Plant Hunters: Lester Rowntree

This year we're learning about several plant hunters who have collected in the Western United States. Last time we learned about Scottish botanist, David Douglas (1799 - 1834), who collected in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, and Hawaii (see Plant Hunters: David Douglas). This time we are learning about Lester Rowntree (1879 - 1979), who collected all over the state of California. In her article, Lone Hunter, Lester reports that she started her collecting endeavor simply to find out about California wildflowers.

Hardy Californians - by Lester Rowntree
Lester (1879 - 1979) is pictured doing field work, lower right.

Lester Rowntree was born Gertrude Ellen Lester in Penrith, England, where she lived in the Lake District and enjoyed gardening and the outdoors until she was 10 years old. In 1889 her family moved to a homestead in Kansas, United States, and two years later to Los Angeles, California, where she was introduced to California wildflowers. She attended a boarding high school near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she decided to adopt "Lester" as her first name. She married Bernard Rowntree in 1908 and lived in New Jersey, where she developed a garden and experimented with plants and seeds from California. In 1920 they relocated to Southern California and then in 1925 to Carmel in Northern California. Lester started a business propagating and selling California wildflower seeds. The couple divorced in 1931, when she was in her early 50s.

Lester recounts in Lone Hunter, that she realized after her divorce that she could live as she pleased ("free to trek up and down the long state of California, and to satisfy my insistent curiosity about plants, to find them in their homes meeting their days and seasons, to write down their tricks and manners in my notebook, to photograph their flowers, to collect their seeds, to bring home seedlings in cans just emptied of tomato juice"). She decided to follow the blooms all over the state, spending Mar. - Apr. in the dessert, May in the foothills, June in the Northern Counties, July in the higher mountains, and Aug. - Sep. in the alpine zone (her favorite). She travelled and lived in her car, carrying her gear with her. In Nov. - Feb. she would return to Carmel for the rainy season, spending her days reviewing her notes, writing, lecturing, and cultivating plants and seeds in her steep hillside garden. After about 20 years of her vagabond lifestyle, she retired permanently to her Carmel home and spent the remainder of her life in her home and garden.

Flowering Shrubs of California - by Lester Rowntree

I really enjoyed learning about this "lady-gypsy" as Lester described herself, at home in both nature and civilization. I especially appreciated reading her descriptions of plants in their natural environments in the various altitudinal zones of California. She understood the conditions that met a plant's requirements for water, drainage, light and shade, and described them in a lively and engaging style. One of her missions was finding plants that would do well "in the trade". She lamented human encroachment on their environments, observing that wherever man went, wild flowers disappeared. Even with scientific plant names continually changing, her accounts are a valuable resource for learning about plants in the California ecology, and could be valuable for comparison as climate changes. Lester described herself as a plant enthusiast and lived an inspiring life.

Learn More

• California Wild Flower Seeds, Lester Rowntree & Co., Carmel California, U. S. A., 1935. A seed catalog published for her business. The business wasn't a financial success, but provided an outlet for distributing seeds around the world.

• Hardy Californians, by Lester Rowntree. Peregrine Smith, Inc, Salt Lake City, 1980. The 1980 version was updated with new scientific plant names. The original 1936 edition was published by Macmillan, New York.

• Hardy Californians: A Woman's Life with Native Plants (New Expanded Version), by Lester Rowntree. Edited by her son, Lester Rowntree. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2006. This version includes an autobiographical sketch by Lester's descendents, an introduction to her horticultural legacy, and updated scientific plant names.

• Lone Hunter, by Lester Rowntree. Atlantic Monthly, June 1939. 163 809-16 (available online with subscription). Lester supported herself by writing and lecturing. In this article, Lester describes her vagabond life collecting seeds and sending them all over the world. She started the endeavor simply to find out about California wildflowers.

• Flowering Plants of California, by Willis Linn Jepson. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1966. Lester carried the original 1925 version of this reference with her on her plant hunting trips, and corresponded with Jepson on plant species.

• Flowering Shrubs of California: and Their Value to the Gardener, by Lester Rowntree. Stanford University Press, 1930.

• Lester Rowntree, by grandsons Lester B. Rowntree and Rowan A. Rowntree. Pacific Horticulture, 2023 (adapted from the introduction written for the 2006 edition of Hardy Californians).

• Lester Gertrude Ellen Rowntree (1879 - 1979). Wikipedia article provides an overview of Lester's life.

• Lester Rowntree Native Plant Garden. The Carmel-by-the-Sea Watchdog, Sunday, June 29, 2008. Describes how to visit and volunteer at Lester's home and hillside garden in Carmel Highlands. Lester spent Nov. - Feb. at her home, between her yearly plant hunting trips. Here she experimented with the seeds and plants that she had collected in the field, reviewed her notes, corresponded, and wrote.