Sara Plummer Lemmon

Sara Allen Plummer Lemmon (September 3, 1836 – 1923) was an American botanist. Mount Lemmon in Arizona is named for her for being the first white woman to ascend it. She was responsible for the designation of the golden poppy (Eschscholzia californica) as the state flower of California in 1903. A number of plants are also named in her honor, including the new genus Plummera (now placed in Hymenoxys), described by Harvard University botanist Asa Gray in 1882.Plummera was redefined as a subgenus of Hymenoxys in 1994.

She was born in New Gloucester, Maine on September 3, 1836. She was educated in Massachusetts at the Female College of Worcester. Plummer then moved to New York City, teaching art there for some years, and studying at Cooper Union. She also served as a nurse for a year or two during the Civil War.

Falling ill in 1868–69, she moved to California in 1869, after hearing from her friend how the trip helped his health. Newspapers of the day described Plummer as "one of the first 'intellectuals'" to move to Santa Barbara, Indeed, in 1871 she established a lending library that became an important cultural center for Santa Barbara. Shortly after arriving in Santa Barbara, she established the "Lending Library and Stationery Depot", with the aid of a friend, Unitarian minister Henry Bellows, who helped her acquire her first few hundred volumes. Operating out of a jewelry store on State Street, Plummer charged $5 membership or 10 cents for borrowing books, and sold a variety of art and music supplies, and held cultural gatherings including lectures and art exhibits.

While walking about Santa Barbara, she acquired an interest in botany, and turned her paintings towards botanical illustrations. In 1876 Plummer met John Gill (J.G.) Lemmon (1831–1908) when he was giving a lecture in Santa Barbara. Lemmon, a Civil War veteran and former Andersonville prisoner, was, like Plummer, a self-trained botanist. The couple started corresponding via letters and Lemmon tutored her in botany. She also sent him a shrub she had found near Santa Barbara, and after a friend of his examined it, named it Baccharis plummerae in honor of her. In 1880 they married, Plummer assuming his name. At that point, she sold her library to the Odd Fellows to operate, and she and John Lemmon began traveling and cataloging botanical materials.

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