of her life, and as teacher and scientist she remained faithful to 
that course in all the years that followed. 
In her pursuit of truth, Alice Eastwood strove to cultivate the 
essential, to weed out the unessential, so that the garden of her 
life would be open and uncluttered. How well I recall her attempt 
to teach me this principle. A minor editorial detail was being dis¬ 
cussed and the merits of two styles were being compared. At last, 
to close my argument, I remarked: “What you propose will not 
be consistent.” “Consistency,” she flung back, “is the bane of 
small minds.” Indeed, consistency with unessentials was never a 
part of Alice Eastwood’s life. 
What she gained was an enviable freedom for thought and 
action. Her fearless botanical journeying into deserts and moun¬ 
tains was one of the results, and these trips relate her in fact and 
in spirit to the early explorers of our country, for whom she had 
a fervent admiration. How exceptionally appropriate is it that 
her botanical paper chosen for reproduction in this volume should 
be the one on “Early Botanical Explorers ...”! 
If we throw to the wind the trivial conventions that shackle us 
to earth, our lives too can become as vital, as real, as full as hers. 
Little wonder that Dr. Robert C. Miller could write of Miss 
Eastwood as he did in his introductory remarks to Carol Green 
Wilson’s biography: “A blithe spirit that is ageless, living in a 
world of discovery that is ever new.... Men have sought in vain 
the fountain of perpetual youth j what they needed instead was 
the fountain of perennial adventure.” 
John Thomas Howell 
California A cademy of Sciences 
December 2, 1953 
