune — that that was
the "mother dune" of the whole dune system. The endemic plants
and any endemic life there depended on this big massive sand
mountain, because it retained water and fed it out during the
drier part of the season, so that it maintained this very rich
plant community .

The Dunes — A Place of Special Interest

DeDecker: The Eureka Dunes are on the west side of a mountain barrier, the
Last Chance Mountains. It's an impressive wall just east of the
dunes, and any clouds from the prevailing westerlies that come
into Eureka Valley and are caught on the Last Chance Mountain
barrier will always spill a little water on the dunes. They're so
close that the dunes benefit from any precipitation that is caught
by the Last Chance Mountains. Therefore, they get an unusual
amount of water. So many of our dune systems, at least in this
area, are on the east side of the mountain barrier and are in the
rain shadow of the mountains rather than on the favorable side.
So that makes a great difference in the precipitation.

3Q

DeDecker: Also, these are extremely high dunes and the very massive mountain
of sand stores an awful lot of water. It's like an aquifer above
ground. The rain and snow trickles down through the sand; it
doesn't run off, it's all retained in this sand mass and it
gradually percolates down through it and is fed around the base
to plants through the summertime.

Around the dune is what we call a sand apron or a perimeter
of sand all around the base of the dune, and that's where most of
the plants occur. Very few plants can grow up on the pure sandy
dune surfaces or soils above the base because it's not a favor
able place for plants. But the Eureke dune grass [Swallenia
alexandrae] does. It grows almost to the 700-foot summit of the
dunes and has a deep root system. There's one other plant which
is not rare, but it's important in the dune ecosystem; it's
Dicoria canescens, subspecies clarkae, an annual. These two
plants grow very high in the dunes. All the others are down
either on the sandy apron around the dunes or very low on the dune
slopes.

Of course, the running around with vehicles was pretty hard
on the plants . They did avoid the clumps of dune grass because
the leaves were a little bit prickly and they didn't like to fall
into them. But they did spin out dune grass seedlings all over
the dunes, so there was very little reproduction from seed while
this activity went on. And of course the endemic evening primrose-
Oenothera avita, subspecies eurekensis — was very susceptible to
damage by wheeled activity.

Holleuffer: It said in an article about the dunes that there were two plants
that were found to be on the federal list of endangered species.

DeDecker: Yes, the Eureka dune grass and the Eureka evening primrose.

Holleuffer: And then some fifty rare plants.

DeDecker: Not fifty rare ones, fifty plants.

Holleuffer: Oh, fifty plants.

DeDecker: Yes. There are over fifty plants, I think about fifty-five that
I listed, that occur on this dune island in the sandy portion of
the dunes. That does not include the plants that grow outside
the perimeter of the sand, such as creosote bush and things. So
that is a very rich plant list for a dune system.

For instance, there's a similar dune system just over in
Nevada, not too far away. They are the Clayton Valley Dunes, not
as massive, not as large. They are on the east side of the
mountain barrier, over by Silverpeak. I think I came up with a

31

DeDecker: list of four plants there, including Russian thistle, which has
been introduced! So there's a big difference between four and
over fifty species in a sand dune ecosystem.

Some of these insects, we think they've developed since
Pleistocene times, have been isolated through the time period
since then, and some of the insects are wingless. They don't
need wings because they're confined to the dunes. And we think
that these endemic plants have developed since that time, and
they're certainly well adapted to dune life. And the other plants
on this list of over fifty are species which are adapted to sand
dune ecosystems. So it's a very rich and interesting place.

Now, there's still much to be learned from the dunes. We
think that the hydrology of the dunes would make a really fantastic
study. The playa at the northwest part of the dunes is part of
the original Pleistocene lake, and the lake borders can be seen
around what was the old lakeshore. And there's lots of evidence
of ancient man there. There are some parallel rock lines out
away from the dunes on the alluvial fan about 200 feet long and
about 5-1/2 feet wide. There are two of these outlines.

Holleuffer: Are these where rocks have been placed in these lines?

DeDecker: Yes, rocks have been placed in these lines, and across these

parallel lines there are a few lines across. My attention was
attracted to these outlines — they are not very well known because
they are away from the dunes, fortunately, and they're on the
alluvial fan — when I was there with my daughter, Joan, and her
children one time. Our grandson, who was junior-high age and very
much interested in Indians in this part of the country, wondered
if there was some evidence of Indians there. I saw these white
deposits up on the alluvial fan and I thought, "Well, that could
be travertine or some hot spring deposits," from springs which of
course no longer existed.

So I suggested we go up there and look around that place, and
that's where we found these rock outlines and also a rock circle
and other interesting things. So apparently this was in existence
at a time when there was some kind of a spring flow at these white
outcroppings .

BLM Plan for the Dunes; Protection for ORVs, not Plants

Holleuffer: Now, after you discovered all these wonderful things about the
dunes , how did you manage to oppose the other members of the
committee?

32

DeDecker: [laughing] Well, of course none of this was any reason for

protecting them, as far as most of the committee was concerned.

Then finally my last effort for a compromise, and they seemed
to go along with this, was to have a — there's a little peak at
the south end, not really a peak but a higher point, and then a
sort of a saddle just north of that high point, and then the crest
of the ridge going northward. I asked if we couldn't have that
saddle as a dividing line and keep the vehicles off the far south
end of the big dune, and at least preserve some part of it in its
natural state. They seemed to feel that that would be agreeable
because, after all, they had been left a major part of the whole
big dune.

There's a lot of dune grass [Swallenia alexandrae] on the
west face of the dune. It's a very steep face, and it's semi-
stabilized because there's a lot of dune grass growing almost to
the top, and that's one feature that the botanists felt was pretty
important. It was so steep we didn't worry too much about it
because we didn't think the vehicles would use it. But before
this was over the vehicles were going along the top and coming
down that steep slope. It was pretty dismaying to see them doing
that. We began to feel nothing was safe.

So the crisis came when we had a meeting [October, 1978] of
the dune committee and the manager of the Bishop Area [BLM] office.
The Eureka Dunes were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop Area
office at that time, but it's now under the Ridgecrest Area office.
But that was before the desert plan. The manager of the Bishop
office, Ben Collins, came to the meeting and said, "Well, tonight
we have to decide whether to have competitive events here." And
I was just shocked at that idea, and even the woman who represented
dune buggies didn't want that. She said, "Oh, we don't want that."
The local people sort of considered the dunes their private play
ground, and they didn't want crowds coming in and taking over, so
she was very unhappy at that proposal too.

So I said, "Well, why do we have to consider that?" He just
kind of shrugged his shoulders and said, "Oh, we have to consider
it and we have to decide whether we want to have that or not."
And I said, "Why do you have to consider that? That is so
outrageous, we shouldn't even think about it!" [laughing] "Do
you have any idea what just the crowds that would gather would do
to this place, let alone the activity." And he just laughed and
he — well, I don't think much of him because anything that _! thought
was serious he just laughed about it.

So we talked about it a little bit, and in frustration I said,
'Veil, if we're going to get into this sort of thing, I'm going to
have to do my work outside this committee because this is just

33

DeDecker: going too far." And he never did give me a reason why they had to
consider it. I asked him repeatedly, and he just kind of laughed
and shrugged his shoulders. So we never had another meeting. I
had no intention of going to any more meetings, but they didn't
have any more.

That was in probably October, 1975. It was in the fall some
time, late summer or fall. And just after the first of the year,
1976, BLM sent out a plan, a management plan, for the Eureka Dunes,
and I just couldn't believe that it was so bad. The Bishop area
office is under the Bakersfield office; it's in the Bakersfield
district. So the plan came out from the Bakersfield office, and
it was signed by a man who was just one of the staff, not the
manager of the office. I happened to know this man; we'd been on
pretty good terms. He had been transferred there not too long
before from Riverside.

What they had done was to leave the entire north end of the
dunes, the big sand mountain, completely open; none of it had been
reserved. That was a point that I was trying to make all through
the planning process, the importance of protecting some part of
that "mother dune", as I call it. They had closed the larger area
of low dunes on the south end. These lower dunes were a little
larger in area than the big dune, spread out more, but they were
only about one-third as high as the big dune, and you could not
even get to them without a dune buggy! So that was left open for
other recreation, which was completely out of reason. And of
course all the values of these endemic plants and most of the
vegetation was around the big dune system, very vulnerable to all
this activity. BLM was to protect only the part that the ORV
people didn't want.

So I went through the plan and I just marked my reaction to
each paragraph, and I said, "This is misleading," "This is
deliberately misleading," "This is a lie." [laughing] You know,
I expressed my opinion of how bad it was . So then I called the
man who had signed it on the phone, and I guess he detected a little
ice in my voice or something, because we were friendly. He said,
"What's up?" And I said, "Well, I just want to know what you
think of this plan that came out over your name." And he said,
"It looked all right to me." He had hardly been out to the Eureka
Dunes! So then I started in to tell him what I thought of it, and
he said, "All right, all right." I said, "I'm going to send it
back, I'm going to blast it every way I can, and I'm going to do
everything I can to overthrow it." He said, "All I ask is just
don't get personal." I said, "Well, I don't need to get personal
because the plan is so bad it speaks for itself ! "

34

Enforcing a Ban on Off-Road Vehicles

DeDecker: So nothing happened for a while. I didn't get any reply or acknow
ledgement to my comments when I sent them back. But then I was
over in the spring, May 7-8, to a Southern California Academy of
Sciences meeting in Santa Barbara, and there were a number of
papers presented on the effects of ORV [of f -road-vehicle] activity.
I was there and I gave something on the Eureka Dunes.

A group of us went out to dinner that evening, and I happened
to sit next to a man from the Sacramento office of BLM, the state
office. I'd never met him before, but he obviously knew who !_
was. As we sat down for dinner he leaned over and whispered in my
ear that the dunes were going to be closed, but they would have to
wait a while and go through the saving-face process of a little
more study. [laughter] So I didn't hear any more then until it
was, I believe, October 1976 — it was late in the year — and they
came out with a plan saying that "after further consideration and
more study" they were closing the entire dune system to vehicles.

Well, of course we were elated over that. It was more than
I had ever hoped for. We just were very happy about it. But
before long we realized that BLM had no intention of enforcing the
closure .

Holleuffer: It's a pretty isolated area.

DeDecker: Yes. So it was not too long before the ORV people realized that
nothing was going to be done about it, and they started gathering
again. There was a little pause there in the activity, but then
they started coming in. It was sort of a belligerent attitude
they had that nobody was going to keep them off the dunes, and they
had what they called "events."

The first Easter [1977] went by; Easter season was the worst
time of the whole year. I didn't get out there that year during
Easter week, but I heard some pretty wild reports of what had gone
on, reports of wild activity. So the next year I made a point to
be out there. We were camped at the north end of the dunes, and
just a little bit away from us, maybe a quarter of a mile, maybe
not that far, was a big gathering of vehicles. They kept coming
in, more and more, til it was a real big group of people camped all
in one place. And there was a lot of noise going on, but it really
didn't open up until the sun went over the mountain, and then the
people started revving up their machines. There were not only dune
buggies, but there were pickups and jeeps roaring around the peri
meter of the dune, riding over the plants, caving in the rodent
holes; it was just like a nightmare.

35

Holleuffer: And there were no officials out there?

DeDecker: No control whatsoever.
H

Holleuffer: From 1977 until I guess it was 1984 there wasn't any way of pro
tecting the dunes.

DeDecker: I don't remember the years, but BLM made no move to protect them

until that Easter that I was out there. I then wrote this article
in Fremont ia about it [Vol. 7, No. 2: 6-8. July, 1979J. I was
horrified at what went on, and there had been no effort — BLM had
promised they would have people out there Easter week and nobody
was around .

Holleuffer: Fremont ia, excuse me, is the journal of the California Native
Plant Society fCNPS] .

DeDecker: Yes. And the dates of course are in there.

Anyhow, I decided I would write an article about it, and I
did. My article is entitled, "Can BLM Protect the Eureka Dunes?"
Then they asked the man who was head of the Bakersfield office — I
should remember his name [Louis A. Boll] — they asked him for his
side of the story. Well, all he did was give a few weak excuses,
and it was printed in the same issue of Fremont ia [Vol. 7 (2):
8, 1979].

Anyhow, that article brought forth enough reaction and
pressure on BLM that they then started to give some protection by
having the desert rangers go out. They have a ranger, Bruce
Albert, who lives in Big Pine, and he's very good. He's not
belligerent, but he's firm, and he goes out and he can talk to
them without — he tells them, "These are closed, and we'll give
you a chance to get out, but if we have to give you citations, we
will," and he has done it, and it has made a world of difference.
The dunes now — occasionally you find tracks out there, but in
general it's pretty well under control.

I should go back to fall, 1975, when I quit going to BLM's
Eureka Dunes Special Design Committee or told them that I would
work outside the committee. So I started a letter-writing campaign.
I wrote to botanists across the country, anyone that I thought would
show an interest in protecting the dunes, lots of biologists. Then
a man who lived in Bishop who was active in the Sierra Club, Roland
Enfield — he had been interested in the Eureka Dunes, and I asked
him if he didn't want to help us. So he got on it, but anything
he went into he did very much as a personal project, which was sort
of irritating. I had had experience with him in the museum and
found that it was very necessary for him to get a great deal of

36

DeDecker: ego satisfaction over anything, but I did appreciate his help a lot.
And altogether apparently BLM really felt the pressure.

We even went up to the Bishop office and asked to see the
correspon once that had come in on the dunes . There were a few
letters from ORV people, and most of them were half illiterate,
and very demanding, and very belligerent. And the people who were
asking that the dunes be protected gave intelligent reasons. It
was very interesting to see the contrast. There were many, many
more letters asking for protection than there were to keep them
open. All the time BLM was pretending that there was all this
pressure to keep them open. Well, the pressure was very vocal and
very belligerent, but really those who wanted protection far out
numbered the ones who wanted them kept open.

The whole thing was an interesting process of the public
expressing itself on a very hot issue. I was sort of surprised
after it was all over. While I spearheaded the thing because I
happened to be in the position to do it, I wasn't the least bit
interested in the credit for it. All I wanted was to see the dunes
saved. Of course, we were all thrilled when we felt we finally
accomplished this.

And Roland Enfield — this is sort of interesting — he sent out
personal letters to people that he had contacted, thanking them for
helping him in his project. [interviewer laughs] He died not long
ago, about a year ago. I was kind of amused to see an article in
the Sierra Club newsletter from the Toiyabe chapter, and this came
from Reno, speaking of Roland Enfield as a great conservationist,
which he certainly did a lot for — I don't question that — but saying
that he almost singlehandedly saved the Eureka Dunes! [laughing]

I'll end this by saying that I consider the Eureka Dunes a
shining example of what can be accomplished over overwhelming odds
if people really take a stand on something. I think it's really an
outstanding example because it just looked impossible at the time
to accomplish this. And it was done, not by me, but by all the
people that cared about that kind of an issue and natural habitat.

37

VI DISCOVERY OF DEDECKERA: A NEW GENUS

Finding a Strange "Buckwheat" in a Remote Canyon

Holleuffer: Well, on that note I might interject here that I believe there are
two species on the Eureka Dunes that are named after you, two
species of plants?

DeDecker: No, no. There is a —
Holleuffer: There's a Dedeckera.

DeDecker: Dedeckera is the first new genus that's been discovered in California
since, I think it was, 1949 when the dune grass was discovered.
When it was named as a new genus, named for me, which was very
exciting, I asked Tom Howell how long it had been since there had
been a new genus discovered in California, and he told me that this
was the first one since this dune grass [Swallenia alexandrae ] was
discovered by Annie Alexander in 1949.* He said, "Both discovered
by women; how lib can you get?" [laughter]

Holleuffer: The other thing I wanted to mention in connection with Eureka Dunes,
too, is that I guess it's the Board of Geographical Names that has
also honored you with a canyon named after you.

DeDecker: Yes, it's the same canyon, Dedeckera 's type locality, now Dedeckera
Canyon. It's in the Last Chance Mountains draining into Eureka
Valley just southeast of the extreme south end of the dunes. I
probably should go into this a little bit. During this period that

*Annie M. Alexander, founder of the Museums of Vertebrate Zoology
and Paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley, who
(with Louise Kellogg) carried on extensive zoological, paleonto-
logical, and botanical field work in western North America. — ed.

38

DeDecker: the Bureau of Land Management was planning roads and vehicle use,

there was a lot of controversy over what should be opened for roads
and what should be limited. So there was a kind of a jeep route
from Saline Valley to Eureka Valley, and the ORV people wanted that
left open because they appreciated the challenge of coming over
that route. On the Eureka Valley side it dropped off over three
small dry falls, and it was a very tricky thing to maneuver down
these dry falls , and that was a challenge that they felt they
should have.

