Author’s Preface 
Carol Green Wilson has been generous in allowing me to 
glean information from her forthcoming biography, titled “Alice 
Eastwood’s Wonderland” and completed only a little while be¬ 
fore the eminent botanist’s death at ninety-four on October 30, 
1953. In this book Alice Eastwood’s honors, her world-wide as¬ 
sociations, her scientific and literary achievements, her exciting 
botanical expeditions and her observant travels are detailed. The 
total is imposing indeed. It can only be intimated in this sketch 
based on Mrs. Wilson’s book—a sketch written and published as 
one of many memorials to a unique human being; no less a dedi¬ 
cated scientist than a well-loved woman. 
Always a helpful person is John Thomas Howell, who suc¬ 
ceeded Miss Eastwood as Curator of Botany at the California 
Academy of Sciences when she retired at the age of ninety, after 
fifty-seven years of service there. He has chosen illustrations out 
of photographs in his possession; and edited the manuscript for 
Academy publication. 
Besides the outline of Alice Eastwood’s life,* we include her 
own understanding account of “Early Botanical Explorers on 
the Pacific Coast.”** Her spirit is kindred to Archibald Menzies, 
botanist and surgeon of Vancouver’s round-the-world expedition 
(1790-1795), who first noted and collected the Coast Redwood 
growing near Santa Cruzj to the young Scot, David Douglas of 
intrepid spirit and untimely end; to Thomas Coulter, who first 
penetrated the rocky fastnesses of the Santa Lucia Mountains 
to discover the Santa Lucia Fir and Big-cone Pine; to Thomas 
Nuttall, who named and described our picturesque sycamore, the 
