The Perennial Adventure 
16 
daily association with such congenial spirits, such unworldly and 
whole-souled scientists j the proximity of a fine reference library 
and comprehensive herbarium—these were attractions hard to 
resist. 
After nursing her sister Kate through typhoid, Alice Eastwood 
came at last to live in San Francisco, in December 1892. She was 
thirty-three years old, in the full bloom of young womanhood, 
already recognized nationally as a field botanist and essayist on 
botanical subjects. The appointment was a popular one, and she 
received a heart-warming welcome on the West Coast. 
A year later the Brandegees left the Academy forever and 
moved to San Diego, taking their own botanical library and pri¬ 
vate herbarium which had served the institution so well during 
a difficult transition period. Alice Eastwood succeeded the wife 
as Curator of Botany, and the husband as acting editor of Zoe. 
This dual responsibility she took very seriously. According to her 
biographer, “She was the only person who understood haphazard 
Brandegee methods. Her orderly mind offended by lack of sys¬ 
tem, she set herself sternly at the task of organizing the accumu¬ 
lation of years of collecting. Far into the night, week after week, 
she patiently prepared proper labels .... Thousands of invalu¬ 
able specimens of early California plants were then mounted in 
accessible form,” for the use of hundreds of students through the 
years. 
Periodic collecting trips relieved the tedium of curatorial tasks. 
Katharine Brandegee had arranged an unlimited railroad pass for 
her friend and, beyond railway terminals, Alice Eastwood trav¬ 
eled by stage, on horseback and afoot. In due time, the automo- 