The Sierra Club opposed that, and I wasn't too happy about it,
but I did say that I would go along with the idea — it was a one
way corridor from Saline Valley to Eureka Valley — and I said, "As
long as it's one way, I will go along with the idea and not oppose
it because if they come from Saline Valley to Eureka Valley, the
route is so long and so slow and difficult, that by the time they
get to the sensitive part, on the lower side toward Eureka Valley,
they would be anxious to get out, so they wouldn't be hesitating
in the area where there were sensitive plants." So they agreed to
that, and they put a sign up at the entrance on the Eureka Valley
side that it was a one-way road, indicating that it was from Saline
to Eureka Valley.

Well, it was not too long before they started building up
ramps to overcome these challenges, to lessen the drop-offs. But
in the meantime I was a little bit concerned about special plants
there. We had come over the route a couple of times. I saw there
was Buddleja utahensis, Buddie j a which is the butterfly bush, and
it was on the rare list. I had seen that at a turn in the canyon
where there were high cliffs coming down, where the canyon turned
and it made a kind of a little amphitheater there that would be a
wonderful camping place if anyone wanted to camp there. I began
to feel some concern over this Buddleja that I had seen growing
there, knowing that if a group camped there, they would pull up
any bush in sight to put in their campfire. I didn't know how
abundant it was .

So I made a special trip up in there. What we would do would
be drive to the mouth of the canyon and walk up about three-eighths
of a mile to this open area. I went up to see how prevalent the
Buddleja was, or how endangered it would be if it was very limited.
As I walked up the canyon I saw a shrub at the base of these cliffs
that looked like a buckwheat, and yet it looked different. It
looked a little bit like Erigonum heermannii, the large form of it,
I walked on up around the curve of the canyon, eastward, a little
box canyon there, not too far up, and when I came back —

Oh, in the meantime I did find that this Buddleja was growing
up in the cliffs and it was quite abundant, at least plentiful
enough that I didn't have to worry about it being wiped out. So

39

DeDecker: as I came back I picked a sprig of this strange bush that looked
like a buckwheat and took it home. It was in tight buds, little
minute buds . I put it in a glass of water in my kitchen and waited
for some of these buds to open up, but only one opend. It did look
like a buckwheat flower, but it didn't have any involucres like a
buckwheat. That's one thing that determines a buckwheat, an
Eriogonum in the key. So I couldn't figure out what it was. Only
the one little flower had opened, so I thought, "Well, I'll go
back in about a month, and I should find it blooming and maybe going
to seed and then have a better idea of what it is."

So we did, Paul and I. We went back on the Fourth of July,
1975, and gathered some. It was just golden, all over these dark
cliffs, these golden bunches of this shrub. It was very dramatic,
really, these high dark cliffs with these golden bushes all over.
So I picked some and took it home . I spent a couple of days on
it, trying to figure it out, but I just couldn't find anything
that looked like that that didn't have involucres.

So I sent some to Tom Howell at the California Academy of
Sciences and told him I had something to share with him, that this
was either a new species of something from outside the area that
I didn't recognize, and I couldn't find any description of it. So
he worked on it a couple of days, and then he called back and said,
"Well, congratulations, I_ think you have a new genus." Well, that
was pretty exciting!

We contacted Jim Reveal, [James Reveal, Professor of Botany,
University of Maryland], and he was on his way to California from
Maryland. He's the buckwheat authority. So he came right out,
wanted to go up the next day, which I couldn't do; but the day
after we went out and hiked up the canyon, and he was very excited
about it. It was quite a sight to see all this stuff growing there,
knowing it was something new.

He said, "Well, it's very definitely a new genus. I've talked
to Tom about it, and we wonder if you want to describe it because
if you do we'll help you with the Latin description," and so on.
And I said, "Well, I just don't know enough about the buckwheats
outside this area to describe any new genus; that's just beyond
me." He said, "In that case, we agreed that we would describe
it and name it for you!" So I said, "Well, that's nice, because
Paul's the last DeDecker in the line, and that would be nice to
perpetuate the name." He laughed and he said, "They'll be discuss
ing your name long after you're gone." [laughter]

40

Indian Artifacts in the Same Canyon

DeDecker:

Holleuffer:

DeDecker:

An exciting sidelight of this was when Paul and I were climbing
the cliffs from this bend in the canyon, and Jim Reveal went
around the point and was going to climb the cliffs from that point
on up to the top. We were going to meet up there; we were going
to just see what the habitat looked like at the cliffs. So as we
were going up the cliffs, investigating as we went, there was a
little shelter about the size of a fireplace opening, just a little
rounded cavity in the rocks — this is dolomite, the cliffs were
dolomite — and sitting upright in this little shelter was a basket,
an Indian basket. It was a conical basket. The top had been
chewed off by rodents, but otherwise it was in perfectly good
condition.

The basket was standing in a little silt, but it wasn't rotted
or anything. As I say, the top had been chewed off probably by
rodents. What was very exciting to me was that in the silt that
was sticking to the interior of the basket were Dicoria seeds, and
in my campaign to save the Eureka Dunes I kept insisting that the
Dicoria plants, which were being destroyed by dune buggy activity —
that was one of the plants that grows high on the dunes — I insisted
that even though that was not a rare plant, it was very valuable
in the dunes' ecosystem because the seeds in that plant mature in
the late fall or early winter, which is the off-season for nearly
all the other seeds. So the little creatures who live on dunes
would have that seed source. And seeing this in the basket, it
was obviously left as a food cache, so the Indians must have used
the Dicoria seeds , too .

Can you give me a
as?

common name for Dicoria? What would I know it

I don't think there is a common name other than Clarke's Dicoria.
It's a plant in the sunflower family [Dicoria canescens ssp.
clarkae ] * but it doesn't look like a sunflower. It's quite a large
annual, up to four feet high there, and these seeds almost look
like little flat sow bugs.

So I took the basket up to the top. I had a very large
plastic bag, and I put the basket in this plastic bag to protect
it, and we went on up to the top of the cliff and met Jim Reveal.

*"Dicoria canescens T.&G.. an Aboriginal Food Plant in the Arid
West," by Philip J. Wilke, Mary DeDecker, and Lawrence E. Dawson.
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, Vol. 1, No. 1,
Summer 1979.

41

DeDecker: I greeted him with the news that it took a little bit of searching

but I finally found a container worthy of our new genus! [laughter]
So I gave it to — what is it, the —

Holleuffer: The Lowie Museum, at Berkeley?

DeDecker: Yes. I didn't have enough faith in our local museum to leave it

here, so I gave it to Lowie Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

Holleuffer: Well, I'll have to go look for that.

DeDecker: They were very pleased to get it. It was a little bit different,
I guess. I think they thought it was a Shoshone basket. So it's
in a good, safe place.

Dedeckera Canyon Becomes an Official Name

Holleuffer: And is that area that you described, where the cliffs are, is that
what will be known as Dedeckera Canyon?

DeDecker: Oh, yes. Just recently, last year, Susan Cochrane of the Depart
ment of Fish and Game felt that that canyon should be named, the
type locality of Dedeckera, so she succeeded in having it officially
named Dedeckera Canyon. Botanists already called it that. It's
about two-and-a-quarter miles long, and the drainage comes down
through this dolomite area into Eureka Valley, behind the dunes.
It's a little bit east, mostly south of the dunes and a little
east. It's officially described, of course.

So I was doubly pleased. I was, of course, very happy to have
it named after my namesake, and I think it's a wonderful idea to
have place names for plants, because plants don't get enough
recognition.

42

VII OTHER CONSERVATION AND BOTANICAL ACTIVITIES

Death Valley National Monument and the Forty-Niners Organization

Holleuffer: I wanted to ask you — I know you work with government agencies.
You've described some of your work with the BLM, and I know you
did some consulting work for the Forest Service also. Did you
also work for the Park Service?

DeDecker: Not officially for the Park Service. I've been very close to Death
Valley National Monument through the Death Valley Forty-Niners
organization, which is supposed to be a supportive group. It
began in 1949 when they had a centennial celebration there, and the
group who put that on about two years later, about '51 I guess,
decided to maintain an organization, to incorporate, and put on
some kind of a festival there, or celebration, every year. And
this has gone on, and they have had a board of directors to accom
plish this. Of course, they had to raise money and put on their
programs. It's always been a three-day affair with breakfast, with
speakers on various subjects, and campfire programs. In the
beginning it was a real high-level thing. People would go to these
campfires and breakfasts and be starry-eyed over the history and
all the cultural and historical things that came out of these
programs .

Then two things happened that I feel have sort of deteriorated
the programs. One is that it became sort of a socially prestigious
thing to be a director of the Forty-Niners. So instead of focusing
on bringing in people who were really tuned into Death Valley and
were really interested in supporting Death Valley National Monument,
they began to bring in their cocktail-party buddies who maybe had
never been in Death Valley or had only been to the resorts, and a
few of us are still fighting that trend.

And then another thing happened too. Retired groups belong
to these recreational vehicle groups, like the Good Sam Club and
that sort of thing, and they come and descend on Death Valley for

43

DeDecker: the encampment, just great numbers of them, and their attitude in
general seems to be, "Well, I'm here. What are you going to do to
amuse me?" And that has sort of taken precedence over the higher-
caliber programs that they had in the beginning. So I've sort ot
stood alone in insisting that we're getting away from our focus.

Anyhow, my husband has been a director for a long time, and
he was a president at one time, and finally I was nominated to the
advisory committee and eventually became a director, and now I'm a
second vice-president, so I will have a little more effect. In the
meantime, in recent years, I've been chairman of the park liaison
committee, and I've been very active in working with the Park
Service people in trying to uphold the values of Death Valley
National Monument.

Holleuffer: I was wondering, in comparing these different government agencies,
whether you feel that any one or all of them are truly concerned
with preservation and conservation, or are some really oriented
toward recreation and development?

DeDecker: That's a real good question. The Forest Service has probably had
the best management, and from what I hear from others about the
Forest Service in other regions, I think probably the office in
this region has been more slanted toward environmental values than
most of the others. Of course, we don't have the forest to dominate
the picture here. We do have some lumbering and forest activity,
but it doesn't dominate the picture. Here it's more recreational,
and by that I mean passive recreation or hiking or outdoor camping
and that sort of thing, and they've done reasonably well in
controlling ORV activity. So I've felt pretty good about the
Forest Service here.

The BLM and the California Desert Plan

DeDecker: BLM has been very political, and they've done some things that

I've considered very bad, and I've been very critical, such as the
Eureka Dunes matter, and yet I still have a good relationship with
the BLM people. Most of the problems come from the political
figures in the upper bracket, but the people working for BLM, there
have been some real fine people. Unfortunately, the political
situation has driven a lot of good people out, because employees
have left in disgust. But there are still some good ones left
that are active in the program. The desert study was quite dis
illusioning.

44

DeDecker:

Holleuffer: You were an advisor on plants for the desert study, is that right?

DeDecker: No. When the California Desert Study Program began [1970], there
was a lot of money and it was well organized; eventually a Desert
Committee of fifteen members was selected. I was considered for
it, and I heard two stories why I wasn't put on the committee.
One was that a professional botanist who had a good in with Alan
Cranston in Washington was put on the committee, and after all he
was a professional, and I didn't resent it because I felt he was a
io7d appointee. He was well qualified. But another story I heard
was that they wanted me to help with the. plant inventory, and so
they didn't want me on the committee, as a conflict.

II

Holleuffer: You said you were selected to do the plant inventory?

Well, the desert was divided into seven regions for the plant
inventory, and I think also for the study of animal life and maybe
other things, soils and so on. The Colorado Desert was divided
into three parts, and the Mojave into four parts. There were the
east, west, and central Mojave, and then the triangular piece to
the north, which is basically what's in Inyo County and dips a
little bit into Mono County, was called the northern Mojave.

They asked for applications for these contracts, and no one
knew the northern Mojave enough to even apply for the contract or
bid for it. So they gave me a purchase order to do the job. When
the whole thing was finished it proved to be a much larger project
I think than anyone expected it to be. In fact the number of taxa
that I found in the northern Mojave was almost equal to what they
expected to find in the whole California desert. So they greatly
underestimated it.

How many was that?

Oh, over 1,200.

And that's separate taxa?

Yes, separate taxa. So that's a lot of plants.

Anyhow, it was a bigger job than anyone expected, and I was
running out of time toward the end. I did get a day of helicopter
time to hit some of the high places, which helped a lot. It was a
tremendous job.

Holleuffer:
DeDecker:
Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

Holleuffer:
DeDecker:

How long a time did you have to do it?

I don't remember. It seems to me it was two years. I think I ran
over the time that they designated. Frank Vasek [Professor of
Botany, University of California, Riverside] was one person involved

45

DeDecker:

Holleuffer:

DeDecker:

Holleuffer:
DeDecker :

I don't remember which section he had, but I was told later that
Frank and I were the only ones that really completed the job, and
others finally gave up and never did actually complete it, but
they were paid for it. I didn't know this at the time, but I
know that there was some resentment on Frank Vasek's part that we
did the work and the others didn't finish it, and yet they weren't
penalized in any way. And most of them were teams, and I was
doing it on my own and I think he was. But regardless, that was
just part of the effort.

An awful lot of money was spent. There were lots of
pressures. I went to most of the meetings, which they had several
times a year, meetings of this Desert Committee, and the public
was always invited to attend. Most of the meetings specialized
on some phase of work, such as mining or plants or grazing or
something like that. I was highly impressed with that fifteen-
person committee. BLM really did a fine job of picking a good
cross-cut of well-informed people. I think they were pretty much
dedicated to doing the best they could. It was a very complex
job that they had.

But then the politics got into it, and it became apparent
that it was becoming more and more political. And they had all
this data, a tremendous amount of data, but they were not organized
in a way to really organize it and make the best use of it, and
that troubled those of us who had contributed data.

This fifteen-member committee was there to gather data but not to
make decisions about it, is that it?

No, they were not to gather data. They were just to, oh, formulate
policies and decide where the emphasis should be. It was an
advisory type of committee. They were not there to gather data
or anything like that. This was all done by contract or by people
hired by BLM. They had quite a staff of people, including some
very fine people, and some of them were the ones that quit in
disgust when they found that their efforts were just being
bypassed or ignored, and so quite a few of them left.

So was your work, then, taken to one of the people in —

Mine was all turned into the [BLM] office in Riverside. That's
the office that headed the whole desert plan. It was an office
just for handling the desert plan.

46

Flora of Northern Mojave Desert. California

DeDecker: I finished the job, and the information was on computer printouts,
and people kept asking me, "When is this going to be published and
when are we going to get to see what you found there?" It's the
most complex part of the California desert; it has more high^moun-
tain ranges and deep valleys than do the other units. There's the
Panamint Valley, Deep Springs, Death Valley, and Saline Valley,
clear to the Nevada state line. So it was a very interesting part.

The only part of it that's really had much coverage is actually
Death Valley itself, and by that I mean just the valley; they still
haven't covered the mountains to any great extent. They're working
on that now and doing some real good work on the mountain ranges,
but at that time they had hardly started. So essentially the
northern Mojave covered the most complex part and the least known
part and I consider the most interesting part of the California
desert.

That's what spurred me on to do this flora of the northern
Mojave [Flora of the Northern Mojave Desert, California, California
Native Plant Society, Special Publication #7, Berkeley, 1984]. As
time went on I realized that BLM was not going to publish it or
make it available to the public, and I felt that it should be. For
one thing, I would want the public to know how valuable it is so
they'll be interested in protecting it. I've been working on the
Owens Valley flora for a long time and I want to get it finished,
but I took time out to work on this northern Mojave. I didn't
want to go through the process of getting it published and all that,
I wasn't interested in the money it might bring in, so I asked the
California Native Plant Society if they would like to publish it,
saying I would prepare it for publication. They seemed very
pleased and eager to do it.

So I started in. I originally intended to make just a plant
list, with synonyms, to bring the names up to date. Then I realized
it would be so much more valuable if I gave an idea of what part
of the region these plants occurred. So I decided to add that and
also the elevational ranges, extremes high and low, elevations.
Then I talked to my son-in-law about it, and he said, "Well, you
should put flower color because that will mean a lot to the lay
person." So I did that, except in cases where there were no
conspicuous flowers, such as the saltbushes and grasses.

And it took a lot of work, of course. I had to figure out
how to organize it. Harlan Kessel [University of California Press,
Berkeley] was very helpful in giving me suggestions. Of course,
he's in the book business. Then he sent it out, when I had the
manuscript all completed. I really had trouble toward the end.
My typewriter was going bad.

