Lester Rowntree (1879-1979) was a pioneer in the study, conservation, and horticultural usage of California native plants. As well, she was a talented writer and photographer who continues to inspire people to experience, enjoy, and protect nature. For more information about Lester Rowntree, email her grandson Lester Bradford Rowntree, rowntree@berkeley.edu

1. Lester Rowntree: A Woman’s
Life with Native Plants
A slide presentation by
Lester Bradford Rowntree
Contact:
rowntree@berkeley.edu

2. What Did She Do?
• Was a pioneer in the study and protection of
California native plants.
• Popularized native plant horticulture through
her numerous writings and public lectures
• Propagated native plants and disseminated
their seeds throughout the world
• Led an independent, free-spirited life that,
still today, continues to inspires both women
and men to explore and appreciate nature

3. Her Horticultural Legacy
“Today, it would be hard to find a professional in the field
of native plant horticulture who was not, at some point,
inspired by Lester Rowntree. The model of her double
focus, wildland exploration and landscape use of plants, is
followed by numerous California native plant
horticulturists, from arboretum directors to landscapers
to nursery professionals, who make regular trips into the
wild for the pleasure of observing plants in their homes
and to collect seeds and cuttings for propagation “
Judith Larner Lowry, “Supreme Advocate for California Native Plants: Lester
Rowntree.” The Landscaping Ideas of Jays. University of California Press.
2007. 78-91

4. Awakening Wanderlust in Others
“I want to know more of Mrs. Rowntree who roams the
California hills with a Ford and a burro and a sleeping
bag, collecting seeds of the wildflowers all over the
West; a seed-gypsy and lover of wildlands; a comely,
delightful, small, keen, gentlewoman, who tore the
heart out of me with a call to leave all and follow---to
listen again to the silence of the hills---to touch the
loneliness of nature…”
Marion Crane, Gardens in America (1932) p66

5. A Comparison with David Douglas
“There are striking similarities between Lester
Rowntree and David Douglas. In fact, Lester
could be Douglas’ plant-wise and spiritual
descendant [for] Lester’s knowledge of
California wild flowers is unrivaled; it is safe to
say she knows more about them than Douglas
ever knew”
Dutton, Joan Parry. Enjoying America’s Gardens. New York:
Reynal. 1958 pp 176-177

6. The Allure of Lester’s Outdoor Life
(titles of articles about Lester)
“As Thrilling as Any Western Romance”, Begg (1957)
“Lester Rowntree, Denizen of the Mountains”,Brandt
(1955)
“Lester Rowntree, Mountain Mystic”, Hamman (1974)
“Lester Rowntree, The Peripatetic Gilbert White”, Ingram
(1994)
“Lester Rowntree, A Spirit of Keen Joy”, Ingram (1995)
(More articles about Lester, with full references at the end
of slideshow)

7. About Lester’s Names
• Born Gertrude Ellen Lester, 1979, in Penrith,
England
• Was called by her last name (Lester) in Westtown
prep school near Philadelphia
• Married Bernard Rowntree in 1908
• Divorced in 1931, but retained Lester Rowntree
as her legal name
• Most people, both within and outside the family,
called her “Lester”
BTW: I was born Lester Bradford Rowntree, and usually go by “Les” to
avoid generational and gender confusion

8. The Rowntree Family
Lester and Bernard Rowntree had one son, Cedric, born in 1911,
who married Harriette Hasty in 1932; they have three children,
Rowan( far right), Lester (far left), and Patricia. The photo below
of the Cedric Rowntree family was taken in 1993

9. Lester’s Early Life in
England and North America

10. Born in Penrith,
England, 1879
Gertrude Ellen Lester was
born in January 1879 in
Penrith, Cumberland, a
small town just northeast
of the picturesque Lake
District in northwestern
England. This may be a
photo either of her earliest
home or that of a family
friend’s home in the Lakes.