47

DeDecker: When the manuscript was finished, Harlan Kessel then sent two
copies out for criticism or review. One he sent to Jim Smith
at Arcata [Dr. James P. Smith, Professor of Botany, Humboldt
State University], who looked it over and sent it back with
some helpful suggestions for heading the plant families or some
thing; I don't remember what they were, but he gave several very
helpful suggestions. And then Mr. Kessel sent one copy to
Margaret Williams, who heads the Northern Nevada Native Plant
Society, more or less a botanical neighbor, and she's very
active. In fact she sort of dominates the Northern Nevada
Society.

Time went on. We were hoping to get the thing available
for Christmas, but we finally realized we never would make it.
Time went on. She had it at least a couple of months. I was
a little dismayed that she held onto it so long, and so was Mr.
Kessel. Finally he called me up and he said, "Well, we finally
got the manuscript back from Margaret Williams. I don't want
you to take it too seriously. This is your book and your project,
and I want you to accept only what you feel that you want to
accept, and don't be upset over the rest of it."

Holleuffer: Had she really raked you over the coals?

DeDecker: Oh, she had taken a heavy pencil and went through the whole
thing, slashing across the pages. She didn't agree with my
punctuation, the way I used commas and semicolons.

Holleuffer: Oh dear!

•

DeDecker: And perhaps her idea was better, but all she had to do was say,
"In the case of this I would suggest using semicolons in certain
situations instead of commas." But no, she went through every
page and just slashed big, long, hard, heavy pencil lines, and
it made it look like a disaster! [laughing] She managed to find
a few misspelled botanical words. Out of over 1,200 you're bound
to miss a few, but there were not many, and she checked a few
that were correct that she marked as misspelled. It was really
unbelievable.

Holleuffer: Well, it did eventually get out for this Christmas, anyway. I
know because I saw it.

DeDecker: Yes. Well, what really upset me about her — that was bad enough,

but then she wrote a letter back when she returned the manuscript,
and said, "I think if all the errors are corrected this might be
suitable for publication." Nothing constructive, no comment on
the value of the book. Anyhow, if he hadn't warned me, I think
I would have just collapsed!

48

DeDecker: Anyhow, I've had some excellent comments on it, excellent reviews.
Even Peter Raven, back in the Missouri Botanical Garden [St.
Louis, Director] — he was sent a copy and he wrote to tell me
what a fine contribution it was and how pleased he was that it
had been published. You know, people like that that really are
authorities.

I had been going to ask Margaret Williams to write the fore
word, but I changed my mind! [laughter] So I asked Frank Vasek
to do it, and he said, "Oh, I'm honored," and I was very pleased
that he did. I felt that it was just right. He has a feeling
for the desert, and that's what I wanted.

White Mountain Natural History

Holleuffer: Now, at present, you're working on a book on the flora of the
White Mountains.

DeDecker: Yes, the White Mountain Research Station is now being directed
by Dr. Clarence Hall [Junior Professor of Earth and Space
Sciences, UCLA]. He's a geologist. He has gone into it with
the idea of broadening the base of scientific interest, broadening
the base of opportunities for students, undergraduates, grad
students, and scientists in general. The station for many years
was concerned with physiological responses of organisms to high
altitudes. Then, for a time [1977-79], there was the hope of
having it be a center for visiting astronomers. Dr. Hall believes
that there's so much interest there in the biological fields and
in geology and all the natural sciences that he wants to make it
accessible for learning all there is to be learned, either through
the station's program or in cooperative work with others.

So he's encouraged evening programs at the White Mountain
Research Station, out of Bishop, and he's opened a camp up there,
a 10,000-foot camp at Crooked Creek, a place where students can
stay and do their projects, and there's a kitchen available, and
it's all very reasonable. There is also a high elevation camp,
Bancroft, at 12,000 feet. The headquarters on East Line Street
out from Bishop also has dormitories and a dining room for those
involved in research projects.

And then Dr. Hall came up with the idea of having a White
Mountain natural history, and he asked if I would participate.
I'm so keenly interested in this range that I thought, "Gee,
that would be nice to do," so I said I would. The time came, and
I started in on it. I was to do the wildf lower part. Someone

49

DeDecker: else was going to do the trees. I started in, and then they

decided to make it cover the Inyo Mountains too. It's all one
range, anyhow. That made sense to me, and I'm very fond of the
Inyo Mountains, so I was pleased that they were included, but
it meant a lot more work.

The next thing, they told me that they had decided to make
plants a major part of the book. [laughter] And I thought I
would just select representative plants and cover those, but they
want a lot more than that. Well, of course, he's not a botanist,
and I'm sure he didn't realize what he was asking for. Anyhow,
that's what I'm doing.

Holleuffer: Will it be illustrated?

DeDecker: Yes. They want a slide for every species, but they can't possibly
get that because in the first place they wouldn't have enough room
in the book for all that. I don't think they realize how many
plants they're talking about.

Holleuffer: How many are you talking about?

DeDecker: Well, I can't give you an exact number, but there are a lot of

them, perhaps 350. Many of them are inconspicuous little things
that you just don't have photographs of. But I've assured them
that even though we can't have photographs for all of them that
my descriptions will enable anyone to identify the plant. I'm not
going into technical descriptions, but I am trying to identify the
plant well enough that it can be recognized by a lay person. So
I feel pretty good about these descriptions, and I'm almost through
with my project. I'll need another month of work to finish that.

Women among Botanists, Ranchers, and Miners

Holleuffer: Have you found, in your work, that it's been a problem to be

either a woman or to be a non-professional in terms of not having
the education and the degrees? Is there jealousy on the part of
botanists?

DeDecker: I haven't found that true with botanists or the professional

people. There was only one case that I ever ran into anything
that seemed to —

Holleuffer: People that you do consulting work for don't hesitate to ask a
woman ?

DeDecker: Oh, no. They're familiar with my reputation. I mean, they want

me on the team because they feel that if my name is on the proposal

50

DeDecker: that it will help them get the contract. And that's been true,
because they know that I know this area. And professional^
botanists have been supportive, they've been helpful, they've
been appreciative of any input I've had anywhere, and I just
feel botanists are super people. Jealousy comes from people who
want to be authorities and feel jealous, and there is some of
that. I overlook a lot of it, and then I get kind of fed up
sometimes .

Holleuffer: You mentioned Frank Vasek. Is he the one who's discovered these
very ancient creosote bushes [Larrea tridentata]?

DeDecker: Yes.

Holleuffer: Now, on the television program that I saw about two weeks ago,
on the national news, NBC, they had one of the reporters out on
the desert looking at this creosote bush, which they claimed was
11,700 years old, when Pine Alpha [Bristlecone pine] is supposedly
the oldest living thing on earth, and that's 4,300 years old?

DeDecker: Yes.

Holleuffer: How can they tell how old the creosote bush is?

DeDecker: Well, this is kind of a complicated thing, and I can't explain

it very well, but what it is is cloning. It's a little bit like
the bristlecone. A tree will grow and live its life, and then
others will come up around it. They speak of it as piggyback.
The trees come around the original tree, and the original tree
will die. These are clones from the original tree, and then
there will be other rings, and that happens in bristlecone. Well,
in creosote bush it's the same thing, only it's not so obvious
because there's not much trace left of the creosote that died.
But when you see these big rings on the desert, like from the air—

Holleuffer: If you had an aerial view, you'd have this huge, huge ring.

DeDecker: Yes. Then you begin to wonder, you know. He's figured out that
these rings are just the outer rings of cloning that has been
going on for thousands of years.

Holleuffer: But he isn't counting rings on a bush, 11,700?
DeDecker: No, but he has counted —
Holleuffer: How can he tell?

DeDecker: Well, I don't know, this gets more technical than I can explain,
but that's the basis of his research. He has some way of compar
ison or checking, either by checking with other plants, like they

51

DeDecker: do in the bristlecone, to get rings or something that they can
check and use as a kind of a measuring stick or a basis for his
computation. But it's a fascinating thing.

Holleuffer: They were careful not to reveal the site, which I think is a good
idea.

DeDecker: Yes. It was a brilliant piece of work.

You asked if I ever felt because I was a woman or so on —
There's kind of an interesting project going up in Bodie. It's
under the Bishop area office.

Holleuffer: The Bishop area office of —

DeDecker: Of BLM, that's BLM land. The Bodie Hills have been overgrazed and
abused, of course, like so much of BLM land, so BLM knows that
they have to reduce the AMUs, the animal monthly units, on a lot
of the grazing land. Of course, they're meeting with opposition.
Then, the environmentalists are demanding more and more that the
land be given proper management. So they've come up with what
they call the Coordinated Research Management Plan. I think I've
mentioned that in there. This calls for people from different
viewpoints, different interests, different expertise to come in
and all work together to try to first recognize the problems and
then decide what to do about them. Like in the desert meetings,
they would have meetings and discuss problems and so on, but they
would have such polarized input that it was just impossible almost
to bring them together. Well, when they go up there and go out in
the ground and discuss these on the very site, you know, man-to-man
and so on, why, it makes an unbelievable difference in the results.

We were notified down here, the Bristlecone Chapter, and I
was notified personally, and the Sierra Club was notified, and all
the different agencies and so on, and we went up to Bridgeport,
and here was a big public meeting hall full of people, including
a lot of the cattle men and ranchers and mining people, anyone
that had any interest in Bodie Hills, and I was the only woman in
this whole hall!

Holleuffer: Oh, my goodness!

DeDecker: No, not the only woman. I was the only one from this area. There
was a woman from up in northern California who was there to explain
the process, but I was the only woman from the area. Anyhow, I
was put on the technical review team, the one that goes out to
look at the sites and so on. Again, I was the only woman out in
the field with these ranchers and cowboys. We had a meeting then,
just our review team and the people involved in that, and I was
still the only woman, and then it came out that I was an environ
mentalist, and, boy, did they look on me with suspicion! [laughing]

52

DeDecker: It was really funny. But when we got out in the field, why, then
I could just see their attitude changing. They saw that I was
tuned into the land and that I knew what they were talking about
and that I was interested, that I knew what I was doing, and we
became real buddy-buddy, but at first it was very funny.

Politics in the BLM

DeDecker: You asked about the different agencies, and I got off on BLM and
how political they are. When the Reagan administration went in,
it just made it immediately worse, because then the users felt
that they had the upper hand and they took advantage of it, and
BLM management reacted accordingly. So there has been a pronounced
decrease in protection. However, they are making an effort to at
least protect certain portions, and I think their big play now to
protect the Eureka Dunes is to have an image that they can show
people what good guys they are by protecting this great place.
They're using Eureka Dunes as kind of a showpiece, which is all
right! I don't care why! Except that they feel that by saving
that, they can sacrifice other areas, which isn't so good.

And their credibility has always been a little bit bad, as
far as _! was concerned. For instance, this jeep corridor from
Saline Valley to Eureka Valley — as I say, I went along with that
idea because it was sort of a compromise and I didn't think it
would do too much harm because it was one way, from Saline to
Eureka. Well, then it got to the point that they were going both
ways, because they built up these little dry falls, built up rocky
ramps so they could go the other way.

When I protested about it recently, when they were putting
maps out on the roads in these areas and I insisted that it be
held to a one-way road, nobody could remember it. No one could
remember that that was an agreement.

Holleuffer: Didn't they have minutes from their meetings?

DeDecker: Most of it was that there had been a lot of transfers, you know,
but there were still some of them that were here then, and they
just conveniently forgot about it. So it was just my word against
everybody.

Holleuffer: And what was the final outcome? It's two-way?

DeDecker: It's two-way, yes. So those things, you know, make you feel you
can't quite trust them. And that Dedeckera Canyon that it goes
through is just a treasure trove of relatively rare plants, so
that's why I felt so strongly about it. [brief deletion]

II

53

Burro Problem in the Desert

Holleuffer: You were going to speak about the Park Service, and in particular
Death Valley National Munument, I guess, and the problem with
burros.

DeDecker: Burros are a tremendous problem, and the political climate has
discouraged the Park Service from being too — well, they've been
ten years trying to get this burro control program going, just
because they were afraid of lawsuits or the animal protection
groups and so on. Of course I've been out in the field and seen
how they devastate the natural environment. In the springs they
just — well, it's disgusting what they do to springs.

One good example is when Bruce Pavlik [Ph.D. from University
'of California, Davis, Thesis on Eureka Dunes. Now Professor of
Botany, Mills College, Oakland, California] and I were coming off
from Tin Mountain, which we had reached by helicopter, we had a
limited amount of water. Of course, water's awfully heavy to
carry, and we were rationing it to make it last through the third
day. We came to a deep ravine, and we looked down in the bottom,
and there was a damp area that would indicate water, so we were
very pleased to see that. We thought, well, we'd go down and wash
and freshen up a little bit and have a little extra water to drink.
So we descended into it, and found just a stretch of damp mud, just
urinated mud is what it actually was, from the burros trampling
and just ruining it, trampling every bit of vegetation that would
be the normal riparian borders of a spring, and it was all gone,
and just this muddy stretch along the bottom of this ravine. So
we had to climb back up again without even having a drink or even
washing our hands.;

And in a situation like that it's impossible for bighorn
sheep to drink or even for little animals, little rodents, to
drink in most cases, and, of course, all their cover around the
spring is wiped out. So it does an awful lot of long-range habitat
devastation.

And we went on down the mountain. At the upper elevations of
Tin Mountain, it was just beautiful and natural, no evidence of
burros. Then we gradually got down to the point that we saw burro
trails and the effect of burros' activity. As we went on down, we
came to a place called Burro Spring. It was in a sort of a bowl,
an open bowl, and there was just a little round area of moist mud
in the middle, and all around it for, oh, maybe fifty feet around
it was just a dust bowl.

So that's an example of what they do to a spring. They even
ruin it for themselves. I don't think even a burro could drink.
The only way a burro can drink from a place like that is wait til

54

DeDecker: one of their footprints fills up and drink from it, because there's
no pool of water. And the trails of course were more and more
concentrated until much of the vegetation is just killed by
trampling and compacting the ground all around the spring within
a big radius. So it's pretty disgusting to see that sort of thing.

But the animal protection people never have such an experience.
They don't realize how serious the damage is, and they get all
emotional over those cute animals with the big ears and big brown
eyes. I mean, _I like animals, I used to ride a burro to school
when I was a little girl, but the burros 'were kept in corrals and
they weren't out ruining the country. Burros were bred to be
hardy and to thrive under any conditions and to eat almost any
thing. The animals that have to compete with them are native
things that are dependent on specialized habitats, and when that's
wiped out they have no place to go. They're decimated because
their habitats are ruined. That's something else that these people
don't realize.

The Death Valley Forty-Niners , as I said, is supposed to be
an organization to support Death Valley National Monument. I was
chairman of the park liaison committee and at one of our meetings —
this was several years ago, four or five years ago at least — the
chief ranger said that the biggest problem at the moment is the
burro problem. So I got right on it. We meet every second month.
I asked the naturalist in Death Valley, Pete Sanchez, to draw up
one page of reasons for burro control, and he did. He did a good
job, and it was all very simple, well-stated reasons. I asked him
to limit it to one page, and we would send it out with our minutes
and the announcement of the next meeting, which I did.

So we brought it up, then, during our regular meeting of the
whole body of directors. People were pretty much inclined to
follow our recommendation to support the Park Service in the burro
removal program, but at the last minute someone in the back of the
room got up and said, "Well, I think this is too important an issue
to act on it hurriedly. I move that we table this until our next
meeting," which would be two months later.

I was really disgusted because they'll vote on things without
any information at all, just readily vote on very foolish things,
and here was something with plenty of information, but they were
very suspicious. So I thought, "Well, next time I'm going to be
prepared." So, do you know Tillie Barling down at the Weapons
Center? [Now Naval Ordinance Test Site (NOTS), China Lake]

Holleuffer: No.

55

DeDecker: She's quite a strong woman. She was head of the resources program,
or whatever you might call it, on the Weapons Center, for a long
time.

Holleuffer: And they have a burro problem, too!

DeDecker: Oh yes. So she told me, "If you need any help on this, why let
me know." She had told me that. So I thought, "Well, it's time
to call on Tillie for help." Our next meeting was to be in Bishop,
so I asked Tillie if she would come and give a short presentation,
about fifteen minutes, to convince them that we had to do some
thing about the burros. So she said she'd be glad to.

So when it came up at the meeting in Bishop — I knew something
had been going on the night before. Most of the directors come up
the night before and stay overnight, but we don't because we live
so close. So we weren't up there socializing with them, but I
knew something had gone on, but I didn't know what. Well, some of
the people got together and were going to oppose this.

Anyhow, I brought it up, and I introduced Tillie. Oh, she
came with her commanding officer, all in uniform, looking very
impressive! [laughing] And she put this on in a very matter-of-
fact way, slides that really showed the devastation; they were
very effective. It was just a presentation, she didn't give any
recommendation or anything. She put this on, and that was it.

Holleuffer: Now, in the Weapons Center didn't they shoot the burros for a
while?

DeDecker: Yes, they did, and they had quite a reaction, but they had a good
reason because burros were getting on the runways and —

Holleuffer: Yes, they were a danger actually to the aircraft.

DeDecker: Right. And they were doing terrible things to the petroglyph
canyons up there .

So I told the group afterwards, "Now, you have had far more
information than you ever get on most issues, and you've certainly
had enough to vote intelligently. We could go on all day, and
discuss this and give you more and more reasons for doing this, but
I don't think it's necessary. You're able to make an intelligent
vote now and decide whether you want to support the Park Service
in this control program or whether you want to refuse to do it."
About that time Horace Albright got up, and he said, "Well, when
I was head of the Park Service and we were having the problem the
first time in Grand Canyon" — and he gave the year — "I said, 'Shoot
'em!' and that's just what we did." [laughter]

56

Holleuffer: Good for Horace!

DeDecker: So then it came to a vote, and the forty-nine directors, plus the
officers, and it was —

Holleuffer: How many directors?

DeDecker: Forty-nine. They voted to do that at one time.

So they overwhelmingly voted for it. There were three I think
who voted against it and two abstained. It was quite a victory,
really. So that closed the meeting, and one of my friends, long
time friends that I felt was my friend anyhow, he came up and gave
me a big kiss and said, "Congratulations!" Well, I had seen he
voted against it. I said, "Why in the hell didn't you support me?"
He said, "Well, I just didn't think the timing was right." He's
very much a wheeler-dealer. So I thought that was kind of amusing.
And the other fellow that opposed it invited us to a cocktail party
at his house that evening! So they wanted to make peace.

Then the Park Service still had a way to go before they got
clearance from the headquarters in Washington to go ahead, but now
they're very actively rounding them up and getting rid of them.

Holleuffer: Yes, they aren't shooting them, though.

DeDecker: They aren't shooting them yet, but they will if they can't —

Holleuffer: It's an adoption program, isn't it?

DeDecker: Yes, it's outrageously expensive. It's ridiculous.

Holleuffer: Yes, per animal it's very expensive.

DeDecker: But that's sort of typical of the way these things go.

The Most Important Achievement

Holleuffer: Well, Mary, you've been given many awards and many citations for
your work in botany, and I was wondering, if you were to be
remembered for one thing, either a body of research, a plant, a
natural area, whatever, what would you hope that thing would be
that would be associated with the name Mary DeDecker?

DeDecker: What I think would mean more to me than anything else is to feel

that I've made some inroad in protecting Owens Valley in the water
situation, but that's pretty hopeless I think. I think I have

57

DeDecker :

Holleuf f er :

accomplished a lot, but certainly not what should be done to
protect Owens Valley, because the power of Los Angeles [Department
of Water and Power] and the stupidity of our local officials is
a very bad combination.

Do you feel like a voice crying in the wilderness a lot of the
time?

DeDecker: Yes. And I think what is discouraging is that people come to me
and want me to help, you know, defend the cause or to make a
difference, and I'll drop things that ^ think are important,
projects I'm working on, to put time into this. Then, the DWP
is very clever at dividing people or buying people off, and before
I know it the people who've asked me to help them have fallen by
the wayside. They've been bought off or they're tired or lose
interest. And you get a little tired of being left out on a limb.
When I become involved I intend to see it through.

Holleuf fer: You're, I guess, seventy-five years old now?
DeDecker: Let's see, yes.

Holleuf fer: And I hope that you'll have another seventy-five in order to fight
the Department of Water and Power! [laughter]

DeDecker: Well, the engineer up in Bishop told one of my friends — a young

man who lives in Independence — he said, "Oh yes, we'll just stall
along and these people will die off and we'll have clear sailing."
This young man told me this. I said, "Well, they're just waiting
for me to die!" And he says, "Yes, but I'm going to be around!"
[laughing] But there are not enough people to follow up on this
thing.

Another thing that means a lot to me is protection of
the desert and the desert ranges . I have a very keen feeling for
the value of the desert and the valleys and the basins and the
desert mountains, and I think I've at least created some positive
reaction there. You know, there are always other people helping
on these things. It's not just me. I happen to be in a position
where I can have a little bit of clout.

fl

58

Founding of the Bristlecone Chapter of the California Native
Plant Society

{After the interview was completed, Mary DeDecker wished to add
a few words about the founding of the Native Plant Society's
Bristlecone Chapter.]

In past years, whenever such issues as water matters, ORV
control, or zoning came up, there were all too few who understood
the importance of native plants. Of course there were biologists
in the Forest Service or BLM, but they were usually transferred
elsewhere about the time that they became acquainted with the
region — or they were not free to speak as individuals . I had
realized for a long time that we needed a broader base of plant
people. Although I was a member of CNPS, we had no chapter here.
Finally though, the time came when I felt we could organize a
chapter and keep it going. Our first meeting was March 31, 1982,
in Independence. We decided that we should name it the Bristlecone
Chapter and that it should represent Inyo and Mono counties .
Vince Yoder, who had been active in the Marin Chapter, CNPS, was
elected our first president. Now people in eastern Kern County
are joining our chapter because we share the same kind of country,
and a scattered number elsewhere join because they find this a
fascinating part of California. We now have 140 members.

Besides the good fellowship this has meant, we now have an
ever-expanding base of people who know a lot about the native
plants — some becoming experts. It is a healthy new force to be
reckoned with on the local scene. I think we all feel pretty
good about it — we've seen that it does make a difference, and our
group is respected. Our county officials are finding that it isn't
just that DeDecker person who notices and makes a fuss. Some are
even seeking our support.

Conclusion: The DeDeckers1 Greatest Achievement

Since Carol and I ended our interview rather abruptly, here is a
final paragraph that I would like to add:

Paul and I feel that our greatest accomplishment is in our
offspring. Our two daughters and their families are the kind who
help make this world a better place. All seven of our grand
children are tuned in to environmental values — and most of them
are majoring in the natural sciences. Two will soon earn their
Ph.D.'s. We are confident that they and their friends will carry
on — and have fun doing it. [Mary DeDecker, November, 1985.]

Transcribers:
Final Typist:

Stella Dao, Joyce Minick
Elizabeth Eshleman

59

TAPE GUIDE — Mary DeDecker

Interview 1: January 16, 1985
tape 1, side A
tape 1, side B
tape 2, side A

Interview 2: January 17, 1985
tape 2, side B
tape 3, side A
tape 3, side B
insert from tape 1, side B
resume tape 3, Side B
tape 4, side A

1

10
18

27
35
44
48
49
53

60
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

BERKELEY • DAVIS • IRVINE • LOS ANGELES • RIVERSIDE • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO i TMlljpi^SjSS) I SANTA BARBARA • SANTA CRUZ

REGIONAL ORAL HISTORY OFFICE BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720

THE BANCROFT LIBRARY
(415) 642-7395

APPENDIX A — An Exchange of Letters with Mary DeDecker on the
Department of Water and Power

21 February 1986

Mary DeDecker

P.O. Box 506

Independence, California 93526

Dear Mrs. DeDecker:

A final reading (and indexing) of your oral history brings up a
few questions. First, we didn't get the married names of your daughters.
Could you please send them along?

Second, we would like to follow up on an intriguing aspect of
your battle with the Department of Water and Power. We notice that
your husband was employed by Department of Water and Power in Owens
Valley and wonder how your adversarial relationship with Department of
Water and Power might have affected his employment. (They appeared to
be so vindictive in other ways.) Some comments on this, including his
dates of employment, would be valuable to include, we believe, unless
you would rather not.

Thanks again for all your help.

Sincerely,

Ann Lage

AL:lj

61 140 W. PAVILION STREET

P.O. BOX 506

INDEPENDENCE, CA. 93526

(619) 878-2389

«eAl«

Botanist

March 3, 1986

Ann Lage

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

Dear Miss Lage:

Your recent letter must have arrived just after we left town for nearly a week.
I hope the delay in replying has not inconvenienced you.

As to our two daughters:

•Joan is Mrs. William E. Busby. They live in Mill Valley, Marin County.
Their children are William Huntoon, Lawrence Paul, Annette Carol, and Robert
De Decker.

Carol is Mrs. Delbert Wiens. They live in Salt Lake City.

Their children are Paula Lynne, now Mrs. Don Mansfield, Wendy Caroline, and

Mi son Maria.

As for relationship with the Department of Water and Power:

Paul went to work for the Los Angeles DWP in November, 1930, and retired August
31, 1971. His employment with the DWP was continuous except for a very short
period in 1933, during the depression. The relationship was harmonious through
out. Good working rules were established by 1940, and I'm sure the DWP valued
Paul as a good employee. He was Truck and Equipment Dispatcher for the Los Angeles
Aqueduct, Northern Division. That included supervising crews of men who did non
repair services on cars, trucks and construction equipment.

During Paul's working career there existed the best feeling that there ever has
been between the Los Angeles DWP and the people of Owens Valley. The DWP was
truly working on improving public relations here. It was not until the effect
of the "second barrel" of the aqueduct became apparent that a new wave of bitter
ness developed. That was in the early 1970's, after Paul retired.

It has been true that anyone working for the DWP has not dared to oppose the
DWP objectives. A major problem in our effort to arrive at a better water
agreement was that no one working for the Los Angeles DWP or the County of Inyo
dared to oppose that "Historic Agreement". That excluded those who were in the
best position to recognize the hidden dangers in the agreement. The Los Angeles
DWP engineers and attorneys had one objective in mind, to secure all the water
that Los Angeles night need. Our Inyo County Supervisors were too overcome by
flattery and the importance of their position to accept any doubts expressed by
their own people. It was in spite of them that some of our analytical concerns

62

reached the Appellate Court and successfully tempered some of the dangerous
provisions «f the agreement.

Now, after a decade of arrogance and vindictive actions, the DWP is again trying
to improve its image. Perhaps they have found that the ordinary people, whom
they thought did not count, are capable of making a difference. The obnoxious
head of this division was transferred back to Los Angeles. (This was shortly
after Paul, in a conversation with the head Aqueduct Engineer in Los Angeles,
told him they would do much better without that smart-ass engineer up here.)
I know that the DWP officials consider me a chief obstacle to their success in
putting things over in Inyo County. There is no way that they can get to me
except through things that I care about in county government. And yet I suspect
that the local DWP engineers respect me. We are able to communicate in a friendly
way when we meet in public. I know though that they work for a ruthless
entity, and they know that I will fight to the end for a fair deal in Owens
Valley. I think that time is in our favor but the dangers are frightening.

Feel free to take what you consider appropriate from the above.

Sincerely,

Mary DeDecker

63

APPENDIX B — Interview Questionnaire, January 1985

Mary DeDecker
P.O. Box 506
Independence, California

Year and place of birth: October 3, 1909. Texas Co., Oklahoma.

What kind of a community did you grow up in- rural, small town-?

Rural until I was 8 years old. Then in Los Angeles, the outskirts, for a year,

before going to Zelzah in the San Fernando Valley.

Cities or areas where you have lived:

Lived in Zelzah, now Northridge, until I was married. Then in North Hollywood

most of the time until we movedto Independence in 1935. We did spend a year

in Spunky Canyon when Joan was a baby.

Past and present occupations- earliest to most recent and years
engaged in each:
Years-"LB- Occupations Secretary to the school board(H.S.) and then

to the District Supt. after the schools

unified.

10 Title Officer for theTitle Insurance and

Trust Company. Did the "long orders",
all the mine orders, and those for the
utility companies and highways. This was
for Inyo-Mono.

After 1967 I have focused on plant work. Have never looked for other
work but have been hired or given contracts for many consulting jobs.
Largely to fulfill the requirements of CEQA.

Organizations in which $ou are active- offices held - conserva
tion, environmental, service, professional groups:

All the local organizations in my time — PTA, Garden Club, Civic Club, League of
Women Voters, botanical organizations, Inyo Associates, Death Valley '49ers.
Have served a number of years as Park Liaison Chairman of the Death Valley '49ers,
a supportive organization for Death Valley National Monument. Am now 2nd
vice-president of that organization. Have also been active in the Eastern
California Museum at various times, mostly a disillusioning experience.
Have been president and /or secretary for most of the local organizations.

Have also been active in the Concerned Citizens and the Owens Valley Committee,
both activist organizations to fight for the rights of Owens Valley in the
water issues.

For some years I was active in the Democratic Party. Was on the Democratic
Central Committee in Inyo County for a long time. Was appointed to the State
Central Committee by Senator Charles Brown.

64

Have you been Involved with native plant legislation, studies
of wilderness areas, habitat conservation?

Yes, all of the above. I try to keep abreast of issues, especially those which
affect this region. Was especially active in the planning process for the
California Desert. My greatest battle was over the Eureka Dunes. I was on a
BLM Committee in the planning processi outnumbered by use people. When it
became a hopeless situation I told them I would conduct my activities outside that
committee. It was then that I was able to recruit the support which eventually saved
the dunes. In the beginning I hoped for some kind of a compromise. The outcome was
that we gained it all — the entire dune system was closed to ORV activity. Of course
the botanical community came through with flying colors. Also the Sierra Club.

'Fattier a business school
When and where did you =-et started in botany?2, graduate turned fanner.

QSrandmother a woman Dr.
My father encouraged me to appreciate plants, and taught me to see "the dirferefieesrn —

leaves, etc. Healways provided me with a plot for a garden. Then in a high school
biology class the teacher put me in charge of all the plant projects. That must have

indicated a special interest, although. I didn't realize it at the time.
Botanical work, especially in the eastern Sierra:

It started in trying to learn the plants. Everything was different here. Books I had
used in the San Fernando Valley simply did not apply here. When I accompanied Paul
on fishing trips, I spent the time studying the plants, writing notes to describe them
and making sketches of details. Then Mark Kerr, a sensitive naturalist who lived in
Independence at the time, gave me helpful suggestions. He introduced me to Jepson's
flora, but it did not cover this part of California too well. I did invest in a copy
though. ($11 was a lot of money then.) Then I had to learn the botanical terms to use
it. Mark suggested that I send plants out for identification, namely to Dr. Philip
Munz at the Santa Ana Botanic Garden and to John Thomas Howell at the Academy of Science.
These two men gave me the helpful support that I needed. Their patience and encouragement
made it possible for me to keep growing and learning. There was no end to the opportunity
in this relatively new region. The plants were too fascinating to ignore. My husband
and two growing daughters enjoyed hiking and backpacking, so we shared wonderful trips
which gave me access to many remote places.

After that there were two turning points. Our second daughter married a botanist.
CEQA, calling for lER's, placed me in a key position. No one else knew the flora well.
Publications:

See resume.

. ,

65
APPENDIX C

Mary DeDccker— Articles and publications.

a) A major contributor to "Deepest Valley" edited by Genny Schumacher Smith.
This is a popular guide book to Owens Valley, now out of print after
several reprints. It is now being revised and updated.

b) Author of "Mines of the Eastern Sierra" which has been reprinted many times
since it came out in 1964. It is a local history based on the most
interesting of the old mining districts.

c) Author of "The Eichbaum Toll Road", the 10th Annual Keepsake of the Death
Valley '49ers, 1970. It is a short history of the Toll Road over Towne
Pass into Death Valley and the beginning of Stove Pipe Wells Resort.

d) Coauthor with Dr. Delbert Wiens of "Rare Natural Hybridization in
Phoradendron (Viscaceae)." Madrono: Vol. 21, No. 6. April 1972.

e) Author of "Rediscription. of Eriogonum Hoffmannii, a Death Valley Endemic."
Madrono. Vol. 22, No. 7. 1974.

f ) Contributed the botanical work on "Agriculture Among the Paiute of Owens
Valley" by Harry W. Lawton, Philip J. Wilke, Mary DeDecker, and William
M. Mason. The Jornal of California Anthropology. Vol. 3, No. 1. 1976.

g) Coauthor of "Dicoria cariescens T. 4 G., an Aboriginal Food Plant in the
Arid West" by Philip J. Wilke, Mary DeDecker, and Lawrence E. Dawson.
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology. Vol. 1, No. 1.
Summer 1979.

h) Author of "The Eureka Dunes." Fremontia. Vol. 3, No. 4. Jan. 1976.

i) Author of "Ephedra — as strange as it seems." Fremontia. Vol. 5, No. 4.
Jan. 1977.

j) Author of "The Loss of Sidatcea covillei." Fremontia. Vol. 5, No. 4.
Jan. 1978.

k) Author of "Can BLM Protect the Dunes?" Fremontia. Vol. 7, No. 2. July 1979.

1) Coauthor of "Owens Valley and Mono Lake. Dying of Thirst?" by David Gaines
and Mary DeDecker. Fremontia. Vol. 10, No. 3. Oct. 1982

m) Author of "Flora of the Northern Mojave Desert, California" with foreword
by Frank Vasek. Special PublicationNo. 7, California Native Plant Society.
164 pages. 1984.

OTHERS NEAR ING COMPLETION.

a) "Flora of Owens Valley and Its Mountains" which will be a complete flora
with keys and descriptions. I have put this aside to meet more pressing
deadlines.

b) "Natural History of the White-Inyo Range", a project of the White Mountain

Research Station under the direction of Dr. Hall of UCLA. I have done the

66

Wildf lower Section which is the major part of the book. It will go to
press soon.

c) "Wild Flowers I have Known" (tentative title) being published by Chalfant
Press. This book will contain 110 of the weekly columns I have written
for the local Chalfant Press newspapers under the heading of "Inyo-Mono
Garden". Many will have color photographs and the others will be in black
and white. The book should be out soon. (My weekly columns continue, so
there is the possibility of another edition. )

67

APPENDIX D

PLANT DISCOVERIES.

Have discovered several new plant species, a new variety, and a new genus
as follows:

a) Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis. Discovered at Fish Slough, 6/2/74,
north of Bishop. It resembles the rare var. sesquimetralis of Sand
Springs in the upper Death Valley drainage.

b) Astragalus ravenii Barnaby. I collected this 7/6/56 on Sawmill Pass,
at 11,350 feet. It was not yet in fruit but I sent it to Dr. Munz who

did not come up with any determination. I thought it was something
different and planned to go up the following year to find mature plants.
But before the month was over, Peter Raven collected them at the same site.
When I visited Tom Howell that fall at the California Academy of Sciences,
he showed me the new species. An interesting coincidence!

c) Dedeckera eurekensis Reveal & Howell. First collected 7A/75 in the
Last Chance Mountains about 3 miles southeast of the high portion of
the Eureka Dunes.

d) Lomatium inyoense Math. 4 Const., now Lomatium foeniculaceum (Nutt.)
Coult. 4 Rose ssp. inyoense (Math. 4 Const.) Theobald. I first collected
this 7/5/53 on the crest of the Inyo Mountains. Although I sent it to

Dr. Munz, he did not know what it was. Later he was up there with John Roos
and collected that, among other things. Having forgotten about my collection
they published it as a new species in El Aliso, April 1955.

e) Lupinus dedeckerae Munz 4 Dunn, now I*, padre-crowleyi C.P. Smith.

We thought this was a new species. I first collected it 7/19/57 on the
north fork of Big Pine Creek, then found the same thing 7/21/68 on
Coyote Creek at 9600 feet and thought it must be a new one. Munz and
Dunn agreed. But a recent study revealed that it had been known before
and had been named L^. padre-crowleyi.

f ) Tri folium dedeckerae Gillett. I first collected this one along the road
to Horseshoe Meadows at 7500 feet, 5/30/68. It seemed to key out to

£. productum but I did not feel satisfied with that. So I sent it to
Dr. Munz with the note, "This keys out to Tri folium productum, but that
does not seem quite right. What else could it be?" When John Gillett
was studying clovers a few years later, I furnished him with more
information on the habitat and location. He told me it had been
collected previously in the White Mountains and had been called T_.
productum. It was a pleasant surprise when he named it for me, based
on the fact that I questioned it.

68

Have made the first collections of the following in California, most of
them previously known in Nevada t

a) Agave utahensis Engelm. var. eborispina (Hester) Breit. Discovered
in the Nopah Range 5/16/77.

b) Cryptantha scoparia A. Nels. Discovered in the Inyo Mountains 7/20/71.

c) Cymopterus ripleyi Barneby. Discovered in the Coso Range. V27/74.

d) Draba cana Rydb. Discovered in the Convict Creek headwaters area
at 10,700 feet, 8/2/77.

e) Eriogonum puberulum S. Wats. Discovered 7/7/78 on the summit of Tin
Mountain, 8950 feet, in Death Valley National Monument.

INDEX — Mary DeDecker

69

Alabama Hills. California. 13. 14
Albert. Bruce. 35
Albright. Horace. 55
Alexander, Annie. 37
alkaline dust. 14
Atriplex torreyi, 25

Barling, Tillie. 54. 55

Big Pine, California, 9. 22. 35

Bishop, California, 10-12, 35, 48.

55-57

Bodie Hills. California. 51
Boll, Louis A.. 35
Bristlecone Forest, California. 14
bristlecone pine. 50
Buddie j a utahensis. 38
Bureau of Land Management. See

United States
butterfly bush. See Buddie j a

utahensis

California Academy of Sciences, 7,

9, 34. 39

California Desert Plan. 28. 43
California Environmental Quality

Act (CEQA). 18-19
California Native Plant Society.

35. 46

Bristlecone Chapter, 13, 58
Calochortus excavatus, 14
Chalfant Press, 22
Cochrane, Susan, 41
Concerned Citizens, 24
Coville Biological Survey, 11
cresote bushes. See Larrea
tridentata

DeDecker. Carol (Mrs. Delbert Wiens),

8
DeDecker, Joan (Mrs. William Busby).

8. 10

DeDecker, Paul. 3. 23, 39, 40
Department of Water and Power. See
Los Angeles

Death Valley. California. 46
Death Valley Forty-Niners . 42. 54
Death Valley National Monument.

27. 42. 43, 53
Dedeckera, 37
Dedeckera Canyon, California, 37,

41. 52

Dicoria canescens, 30, 40
Dodecatheon, 12

Enfield. Roland. 35-36

eureka dune grass. See Swallenia

alexandrae

Eureka Dunes. California. 24-43
eureka evening primrose. See

Oenothera avita
Eureka Valley. California,
27-29, 37-41, 52

Fish Slough, California 10

Georgeson. Duane, 17
Good Sam Club, 42

Gray Herbarium. Harvard University.
9

Haiwee Meadows. California. 11

Haiwee Reservoir, California, 11-12

Hall, Clarence. 48

Hitchcock. Leo B.. 12

Howell, John Thomas. 7, 37. 39

Independence, California, 1-6,

23-25. 57
Inyo County. California. 11. 18-21.

28, 44

Inyo Mountains, California. 27. 49
Inyo Region. California. 9
Inyo Register, 14
Inyo-White Mountains, California, 8

70

Jepson, W. L., 6. 7

Kerr. Mark. 6

Kessel, Harlan, 46-47
Kessler. Benett, 21

Larrea tridentata, 50

Last Chance Mountains, California,

27, 29, 37

Laws, California! 22
Los Angeles

Water and Power, Department of, 3,

12-26, 57
Lone Fine, California, 12, 22, 24,

25

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, 7,

9

Raven, Peter, 9, 10. 48
Reveal. James. 39. 40
Rollins, Reed, 9

Saline Valley. California, 27. 38.

46. 52

Sanchez, Pete, 54
Sidalcea covillei, 11, 14
Sierra Club, 28, 35, 36, 38, 51
Sierra Daily News, 22
Sierra Nevada, 6, 18
Sierra News Service, 21
Smith , James P . , 47
Swallenia alexandrae, 30, 37

Mawby, John, 28

Missouri Botanical Garden, 9

Mojave Desert, 44-46

Mono Basin Project, 4

Mono County, California, 44

Mono Lake, California, 14, 16-17

Munz, Philip, 7, 9

National Herbarium, 11

New York Butte, California, 15, 17

Oenothera avita, 30
off -road-vehicles, 27-38
Owens Lake. California, 15-16
Owens Valley, California, 1, 20-22,
56

Panamint Valley, California. 46
Pavlik, Bruce. 53
Pomona College, 8

Tin Mountain, California, 53

United States

Fish and Wildlife Service, 12. 13
Forest Service, 18, 28, 43
Land Management, Bureau of, 27-46
Bakersfield, California, 33
Bishop, California. 15. 32, 51
Riverside, California, 45
Sacramento, California, 34
National Park Service. 43, 56
University of California White

Mountains Research Station, 16
University of Utah, 10

White Mountains, California, 14. 16.

48

Wiens. Delbert. 10
Williams. Margaret. 47

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library

University of California
Berkeley, California

Women in Botany Project

Elizabeth McClintock

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES CURATOR,
ORNAMENTAL PLANT SPECIALIST

With an Introduction by
John Hunter Thomas

An Interview Conducted by
Carol Holleuffer
in 1985

Copyright (c ) 1987 by The Regents of the University of California

ELIZABETH McCLINTOCK
1985

Photograph by George Water's

TABLE OF CONTENTS — Elizabeth McClintock

INTRODUCTION by John Hunter Thomas

INTERVIEW HISTORY

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION iv

I PERSONAL BACKGROUND 1

Childhood and Early Schooling 1

Higher Education 3

II CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 8

Ornamental Plant Collection 8

UC Research Associate 11

III CONSERVATION CONCERNS 14

California Native Plant Society Origins 14

Escaped Exotics 15

California Native Plant Society and Conservation Activism 18

IV PUBLICATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL WORK 22

Field Trips 22

Book Projects 24

International Conferences 25

TAPE GUIDE 28

APPENDIX - Biographical Data. December 1985 29

INDEX 37

INTRODUCTION

Last summer Elizabeth McClintock was awarded the Liberty Hyde Bailey Gold
Medal of the American Horticultural Society. This honor represents one of the
most prestigious awards in the field of horticulture and the systematics of
ornamental plants in North America. As a reflection of the quality of her
work in horticulture I know that this award pleased Elizabeth very much.

I first met Elizabeth McClintock on February 4th, 1949. Professor Ira L.
Wiggins of Stanford University, a long-time member of the Board of Trustees of
the California Academy of Sciences, its president, a fellow, and recipient of
its fellows' medal, and Mrs. Roxana S. Ferris, a member of the curatorial
staff of the Dudley Herbarium of Stanford University, took me to San Francisco
to be introduced to the botany department staff at the academy. I was in my
first year as a graduate student at Stanford. My master's thesis was on the
Onagraceae, evening primrose family, of the Sonoran Desert, and as such I
needed to examine herbarium specimens at the academy. It was there that I met
Elizabeth and over the years I got to know her very well .

For many years Elizabeth worked hard at the academy, but she never
received the salary, support and respect she deserved. Elizabeth's account in
her oral history of her association with the academy may seem exaggerated, but
it is not I She was discriminated against, yet she managed to accomplish a
great deal of exceptionally good botanical research. In addition. Elizabeth
was helpful to hundreds of people, students and the general public, who came
to the academy with botanical and horticultural questions.

Although I spend most of my time at Stanford as a professor of biological
sciences, I know the department of botany at the academy very well. I have
used it many times and since 1969 have been a part-time curator of botany
there. In 1958, as an academy field associate, I did field work in Baja
California under the auspices of the Belvedere Scientific Fund, established by
Mr. Kenneth Bechtel. Since 1961 I have been a fellow of the academy.

Unfortunately, I have learned that if one does not agree with the
director of the academy this is taken as disloyalty not only to the director
but also to the institution. For some reason (which should be the subject of
a whole essay) natural history museums and the like seem to be the last
bastions of dictatorship among academic and scholarly institutions in the
United States. It is strange that a former academy director did not consider
that knowing about the systematics of ornamental and horticultural plants —
Elizabeth's area of expertise — was a worthwhile activity. That former
director at the time of Elizabeth McClintock 's retirement essentially told me:
We certainly wouldn't want to replace Elizabeth with anyone in that area.

ii

Perhaps the cruelest blow to Elizabeth McClintock was that upon
retirement she was not accorded an emeritus title. This was almost unheard of
at the academy. In addition, she was told to take her things and get out.
something else almost unheard of at the academy. I personally have done about
everything I could to get Elizabeth an emeritus title. I talked to the botany
department staff at the academy, but only one other person would even consider
helping, but was afraid of the wrath of the director. I talked to two former
members of the board. Dr. Lincoln Constance and the late Dr. Richard Jahns,
who was at that time dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford. All to
no avail.

Fortunately, Dr. Lincoln Constance and Dr. Robert Ornduff of the
Department of Botany at the University of California arranged for Elizabeth to
have an honorary title there. So today when Elizabeth McClintock writes a
paper she indicates that she is at the University of California at Berkeley
and not at the California Academy of Sciences where she spent the major part
of her botanical career.

In addition to her contributions as an ornamental plant specialist,
Elizabeth McClintock 's efforts in plant conservation were also significant. I
will mention only two, San Bruno Mountain and the dune tansy, Tanacetum
camphoratum. (The dune tansy is a tale by itself and should be written up as
an article.) Elizabeth has lots of friends, and their highest respect as she
continues to be active in her field. In the United States today Elizabeth
McClintock is one of the few real experts in the systematics of ornamental and
horticultural plants. To their great misfortune the California Academy of
Sciences has lost her expertise.

John Hunter Thomas

Professor and Director

The Dudley Herbarium

Department of Biological Sciences

Stanford University

December 1986
Stanford, CA 94305

iii

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Elizabeth Me Clint ock's contributions to botany are many. For nearly
thirty years as herbarium curator at the California Academy of Sciences she
helped build and preserve the academy's collection of California native flora
and ornamental plants. In this capacity, she assisted countless Calif ornians
in identifying their botanical specimens — sometimes rare species from the
wilds, often a favorite garden ornamental or a little-noticed weed. Her
educational contribution will live on through her numerous publications, the
most recent of which, a book on poisonous plants of California written with
Thomas Fuller, is soon to be published by UC Press. She has also played a
role in preserving Bay Area plant life, from the flora of San Bruno Mountain
to the dune tansy at Ocean Beach. Thus, her selection as an interviewee for
the California Women in Botany Project was a natural one.

She was interviewed by Carol Holleuffer on March 21, 1985. The interview
transcript was lightly edited for clarity and accuracy and reviewed by Ms.
McClintock. The tapes are on deposit at The Bancroft Library.

Ann Lage
Interviewer-Editor

12 January 1987

Regional Oral History Office

486 The Bancroft Library

University of California at Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

Room 486 The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720

iv

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please print or write clearly)

May

Tour full name

Elizabeth /McClintock

Date of birth July 7, 1912 _ Place of birth Los Angeles

Father's full name Arthur Polk McClintock

Birthplace Chicago, 111

Occupation Merchant

Mother's full name Margaret Cristina Stoveken McClintock
Birthplace Kaukana. Wisconsin

Occupation Housevife _ _

Where did you grow up ? snnf.hpm r.i * «v.™< . af ter age 8> San Jacinto,

Riverside Co.

Present community San Francisco _

MA

.

Education BA./ University of California. LOS Angeles _

A

__ PhD. University of Michigan

Occupation(s) Retired botanist. Research Associate, The Herbarium.
_ Department of Botany, University of California. Berkeley

Special interests or activities Although retired, I continue to actively
on various botanical projects

I travel whenever my limifro^ VmHg0» allows it.

I PERSONAL BACKGROUND

[Date of Interview: March 21. 1985] tt

Childhood and Early Schooling

Holleuffer: It's March 21st. the first day of spring. 1985. and I'm in the
University of California Herbarium with Elizabeth McClintock.
Elizabeth is now a research associate. I believe, (is that the
correct term?) with the herbarium. Where did you grow up? What
sort of area was it? Was it rural or city?

McClintock: I grew up in southern California, in Riverside county in a little
town called San Jacinto — the foot of Mount San Jacinto. A 10.000
foot mountain and the valley's 1500 feet, so I never think a
mountain's very high unless it's 9,000 feet above. [laughs] It
was a small town, rural, very nice.

Holleuffer: Did you do your first botanizing there?

McClintock: I didn't really botanize there. I think I was probably always
interested in plants, although I don't have any specific
recollection, and nobody that I knew was interested in plants.
Except when I was in the fourth grade I had a teacher who told us
what some of the plants were that were growing around in the
spring. And so, I was interested in that. But then I never had
anyone else to tell me anything until later when I attended
Riverside Junior College.

Holleuffer: Your parents weren't — ?

If This symbol indicates that a tape or segment of a tape has
begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 28.

McClintock: No, not particularly. I mean, you know, they weren't any more
interested than just not interested. It wasn't that they were
disinterested, but I can remember plants that I saw way back in
those early days. I can remember the first plants that I learned
the names of, the common names of.

Holleuffer: What were — ?

McClintock: Indian paintbrush, owl's clover, lupines, brass buttons, and some
things like that. And then I remember the plants that were
around our house. We had oleanders, and olive trees, and Vine a
major which died down in the summer (and I used to water it so it
wouldn't die down), honeysuckle Lonicera japonica, honeysuckle
vine. Camps is radicans. a well-known shrub, Eupnymus japonica, a
small tree — no. it was really a shrub. Also we had three palms:
two I learned later were the California fan palm, Washingtonia
filifera. and the third was the Canary Islands date palm. Phoenix
canariensis. We used to eat the small edible dates of this palm.
Then there was a thing that we always called Easter lily, which I
know now wasn't an Easter lily; it was a Crinum. Although, the
interesting thing is I'm really not sure that I've ever seen that
Crinum any place else. [laughs] Every time I see a white
flowered Crinum, I wonder if that's the one. Anyway. I do have
these recollections of plants.

As I recall they were all planted when we moved to that
house. All were what we know call low maintenance plants. But
whatever care they needed I gave them.

Holleuffer: It sounds like you had a garden.

McClintock: I really didn't do that much gardening. My father didn't try to
have a garden, and neither did my mother. We didn't really do
too much gardening, although I had a few plants I grew: China
aster, periwinkle. African daisies, petunias, and a few things
like that, but nothing too extensive.

Holleuffer: Did you go to grammar school and high school there?
McClintock: Yes, we moved there when I was in the third grade.
Holleuffer: Were you born in California?

McClintock: I was born in California, and then we went to Arizona. I was the
oldest child of my parents, and we went to Arizona when I was a
little baby. We came back from there when I was six. When I was
eight we moved to San Jacinto where we stayed for twenty-five
years. My parents finally moved away from there twenty-five
years later.

3

Higher Education

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:
Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

When did you really decide to be a botanist?

I went to a junior college in Riverside, and there I kind of got
interested in zoology. I had Edmund Jaeger as a teacher. Edmund
C. Jaeger.

Oh, I know his books.

Yes, he was a very interesting man.

Can you talk about him a little bit?

Oh. yes. I remember him very well. He was a dapper young man.
He died recently at the age of about ninety. He was a good
teacher. He liked his students.

Did he take you on field trips into the — ?

He took boys on field trips into the desert . He went to the
desert every weekend, but he never took any girls. He would take
the girls — he would take the class out, locally — little field
trips — the year I took zoology from him. Weekends he would go to
the desert, but he never took girls.

Did you ask?

No! I didn't have sense enough in those days to ask. I didn't
think anything about it. That's just the way things were.

It didn't seem odd to you that the girls —

Oh, no. Heavens no. Women were a low form of animal matter and
they still are. (I've certainly found that out, unfortunately.)
But anyway, he was a very nice man. He was always nice to me. I
was one of the few girls, I guess, that ever got an "A" from him.
Tears later, I used to see him once in a while, while I was still
living in San Jacinto. After that I didn't see him anymore — it
must have been twenty or twenty-five years. Then he was in the
[San Francisco] Bay Area; he was at Stanford [University] one
time. I think maybe it was a meeting of the Botanical Society.
Anyway, it was a meeting, and he came. I went up to him and
introduced myself. "Oh yes. I remember you." Well, he looked at
me. and he said. "Say. you look pretty good." Then he said,
"What about your brother Jack?" And. Jack wasn't a very good
student — wasn't the best student in the world — but he remembered

Jack. [laughs] That was the only time I ever saw him then, in
later years.

Holleuffer: These were zoology classes that you took from him?
McClintock: Yes. I took zoology from him. Then I took botany.
Holleuffer: From Jaeger?

McClintock: No. he didn't teach botany; he just taught zoology. But, there

was a very nice man there who taught elementary botany. This man
was Professor McCarthy. Oh yes, and then, in the spring, I took
a course taught by somebody who had been a student here once upon
a time. Annetta Carter knows her: Ruth Cooper. She taught a
class called "Identification of Spring Wildf lowers." I think
that was when [Philip A.] Munz's A Manual p_f Southern California
Botany first came out. I can't remember whether I bought my copy
at that time or whether I bought it later. I can remember that
was my introduction then to really trying to find out something
about plants.

Holleuffer: Did you go around on your own with the book?

McClintock: Well, I guess so; I don't especially remember now. I went after
that to UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles] . I took
botany there.

Holleuffer: Was it unusual for a person from your area, San Jacinto, a
woman — I should say — to think of college and a professional
career at that time?

McClintock: I don't know that I was thinking so much of a botanical

professional career. No, I don't think too many girls — I don't
think too many people from there ever even went to college. Some
of them went to Riverside Junior College — a few went to other
junior colleges. Not so many of them then would continue on.

Holleuffer: How did you get the notion?

McClintock: Oh, I just thought that was just what everybody did. In a way I
knew that everybody didn't do it — but enough people did — three or
four people — so it was something which was done.

Holleuffer: What did you have in mind at that time that you were going to do?

McClintock: I was going to be a teacher, and probably a high school teacher —
teach botany or biology. So, when I went to UCLA, I would have
been a biology major, except that they didn't have biology. They
had botany and zoology. Botany was a separate department and so

was zoology. So. I had a major in botany and a minor in zoology
at UCLA. (Later the departments were combined.) But then I took
the usual botany major courses and I decided that I was really
interested in taxonomy. I sort of emphasized that. (We had a
nice group of people at UCLA, and we used to go on field trips.)

Holleuffer: Did you have a club, like the Calypso Club?

McClintock: It's interesting; at the time that I was a student we didn't have
a club.

Holleuffer: These are about what years?

McClintock: In the 1930s. Later, in the late 1930s, we had a club, and that
club still exists. Not quite the same, but they still meet, have
get-togethers, and I missed one with them just a week or two ago.
I met with them at one of their gatherings a year ago. They
don't often happen to have a gathering when 1 am in Southern
California; actually they don't meet very often. But. they get
together once in a while, and they're still some of the same
people that 1 knew when I was at UCLA.

Holleuffer: Were there many other women in your class?

McClintock: At UCLA?

Holleuffer: Yes.

McClintock: There were a few. I still keep up with two or three of them.

Holleuffer: Did they go on also to become natural scientists?

McClintock: No. no they didn't. They both got married as a matter of fact.
Although one of them has helped her husband a great deal. She
married a plant pathologist. Doctor Kenneth F. Baker. She's done
a lot of work with him. The other one married a botanist too.
In fact, she married one of the fellows — one of the classmates
there. But, she just seemed to drop her interest in botany after
a few years.

Holleuffer: What can you recall as an undergraduate? What sort of
opportunities were open to you as a woman?

McClintock: The only thing that was open was teaching. 1 got a high school
teaching credential. But then I didn't use it. because
afterwards I went to work in the herbarium at UCLA during the war
years .

Holleuffer: Did you consider going on for your Ph.D. at that time?

McClintock: I might have, if the war hadn't come along right when it came. I
might have gone to graduate school someplace or done something
else. But then, during the war it was kind of hard to try to do
anything .

It wasn't until after the war. a couple of years after, that
I then decided to go to graduate school. 1 already had a
master's degree. I'd gotten a master's degree at UCLA, and had
worked on a tazonomic botanical problem. I did a monograph of
the genus Monarda in the Labiatae. I worked under one of the men
in the Botany Department at UCLA. Professor [Carl C.] Eppling.
who was interested in the labiates — the mint family. He did a
lot of monographic work in the mint family, and he had a number
of students. (At that time UCLA had a graduate program for the
master's degree but no program for the Ph.D. That didn't come
until well after the war.)

I got a master's degree. Then the war came along sometime
after that. I decided to just continue to work there. Then when
the war was over, I decided —

Holleuffer: Was it money that really made you work rather than go to school?
Was that the problem?

McClintock: Yes. that was part of the problem. Yes, that was a good part of
the problem. But everything was disrupted during the war. You
young people don't realize that the war overnight changed
everything; nothing was the same. You just can't imagine how
everything was changed. All we thought was the war effort.

Somehow or another 1^ didn't get involved with anything
having to do with the war effort. It was really quite impossible
to think about going anywhere and doing graduate work. (It might
not have been so difficult.) I had thought I'd like to go East.
But to go East then didn't seem very feasible, since I didn't
have very much money.

Holleuffer: Can you recall what you were paid as a herbarium worker?

McClintock: Not muchl It was enough to live on in those days. After all,

that was the 1940s, and we didn't need much money. I don't know
what it would have been. Couple of hundred dollars a month? Or
maybe less. Probably something like that; I just don't remember.
I remember I had a little apartment that I think I paid about
fifty dollars a month for. Something like that.

Holleuffer: Were you living on your own?

McClintock: Oh yes. sure. Things just were different during the war, and
there wasn't much of a chance to do very much. And I never
seemed to be too inclined to go into the WAGS [Women's Auxiliary
Army Corps] or the WAVES [Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency
Service: the Women's Reserve of the United States Naval Reserve]
or something like that. I never really gave that much thought.

At UCLA, for instance, my goodness, there were not very many
students. Certainly, there weren't very many in botany.

Holleuffer: How many in botany?

McClintock: Three or four, that is botany majors. The university itself

didn't cease to function, by any means. Not at all, there were
plenty of students. There were a few programs related to the war
effort in which there quite a few students but in many
departments the number of students was low.

Holleuffer: There must have been almost as many professors as students?

McClintock: In the botany department, yes. There were almost no fellows

around. They were all gone — off to the war. And lots of girls
went into war work; I might have done that if I hadn't been
working in the herbarium.

Holleuffer: Were your teachers then also women?

McClintock: There was one woman in the botany department: Flora Murray Scott.
She was Scottish; she was very good. She lived to be ninety; she
only died within the last couple of years. She was very much the
individualist, but I don't think she ever thought of herself as
being unusual because she was teaching in a position like that,
along with men.

Holleuffer: What year did you go to Michigan?

McClintock: Oh, that was 1947 — fall '47. I don't know why I happened to go
there except I was looking for a place which offered
assistantships — I wrote two or three places. I wrote to Cornell
and I wrote to Michigan, and maybe one or two other places. I
got the quickest response from Michigan so I went there. And I
decided to work in taxonomy. I worked with Rogers McVaugh. That
was it.

Holleuffer: You specialized then in a particular family of plants?

McClintock: For my doctoral dissertation I worked with the genus Hydrangea in
which I'm still interested.

8

II CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Ornamental Plant Collection

Holleuffer: When did you come back to California?

McClintock: I came back before I finished my Ph.D. degree; that was when I
went to San Francisco.

Holleuffer: To the [California] Academy of Sciences?

McClintock: Yes.

Holleuffer: About what year then?

McClintock: 1949.

Holleuffer: Who was head of the Academy then?

McClintock: At that time there was a very nice director: Robert C. Miller.
He died about a year or so ago.

Holleuffer: And he was responsible for hiring and — ?

McClintock: Yes.

Holleuffer: What was your position there?

McClintock: I was an assistant curator when I started.

Holleuffer: In botany?

McClintock: In botany.

Holleuffer: How many other people did they have in botany?

McClintock: They only had one other botanist, and that was John Thomas
Howell.

Holleuffer: Who is still there?

McClintock: Yes. he's there, retired. I am also retired now. but I am no
longer there.

Holleuffer: Do you want to elaborate about your time with the California
Academy of Sciences? It seems like you had a rather unhappy
ending?

McClintock: Well, the director did not like women in curatorial positions.
He had no use for women. And if a woman was working there, be
did everything to let her know he didn't think that she was much.
Of course, he didn't like John Thomas Howell either, so he did
very little for the botany department all the years he was there.
Other departments had secretaries; other departments had other
amenities, but he saw that the botany department never did. Of
course. I never received a salary comparable to the men's; he
didn't seem to think women needed salaries.

Holleuffer: Did he consider that their work just to be something like a
hobby?

McClintock: Just like — you're just treated like a secretary.

Holleuffer: Was your salary — ?

McClintock: No. I always got the lowest possible salary.

Holleuffer: Even though you were doing the same work as — ?

McClintock: Yes. that's right.

Holleuffer: You're speaking of George Lindsay?

McClintock: 1 am speaking of George Lindsay.

Holleuffer: How long was he director?

McClintock: Unfortunately, too long. For over twenty years. Twenty-five

years. I guess, he must have been director. Because I retired in
1977, and he didn't retire until several years after that. He
came about the middle 1960s. '63 or something like that.

Holleuffer: Why did you stay on?

10

McClintock: Because by the time he came I wasn't young anymore, and he wasn't
so bad the first few years, you know. But things just kind of
got worse — they got particularly bad when Howell retired at the
start of 1969.

By that time I couldn't think of going someplace else; I was
too old. You know, you just don't [hah] march out of a position.
And I suppose if I realized what he was going to be like when he
came, I could have gone somewhere else because that was. as I
say. the early 1960s.

Holleuffer: What were your responsibilities there; what did the botany
department do?

McClintock: I took care of the collection — took care of the herbarium
collection.

Holleuffer: You didn't actively collect more things; that was part of
something else — ?

McClintock: There was no support for doing field work, so I didn't do very

much collecting. I did a lot of collecting of ornamental plants.
In fact, I built up the herbarium there, from the standpoint of
ornamentals — the ornamental flora — rather than the native flora.
That herbarium has the — they don't realize it and there's nobody
there now who's interested — but they have an outstanding
collection of California ornamentals. But nobody's interested in
them. And of course, unfortunately, the director, Lindsay, did
not consider ornamentals to be plants. And I found this out
later, that Lindsay considered anyone who worked on the
ornamental flora not to be a botanist at all.

Holleuffer: He considered that you were a nurseryman or what?

McClintock: He looked upon ornamental plants as being of no value. He didn't
realize that there is such a thing as the taxonomy of ornamental
plants. He didn't understand what that was all about. There had
been (and continues to be) a considerable public interest in
ornamental plants just as there is in native plants, and that was
my reason for collecting them. After Mr. Howell retired as
chairman of botany Lindsay told me that he was now acting
chairman of the department.

Holleuffer: And you were the sole employee?

McClintock: I was the sole botanist. So I asked, "Well, what am I supposed
to do?" "Well." he said, "you just run the place." Of course
that meant just continue to do what I'd been doing. In other
words, there was no time for doing anything besides just the

11

routine day-to-day answering the telephone, filing plants, taking
care of inquiries. Just doing the usual administering of the
herbarium.

And then it was interesting that right at that time of
Howell's retirement, there was an NSF [National Science
Foundation] grant — a facility grant for the department — to take
care of the things that needed to be done. And the herbarium had
thousands and thousands of unmounted specimens. So there was
money then to hire one person which it turned out was divided
between two people — students from San Francisco State to come and
work, do mounting and other things having to do with taking care
of the tremendous backlog of specimens what had been built up
over the years. So I organized that. By the end of the year
Dennis Breedlove came, so there was another botanist, finally.
But I was there for the first year all by myself organizing,
trying to take care of all this extra help that we had. Oh. yes.
we also had work-study students from San Francisco State
University. When Mr. Howell was in charge of the department he
had not wanted that kind of help.

The herbarium there is in good shape. It's in good shape
because of my_ work. And also because of John Thomas Howell. But
1^ get no credit. I'm not credited with anything. Howell. when
he retired of course, was named curator emeritus, and he was
given working space to continue to be on the staff.

When I retired I was told by Lindsay that there was no place
for me. Actually he said, "We have no place for you anymore.
Remove your personal belongings by the end of the month."

Holleuffer: Goodness!

McClintock: So my connections there were severed completely — irrevocably.
It's just as if I had never been there.

UC Research Associated!

Holleuffer: After you left the [California] Academy of Sciences in 1977, did
you come directly to the University of California Herbarium?

McClintock: No, I didn't. It was probably a year or so later that Lincoln

Constance and Robert Ornduff suggested that I might be a research
associate here. So I thought that was good. At least it gave me
a title somewhere. I really wasn't so interested in having
space; I was doing some other things — finishing up a couple of

12

Holleuffer:

things. I didn't really need space, and I've continued to be a
research associate ever since. You get these appointments
renewed every year or every two years. I've forgotten. Anyway
you just ask for a renewal of your appointment, and I had it ever
since.

What does that appointment involve? It doesn't pay anything, does
it?

McClintock: No. no. it doesn't. I don't expect to be paid. I live on my

social security. I get from the California Academy of Sciences
only a small annuity. The reason I don't get more of an annuity
is because the salary that I was paid was very low.

Holleuffer: What was the salary?

McClintock: Oh. I can't remember what my salaries were. But, they were low.
about the salaries that you paid the janitors, or a typist, or
somebody like that. The retirement plan that they had didn't
start until some ten years or so before I retired; according to
the plan your annuity was based on your salary.

Holleuffer: Not on the number of years you worked?

McClintock: No. I only paid into it for ten years, you see. If my salary

had been higher during those ten years I would still have gotten
more out of it. But because I got such a low salary my annuity
is also low.

Holleuffer: How many years total had you worked for them?

McClintock: I worked for them for nearly thirty years. But, they didn't have
the retirement plan during all of those years. We had social
security, not from the very beginning of the time that I came
there, but a few short years afterwards. This retirement system
didn't come until about ten years before I retired. And as I say.
it's one of these annuities that depends on what you pay into it.

So. I was given an appointment as research associate here,
and I've used that title and that affiliation ever since.

Holleuffer: What sort of things does that enable you to do?
Secretary?

Free stationery?

McClintock: No. not a secretary. But then I've never had any secretarial

help. I do get stationery; I can write my own letters on them if
I want to. It just simply means that I can have a space, and this

13

desk. I can use the facilities here, the herbarium, the library,
and I can cite myself as a research associate.

Holleuffer: If you publish, do you have — ?

McClintock: If I publish I can mention the University research associate

appointment. I've just finished a book on poisonous plants, and
I've listed my affiliation with the herbarium here at the
university.

Holleuffer: It lends more credence.

McClintock: Yes, that's right. I'm glad to have it. It's very nice for me
to have some affiliation with an institution.

14

III CONSERVATION CONCERNS

California Native Plant Society Origins

Holleuffer: I know that you said that you became very interested in

ornamental plants, and I know that your specialty is escaped
exotics, otherwise known as weeds.

McClintock: [laughs] Well, that's a recent specialty; that's not really my

specialty. But I did say that, when the California Native Plant
Society needed a chairman for the committee they have on escaped
exotics, and no one came forward to be chairman of this
committee, I said, "Well, I would be the chairman of the
committee.1*

Holleuffer: Were you one of the founding members — ?

McClintock: Yes, I was a charter member of the California Native Plant
Society but I can't remember when it started.

Holleuffer: When did it start? How did that come about?

McClintock: Oh goodness, I can't remember exactly how many years ago, whether
it was twenty years ago or something like that. It's on record
somewhere. It came about because of a problem with James Roof,
who was director of the regional park's botanical gardens. Roof
was a kind of cantankerous man, and he didn't get along with the
administration — I guess it was the head man of the regional
parks, I've forgotten. So. some people got together. Rimo
Bacigalupi and a few other people. They started a little support
group for the botanical garden. The botanical garden was being
threatened and that was the problem.

Holleuffer: Which garden, the Tilden one or — ?

McClintock: Tilden Regional Park [East Bay Regional Park Botanic Garden], the
garden of native plants that James Roof was the director of.

15

Finally, they did as much as they could for Roof, and then the
group just sort of organized itself into the California Native
Plant Society. It's been going ever since.

Holleuffer: With the goal of preserving California flora?

McClintock: Yes. conservation matters that would lead to the preservation of
California plants. One of the first things that they did, and
this I do remember the year, 1968 — Ledyard Stebbins was
president. (This was long before people really were talking
about preserving and inventorying rare plants. This was before;
these inventories didn't start until two or three years later.)
So, Ledyard Stebbins suggested that the California Native Plant
Society start an inventory of rare plants in California. Not so
much endangered plants, but just rare plants.

Out of that, then, did come rare and endangered plants and
making a record of them, finding out where they were, what their
problems were. After a couple of years other states began to
work on the same thing. But California was the first state to
have an inventory of its rare and endangered plants. That was
done through the efforts of the California Native Plant Society.
And, they are still doing it.

They're still supporting that program, but of course the
program has come a long ways. It's now tied in with a database
which is part of the California Fish and Game Department. The
California Native Plant Society supports one botanist for the
database. So. they've really made a contribution in that
respect. Their membership has grown now to — I don't know how
many thousand. Well, it's less than ten thousand, but they have
a sizable membership throughout the state. Chapters throughout
the state, so they've done very well.

Escaped Exotics

Holleuffer: Elizabeth, you have an article in the current issue of Fremont ia,
the January 1985 issue, on escaped exotic weeds in California.
At the beginning you say, "The introduction of exotic plants into
California began in May 1769 when Father Junipero Serra
established the first European settlement at San Diego. At least
sixteen species of exotic plants were established in California
during the Spanish colonization. Sixty-three additional species
during Mexican occupation and fifty-five more during American
pioneer settlement."

16

McClintock: Yes.

Holleuffer: But it seems like we now — it says, "by 1968 there was a total of
975 introduced plants; these are rapidly becoming a great
problem."

McClintock: They're not all becoming a problem.
Holleuffer: But there are some that are.

McClintock: Of course, not all of these weeds spoken of here are serious

problems, and they're not all escaped exotics. These 975 weeds
that are being talked of in the Fremont ia article are just weeds
in general. Not all of them are problems. But the state
department of food and agriculture has a section on plants — a
plant division or whatever they call it — that works with pest and
rodent control, and weed control. They have one botanist — they
used to have two — but they have one botanist now who works on the
identification of weeds and makes recommendations for their
control and eradication.

The weeds that I'm particularly interested in — and that the
[California] Native Plant Society is interested in — are mostly
weeds that don't come under the jurisdiction of the state
department of food and agriculture. The state department of food
and agriculture is concerned with weeds that are of importance to
agriculture.

Holleuffer: The crops, in other words.

McClintock: Yes, the agricultural crops, and what weeds interfere with good
production or the successful production of agricultural crops.
It's very important to eliminate weeds which interfere with
agriculture.

But there i£ another group of weeds (and I mentioned that in
the Fremont ia article that you mentioned) which don't interfere
with agriculture because they're not on agricultural land. And
those are the weeds that have been called escaped exotics, which
isn't a very good term, but it is the term that the [California]
Native Plant Society has used for those weeds which have come
into the state intentionally as ornamental plants. I made a
survey and I found out that there are about a hundred plants that
have come in as ornamental plants, and have escaped, so to speak,
from their planted areas. Though some have not escaped very far,
some just stay within urban areas. But some get out to the edges
of the urban areas. And then, there's some — and really probably
in California only about fifteen or something like that, or mayb«

17

even less — that are really bad: aggressive weeds. Examples of
these are the brooms: french broom and scotch broom and gorse.

Holleuffer: What about the eucalyptus?

McClintock: Eucalyptus is not so bad. but the blue gum eucalyptus. Eucalyptus
globolus. does spread to some extent. It's not one of the worst
ones. Pampas grass is another very bad one. It has spread up
and down the state. And. there's another grass, for instance,
which is spreading called fountain grass. Anyway, there are a
number of plants originally grow as ornamentals which have
escaped and have become weedy.

Holleuffer: Is it the problem that they threaten the habitat of the native
plants?

McClintock: Yes. they move into the habitat of native plants. That's why the
native plant society became concerned, because they could see
that the native plant habitats were being destroyed. Native
plants were being just out competed by things like the brooms,
the pampas grass, and two or three others.

There's a tamarisk, for instance, which is very bad on the
desert. It moves along stream channels, clogs up the stream
channels, but also does away with the riparian vegetation, plants
which would normally grow along the streams. It's a very bad
aggressive plant in certain areas of the desert.

Holleuffer: And again, it eliminates plant diversity.

McClintock: Yes. yes. that's right because then you just have a monoculture,
too. Yes. for instance, there are places in Marin County where
the french broom has taken over large areas, and it's the only
plant that grows there. Pampas grass has never become that thick
in any area, but probably, given enough time, it could. Gorse
has become very thick in some areas, and it is so difficult
because it's got sharp spiny stems, and the seeds are numerous
and last a long time in the soil and apparently are very fertile.

Holleuffer: That's the trouble with weeds; they're always very tough.

McClintock: Yes, and so you have these plants which become so well
established.

Holleuffer: Through ignorance. Wasn't it the policy of the California

Department of Transportation [CALTRANS] to plant a lot of these
ornamentals along highways? Didn't it really contribute to
the—?

18

McClintock: To some extent. I mean I don't think we can completely blame
CALTRANS because escaped exotics were being planted by others
also — they were being sold in the nurseries, and they were being
planted by home gardeners, landscape architects, and developers.
I think that CALTRANS did, for instance, plant pampas grass, and
probably they are responsible for planting pampas grass along
some of the highway areas.

Holleuffer: What is your plan to eradicate these plants or control them?
McClintock: I don't have any plans for eradication or control.
Holleuffer: Can you stop the nurseries from selling them?

McClintock: That's one possibility. But, as with all kinds of things like
that, it's too late. You know, it's like the sewage problems,
waste disposal, nuclear waste and all those things. Now we're
getting concerned but it's too late. The waste is already there.
The weeds are already there. I don't know what you can do to
eliminate something like french broom in areas where it's just
taken over.

California Native Plant Society and Conservation Activism

Holleuffer: There are small projects, as I understand, in certain limited

areas to try and go out — you almost have to dig these plants up
piece by piece.

McClintock: Probably in some cases there would be some herbicides that could
be used, too. But, the [California] Native Plant Society has gone
on record as not wanting to sponsor herbicides. But they may be
glad to have a few biodegradable herbicides.

Holleuffer: You were telling me the other day about a woman who had called
you and who was very upset about the eucalyptus trees.

McClintock: Oh. she wasn't too upset about it. No, she didn't call me; she
wrote. She lives in the Santa Cruz area where the monarch
butterflies come. The monarch butterflies, of course, originally
nested in native trees but the native trees are being eliminated,
and so they have begun to nest or take up habitation in
eucalyptus groves. This woman felt that the [California] Native
Plant Society was doing a very bad thing by advocating the
removal of all eucalyptus trees. I wrote and told her she didn't
have to worry; the eucalyptus was here to stay in California.
And, maybe, it probably would outlast the monarch. (Oh, I didn't

19

tell her it would outlast the monarch butterflies, but it might.)
I suggested that if she knew of any area where the monarch
butterflies really were being threatened by doing away with
eucalyptus plantings and eucalyptus groves that she call that to
the attention of the proper authorities. I don't know how much
of a problem that is. I answered her letter; I haven't heard
from her again.

Holleuffer: If you can't eradicate these things, what do you plan to do,
then? What's your goal?

McClintock: I think the goal is to call attention to the fact that these

plants are here and that they are taking over undisturbed native
habitats — or areas where native plants should be growing — and try
to educate people to become aware of them. And try to not have
them planted.

CAL TRANS has been cooperative; they are trying. They no
longer plant some potentially weedy things; they no longer plant
pampas grass. I don't know how much planting they have done of
the brooms; I don't think they have planted the brooms. Or the
acacias over in Marin county; I think those brooms and acacias
there came from garden plantings. CALTRANS would be cooperative,
once they become aware of the fact that some plants are
aggressive.

Holleuffer: I have secret knowledge of your license plate number. [laughs]
What is the significance of your license plate. Tansy?

McClintock: That was a conservation matter in San Francisco several years
ago. There was a piece of land out at the western end of San
Francisco — out by the Cliff House — that was being threatened by a
developer. There was another piece of land that belonged to the
City of San Francisco. It was adjacent to this land which was
going to be developed.

Holleuffer: Was that the Playland project?

McClintock: It was part of the Playland project. The developer was going to
develop right adjacent to the land that belonged to the city.
The Sierra Club became concerned because it was pretty obvious
that in developing his land the developer would go across the
property that belonged to the city. And they would have. You
know — why shouldn't they — it was open land, nothing on it but a
few plants that looked like weeds.

We found out that among these plants a rare plant called
Tanacetum camphoratum was growing on this piece of land that
belonged to the city and that it was a rare plant. It was one of

20

Holleuffer:
McClintock!

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

the plants on the California Native Plant Society's rare and
endangered plant list. So we had some negotiations; we had a
couple of hearings before the planning commission. And the
developer signed an agreement that he would not use the city land
in any way whatsoever in getting to his project that he was going
to develop. This was the time that I decided to get a
personalized license plate, so I chose Tansy for mine. That's
how that came about. It's been quite a few years ago; now I
think Tansy is out-dated. I'm sorry that I didn't choose
something that is not so dated. Anyway, I still have it.

What other conservation issues have you been involved with?

Well, I've been involved with San Bruno Mountain which was
certainly a conservation issue. I wrote a flora of San Bruno
Mountain. San Bruno Mountain has only in part been developed but
the development project has been going on for years and years. I
did a flora with Walter Knight which was published over fifteen
years ago. Everybody has used that flora, quoted, misquoted and
everything else from it. People were paid thousands of dollars
for using our flora.

But you weren't paid to write it?

No, we weren't paid to write it.
things that happens.

Anyway that's just one of the

Part of the mountain has been made a county park, but some
of the portions to be developed are still undeveloped. There
still is. I guess, a lawsuit going on in regard to, not so much
preserving the mountain because of the plants, but preserving the
mountain because of two rare endangered butterflies. I've been
involved more or less with that. There wasn't really anything I
could do except to say the plants are there: point out what
plants are there. There were a number of rare plants, but
nothing that was really of the magnitude of rarity of the
butterflies. It turned out that it was not the plants that
became the issue, as far as rare and endangered species were
concerned, but actually it was the butterflies.

Have you gone back since, recently, to see if the same plants are
still there? Or to take an inventory?

No, I haven't because there have been so many changes, and so
many people have gone there. I go there every once in a while
and walk around. The top of the mountain has suffered a great
deal, since our first visits there. They've added many more
radio and television broadcasting towers on the top of the
mountain. That, unfortunately, has spoiled the top of the

21

mountain. There's a lot of activity on the mountain; lots of
off-road vehicles go there. This has caused a certain amount of
destruction of the plants. In spite of the fact that — oh. I've
forgotten how many acres — a large portion of the upper part of
the mountain has been made into a county park.

Holleuffer: Have you been involved as a consultant in many issues?

McClintock: Oh. not very many. All of these conservation projects are always
losing projects. You know, you can't save San Bruno Mountain and
Play land by the Beach. (Only part of that development
materialized, but that was because the developer didn't have
enough money as it turned out.)

, There was another project that I was involved with, down in
Woodside. There was a little serpentine grassland area that a
developer wanted to develop, and there was supposed to be an
environmental impact report. I was asked to do a list of plants.

Holleuffer: Asked by whom?

McClintock: It turned out that I was asked by a man who was a developer, but
also he was a consultant for the township of Woodside. And he
had more of an interest in being a developer than he had in
advising the township of Woodside in regard to preservation
matters.

I found out that there were some interesting plants and one
rare and endangered plant: Hesperolinum conges turn. I turned out
that nothing could be done to save that piece of property. The
developer got his development, and the man who hired me. who was
consultant for the city of Woodside. I'm sure was actively
engaged, in some way. in this development. So. he got his money.
I did make about five hundred dollars for having done the plant
list — that was one thing I was paid for. [laughs]

22

IV PUBLICATIONS AND PROFESSIONAL WORK

f*

Field Trips

Holleuffer: We've been talking about your work as a consultant on an

environmental impact statement and conservation matters. I
wondered also about your publications and your professional work.

McClintock: I didn't have much time to publish all those years that I worked
at the California Academy of Sciences. I published a paper on
Hydrangea which I'd started as a graduate thesis problem, and
that was published. I published the San Bruno Mountain Flora.
Then I did other short publications, but we just didn't have time
to do research. We had no assistants; we spent all of our time
working in the herbarium.

I was interested in going to Arizona once upon a time, to do
some collecting in the Grand Canyon National Monument area of
northwestern Arizona.

Holleuffer: Who did you go with, by yourself?

McClintock: I went with Walter Cottam, Professor of Botany. University of
Utah, who had been interested in that area. I had also made a
couple of earlier trips to Arizona to collect plants. This was a
good many years ago. Anyway, there was just no encouragement, no
money given for field work, so I just didn't do as much as might
have been done.

Holleuffer: Was that while you were at the academy?

23

Me Ci in took: Yes.

Holleuffer: Were those camping trips?

McClintock: The three weeks at the Grand Canyon was a camping trip.

Holleuffer: Did you have mules to carry the plants?

McClintock: No, no, no. [chuckles] We carried them ourselves.

Holleuffer: You couldn't have taken very many specimens that way.

McClintock: Well, you'd be surprised. I carried them in a backpack; you can
carry quite a few that way. I was quite a bit younger then.

Holleuffer: But you would have to carry water too.

McClintock: Oh, we were just out for a few hours at a time, just working out
from a base camp. That was a nice area; that would be an area
that somebody should go back to.

Holleuffer: Where exactly was it?

McClintock: It's on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, north of the

Colorado River, and you get to it by coming in from Utah — St.
George, Utah.

Holleuffer: You come through House Rock Valley, that way?

McClintock: I don't know about House Rock Valley. I don't think so; House
Rock Valley is somewhere else.

Holleuffer: Toroweap?

McClintock: It's Toroweap; that's right. Yes. and we were on the Toroweap

Plateau, north of the Grand Canyon. This is a corner of Arizona
that's cut off by the Colorado River and called the Arizona
Strip.

Holleuffer: The Arizona Strip.

McClintock: You've been there?

Holleuffer: Yes.

McClintock: Oh. Well, we'll have to talk about that.

24

McClintock:

So I didn't really do very much collecting. And, as I say, I
really concentrated then on collecting ornamentals (and I did
build up the ornamental herbarium) .

Holleuffer: When you're collecting ornamentals, did you just go out along
roads?

McClintock: Not necessarily along roads.
Holleuffer: People's gardens?

McClintock: Not so much people's gardens but, yes, certain ones. You collect
in certain areas, parks. And I always vent to the meetings of
the California Horticultural Society. People would bring plants
there, and I made herbarium specimens of those all through the
years. So, there's a considerable amount of material that I had
collected. It's made me a specialist in the ornamental flora of
California.

Holleuffer: Which is quite unusual, isn't it?

McClintock: Yes.

Holleuffer: Most people specialize in natives.

Book Projects

McClintock: Yes. but the ornamentals are the plants that people see around
them all the time in the urban areas where they live. They're
the plants least known about. In fact — and I may do this, I
don't know — I'm thinking of doing a book for the University of
California Press on ornamental trees of California. I might do
that, a future project.

Holleuffer: What's your current project?

McClintock: One thing I'm finishing up is an account of the Hydrangea family,
a very small family in the southeastern United States which
includes Hydrangea itself and Philadelphus^. Only a few species
of each and a couple of other small genera Decumaria. which has
just one species. I was asked to do that, and it turned out that
Philadelphus is kind of difficult, but I finally have just
finished.

Holleuffer: Who will publish that?

25

McClintock: It's going to be published. It's part of the flora of the

southeastern United States that's being done at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Last spring I visited Chapel Hill
and met the man who's chief editor of the project, talked to him
about it. So now I've just finished it.

International Conferences

Holleuffer: Do you attend many professional meetings of botanical societies?

McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:
Holleuffer:
McClintock:

Holleuffer:
McClintock:
Holleuffer:

McClintock:

Yes, I used to try to attend the meetings of the American
Institute of Biological Sciences. Would go to them — not every
year — but maybe every year or so I would go.

What about international — ?

I went to several of the international botanical congresses. I
went in 1954 to the Paris Congress. I went to the Montreal
Congress which was 1959, I think. I went to the Seattle Congress
in 1969. I went to the Botanical Congress in Leningrad in 1975.
And then the Congress in Australia, which was 1981. That was
after I retired.

How were you funded to go to these?

I paid for everything I ever did myself.

Goodness!

I'm always, you know, I'm always so amused at people who have to
get every last dime for everything they do.

If you wanted to go, you went.

If I wanted to go, I went, and I paid for it.

At the ones in Leningrad and Australia did you have field trips
afterwards?

Oh yes, there were always field trips in connections with these.
At the Paris congress there was really a very nice field trip
into Algeria. I spent about ten days in Algeria.

At the Leningrad congress there was a field trip to Armenia.
But, that was run by the Soviet Intourist; they didn't let us do

26

very much. Then the Australia trip was very nice. I vent on a
trip before the congress. I went with Annetta Carter and Mary Leo
Bowerman, and there were other Americans on that trip. We went
up to the northern territory, starting out in Darwin, and came
down to Alice Spring and Ayers Rock. That was a very nice trip.
After the congress, Annetta and Mary Leo Bowerman and I went to
western Australia where I had been several years before. In 1977
I made a trip to Australia and New Zealand.

Holleuffer: A personal trip?
McClintock: Yes, right after I retired.

Holleuffer: On these field trips after the congresses, would you botanize or
was it tourist — ?

McClintock: We wouldn't collect; it's hard to collect when you're traveling
like that.

Holleuffer: Were you with someone from the country who would know the native
flora?

McClintock: Oh yes, oh yes, except the one to Armenia with the Russians.

Even though that was a trip sponsored by the botanical congress
it was run by Intourist. So we didn't get to see as much as we
should have seen. We were a little disappointed at that. But
that's the way Russia is. They don't want you to do anything on
your own.

Holleuffer: At the congresses do you find that there are many other woman
botanists? What sort of percentage are there women to men?

McClintock: There are a lot more men, but there are a few women. Women are
sort of in the minority.

Holleuffer: I've been struck, here at the herbarium and also at the meeting
that I attended of the California Native Plant Society, at the
numbers of women. At the herbarium I think I've seen one man
working here and all the rest have been women.

McClintock: Working, what do you mean?

Holleuffer: Working on the collections, putting plants into the holders.

McClintock: Oh, those are students.

Holleuffer: But they're only female students that I've seen.

27

McClintock: Oh, there are some men students; you haven't seen the men. No.
there are men students here. Let's see — this is out of my
realm — but there is a program here whereby the graduate students
working in taxonomy with one of the faculty in taxonomy — [Thomas]
Duncan or [Robert] Ornduff — do work in the herbarium, and I think
they get paid. Now. I'm not sure; you'd have to ask. But there
are at least two men students: Bob Price, who's working on
Erysimum, and then there's another fellow who's working with a
genus in the Scrophulariaceae. And there's Tania. the girl from
Panama, Tania Belize.

Holleuffer: Do you think opportunities have changed for women since the time
when you first entered botany?

McClintock: I don't know that much has changed.

Holleuffer: There still isn't a woman on the faculty, is there?

McClintock: Not here. But then this is — it's just like at the California
Academy of Sciences; there are not very many women. And look
what happened to me. Maybe in another generation — maybe by then,
in thirty or forty years — if men become more liberal in their
viewpoints. But the diehards have to die. Those who are really
against women — they have to be gone entirely — and there have to
be new ones with new ideas before women will ever be able to be
recognized. I think a start has been made.

Transcriber and Word Processor: Marjorie Larney

28

TAPE GUIDE - Elizabeth McClintock

Date of Interview: March 21. 1985

tape 1, side A 1

tape 1, side B 11

tape 2. side A 22

29

Elizabeth McClintock. Biographical data. December 1985.

Address: 1335 Union Street, San Francisco, CA 9^109- (415/4 74-1940)

Born: July 7, 1912.

Education: BA, MA University of California, Los Angeles.

PhD. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Positions: Herbarium Botanist, 1940-1946, University of California,

Los Angeles.

1949-1977. Staff, Botany Department, California
Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, Retired,
July 31, 1977 as Curator and Chairman of Botany.
1968-1970- Lecturer, Division of Biology, San Fran-
State University.

1978--. Research Associate in the Herbarium, De
partment of Botany, University of Cal
ifornia, Berkeley.

Dr. McClintock 's specialized field in botany is taxonomy, the
classification, nomenclature and geographical distribution of seed
plants. Her plant collections have mostly been made in California
but she has also visited and collected in other western states and

in Mexico. During the late 1940s and early 1950s she made collect-
particularly
ion in Arizona, « in the White Mountains and the little

known area of the western part of the Grand Canyon. She coll
aborated in I960 in the publication of the Supplement to the
Arizona Flora by Kearney and Peebles. She collected plants in
and around San Franisco and in the 1960s made collections on
San Bruno Mountain in San Mateo County. These v/ere used as the
basis of a flora of the area published in 1968. She has had a

30

2. Elizabeth McClintock. Biographical data.

long time interest in the plants and vegetation of the coastal
sand dunes of San Francisco and in 1973 published two papers
emphasizing one of the dune plants, the San Francisco dune tansy.

(As a result of this and the controversy over the development of an area
of
/these dunes her personalized license plate is TANSY.)

She has also been interested in California's vernal pools and
during the late 1960s and early 1970s she made a series of coll
ections in a vernal pool area, near Pixley, Tulare County, a natural
area preserve that was acquired by The Nature Conservancy.

Dr. McClintock has been active in conservation and preser
vation of California's rare and endangered plants as well as
representative segmants of the state's native vegetation.
She has worked with the California Native Plant Society (CNPS),
the California Natural Areas Coordinating Council (CNAAC); The
Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. She helped CNPS with its
inventory of rare and endangered species of California and CKAAC
with its inventory of California's natural areas.

In addition to her work with native plants she is a special
ist in the California ornamental flora, those plants cultivated
for ornamental and landscape purposes in urban areas . During
the course of her work on the ornamental flora she has published
papers on various plant genera, including Erica, Erythrina. Metrosid-

eros. Tamarix, Hydrangea, and Magnolia, as well as three checklists

(1963, 1979, 1932)-
of California ornamental plants/^ In addition she has made numerous

collections of ornamentals, These are particularly valuable be
cause this group of plants is largely neglected by other botanists.

31

3. Elizabeth McClintock. Biographical data.

The Strybing Arboretum of Golden Gate Park has no staff botanist
and during the past thirty years Dr. McClintock has identified or
verified identifications of the Arboretum's plants. She coll
aborated with the Strybing Arboretum Society in publishing its
three Guide Lists (1958, 1970 and 1977) and is presently v/orking
on the fourth Guide List to be published in 1986.

For San Francisco's Golden Gate Park she has identified and
listed most of the park's remarkable collection of trees and
shrubs and provides information about them to staff of Recreation

and Park Department. She published Trees of the Panhandle (1965).

twice-
This small book was an outcome of the proposed (mid-1960s)

cross-town freeway that would have destroyed the panhandle and

the northeastern border of the park. She actively participated

ies, both

in the controversy^ that resulted in the rejection of /\ proposals.

In 1977 she published an account of the plants in The Japanese
Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park. In 1976 she began a series of articles
on the park's trees, which is being published in Pacific Horticulture.
Thirty-four have appeared between 1976 and 1985-

Since the beginning of Pacific Horticulture in 1976 Dr. McClintock has

reads

served voluntarily as its Associate Editor. In this capacity she JL all manu
scripts, accepted by the editor^ for their botanical accuracy. Her botanical
expertise and editing adds greatly to the prestige and educational value of
this publication. Pacific Horticulture came into being when four societies
cooperated to publish it, taking over the California Horticultural Journal from
the California Horticultural Society. Since 1954 Dr. McClintock had served as
Botanical Editor of the California Horticultural Journal.

4-. Elizabeth McGlintock. ... 32

Areas of research:

1. Labiatae, revisions of Monarda (19^2) and Teucrium (19^6).
Review of Lamiales for Encyclopedia Britannica (197*0-

2. Saxifragaceae, monograph of Hydrangea (1957) «

3- Ornamental flora. Published treatments of various genera

cultivated in California: including Erythrina (19^9, ;953»

1956, 1969, 1982, 1985), Tamarix (195D, Hydrangea (1956,

1957, 1969, 1973). Erica, in part, (1950, 1952, 1979),
Magnolia, in part, (1962, 1963, 197*0, Metrosideros (1968).

Other publications include:
v A Checklist of Woody Ornamentals of California (1963).

Guide List of Plants in Strvbing Arboretum (1958 and 1970).
Trees of the Panhandle, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (965).

Capitol Park Tree Tour Sacramento (1971).

The Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (1977)

Trees of Golden Gate Park, a continuing series in Pacific
Horticulture, volumes 37-^6, numbers 1 to 3^ (1976-1985).
i An Annotated Checklist of Woody Ornamental Plants of Calif
ornia. Oregon & Washington (1979)«

;• An Annotated Checklist of Ornamental Plants of Coastal
Southern California (1982).

Collaborated with the staff of the Bailey Hortorium in
preparation of Hortus Third (1976).
b. California and Arizona floras:

A Flora of the San Bruno Mountains, San Mateo County,
California (1968).

Compiled an annotated list of plants in a vernal pool area
near Pixley, Tulare County (a natural area preserve owned
by The Nature Conservancy). Unpublished, distributed by TNC.

33

Eliabeth McClintock,

•. California and Arizona floras. . .continued «

"Botanizing in Torov/eap Valley in Northern Arizona""

the western area of the Grand Canyon (1952).
Supplement to second edition, Arizona Flora (I960).

Elizabeth McClintock. .. December 1985. 34

Completed manuscripts (accepted for publication)

Poisonous Plants of California. A book to be published by the

University of California Press, Berkeley. (With T. C. Fuller.)

Hydrangeaceae, the Hydrangea Family. A contribution to the
Vascular Flora of the Southeastern United States, being
published by the University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill.

Current (1985 ) projects.

fourth

1. Reviewing for botanical accuracy the /\ Guide List to

Plants of Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

2. A taxonomic and nomenclatural review of Magnolia denudata
and M. liliflora. with Dr. F. G. Meyer, National Arboretum,
Washington, D. C.

3. Contributing a series of families to Jep son's Manual

(a new flora of California) under way at the Jepson Herb
arium, Department of Botany, University of California,
Berkeley.

Jf. Reviewing the distribution and spread in California of
introduced ornamental plants from cultivated into
non-cultivated areas, which are becoming weedy. Project
sponsored by the California Native Plant Society.

5. Working on a revision of the tropical American evergreen
species. (section Cornidia) of the genus Hydrangea.

6. Working on a revised key to Erythrina species in California
and a treatment of Escallonia species cultivated in California.

7. Has begun a book Landscape Trees of California to be pub
lished by Dioscorides/Timber Press of Portland, Oregon.

y. Elizabeth McClintock. Biographical data. 35

Activities in professional and conservation societies:

American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta^

Member, Board of Directors, 1958-1963. Vice- president,

1962. President, 1962-1963. Member of its Nomenclature

and Registration Committee.
California Botanical Society. President, 1968. Chairman,

Archives Committee.
Strybing Arboretum Society of Golden Gate Park. Charter member

and one of founders, President, 1956-1957 • Member, Library

Committee and Plant Collections Committee.
California Horticultural Society. Secretary, 1950-1960.

Botanical Editor of its journal, 195^-1975-
Pacific Horticultural Foundation* Associate Editor of its

journal, Pacific Horticulture, since 1976.
The Nature Conservancy. Member Board of Trustees, Northern

California Chapter, during 1960s.
Sierra Club. Member, Executive Committee, San Francisco Bay

Chapter, mid-1960s.
California Native Plant Society. Charter member and Fellow.

Membe^ state-wide Board of Directors and Chair of its

Escaped Exotics Committee.
Zoological Society of San Diego. Member, Botanical Collections

Committee. Assists, the San Diego Zoo with problems of

naming some of their plants. Has identified their extensive

collection of coral trees, Ery thrina .
Miscellaneous.

International Registration Authority for the genera Hydrangea

and Escallonia.

Member of Mayor's Task Force for revising the San Francisco

.CiJUZcLUS \jii I'llo XXII UUL..1V .

1 1. -L ^ a. J

street tree ordinance. 198^-1985.

Member of Street Tree Advisory Board of the Department of
Public Works Department, San Francisco, 1985 — •

Honors .

Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Silver Medal for 1977-
California Native Plant Society, Fellow, 1980.

Member of the following scientific and/or professional societies:
American Society of Plant Taxonomists
American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta
American Horticultural Society
American Institute of Biological Sciences
California Botanical Society
California Horticultural Society
California Native Plant Society

Garden History Society

International Association for Plant Taxonomy

International Dendrology Society

Northern Nevada Native Plant Society

Royal Horticultural Society

San Francisco Friends of the Urban Forest

Sigma Xi

Society of Woman Geographers

Strybing Arboretum Society of Golden Gate Park

Zoological Society of San Diego

37

INDEX — Elizabeth McClintock

Bacigalupi, Rimo. 14

Belize. Tania. 27

blue gum eucalyptus. See eucalyptus

globolus

Breedlove. Dennis. 11
CALTRANS. See California State
Department of Transportation
California Academy of Sciences. 8-11
California Horticultural Society. 24
California Native Plant Society,

14-21. 26
California State

Department of Fish and Game. 15

Department of Food and Agriculture.
16

Department of Transportation.

18-19

Constance. Lincoln, 11
Cooper. Ruth. 4
Cottam. Walter. 22
Deciimnria, 24
Duncan. Thomas. 27
East Bay Regional Park Botanic

Garden. 15
Eppling. Carl C., 6
escaped exotics. 15-18
eucalyptus globolus. 17
Fremontia, 15-18
Grand Canyon National Monument.

22-23

Hesperolinum congestum, 21
Howell, John Thomas. 9. 11
Hydrangea. 7. 22. 24
Jaeger, Edmund C., 3-4

Lindsay. George, 9-11

Mar in County. California. 17

McVaugh. Rogers. 7

Miller. Robert C.. 8

Monarda, 6

monarch butterfly. 18-19

Munz. Philip A., 4

National Science Foundation. 11

ornamental plants. 10, 16-17, 24

Ornduff, Robert, 11, 27

Philadelphia. 24

Playland project. San Francisco. 19

Price. Bob. 27

Roof. James, 14

San Bruno Mountain Flora, 22

San Bruno Mountains, 20-21

San Jacinto. California, 1

Scott, Flora Murray, 7

Serra, Junipero. 16

Sierra Club, 19

Stebbins, Ledyard, 15

Tanacetum c amphora turn , 20

Tilden Park. See East Bay Regional

Park Botanic Garden
University of California Herbarium,

11-13
University of California at Los

Angeles, 4-7
University of North Carolina. Chapel

Hill. 25
women, participation in botany,

3, 7. 26-27
Woodside, California, 21

1360 7