11. Remembering her youth
in England
Lester lived the first 10 years of her life
in Penrith, a life highlighted by frequent
family outings in the nearby Lakes
countryside. She remembers this time
fondly, writing late in life:
“I am so homesick for my birth land
that if I had no family [in California] I
would go back to the English Lake
District where there are fields of
daffodils, meadows of bluebells, and
Primula farinose. But I am thankful I am
permitted to stay on [in her home in
California], where I can look up to the
hills and out to the ocean.”

12. The Lester Family
“Nellie”, as she was called by her family, was one of eight children, the
offspring of Edward Lester, a prosperous Quaker tea merchant. (Nellie
is in the front row, bracketed by brothers)

13. The Lester Family
Moves to Kansas,
1889
This is not the Lester home in Kansas; instead it conveys
a sense of how Nellie remembers their frontier
neighborhood, with homesteaders in sod houses and
Native American villages. The Lester family, we assume,
lived in a wooden frame house.
For reasons not well
explained, a restless
Edward Lester moved
his family in 1889 from
England to a frontier
homestead in Kansas,
with disastrous
results. Two children
died from typhoid,
and everyone became
ill from from tainted
well water.

14. And Then to Southern
California
After the children’s deaths, and with the
discovery that their Kansas homestead
well water was contaminated, Edward
Lester wisely decided to move farther
west to the Quaker community of
Altadena in southern California. Here
they settled for several decades, and it
was in this southern California landscape
that Nellie fell in love with wildflowers
and began her life’s calling.
But first there was the matter of school,
so for several years she and her siblings
commuted across the country by train,
between Altadena and the Quaker
Westtown School outside of Philadelphia.

15. High School at Westtown in
Pennsylvania
This is Nellie’s graduation photo from
Westtown in 1902. That she graduated
high school in her early 20s is explained
by both the Kansas experience (where
she was home-schooled) and, also, that
she interrupted her schooling for several
years to work as a governess for the
president of nearby Haverford College.
Although she was offered a
scholarship to the new Pennsylvania
Horticultural School for Women (now
the Ambler Campus of Temple
University), upon graduation she was
called home to Altadena to care for her
dying mother.

16. Marriage, Divorce, and a Gypsy Life
Amongst Western Wildflowers

17. Marriage to Bernard
Rowntree, 1908
After her mother’s death in 1907,
Nellie traveled to England and back
to her beloved Cumberland for the
first time since leaving in 1889. Her
companion for that trip was Lila
Clevenger, a good friend and
classmate from Westtown, whom
she would reconnect with in 1932
to start the Lester Rowntree Seed
Company in California.
But first there was marriage to
Bernard Rowntree, who had
courted her during her Westtown
years. They were married by the
Philadelphia Quaker Meeting in
1908.
This photo of Bernard Rowntree
was taken at that time

18. After marriage, Nellie and Bernard Rowntree settled into this house in Oradell,
New Jersey, where Bernard commuted into New York City to his engineering job
and Nellie developed a garden that became a local horticultural showpiece.
During this time Lester developed important ties to the eastern horticultural
network. These became crucial when she started her California seed company in
the 1930s
The Rowntree
Home,
“The Rowans”,
in New
Jersey, circa
1911

19. Moving Back to
California
In 1920, when Lester was
41, she was diagnosed (or,
perhaps, misdiagnosed)
with ovarian cancer and
told her time on Earth was
limited. Not wanting to die
in New Jersey, she
convinced Bernard to
move the family to
southern California so she
could spend her last
months amongst the
beloved wildflowers of her
youth.
(This photo is from 1917, with
their 6-year old son, Cedric, in
their Oradell, NJ garden)

20. Discovering Carmel
Miraculously, Lester did not
die as predicted, so in late
1920 the Rowntree family
joined Lester’s brother
Leonard, a noted landscape
painter, and sister Amy in
Point Loma, near San Diego.
Then, in 1923, when this
photo was taken, they
visited brother Frank Lester
in Monterey and fell in love
with the nearby Carmel
Highlands area just south of
Point Lobos. It was there
they settled in 1926….and
where Lester made her
home until her death in
1979.

21. The Divorce, 1931
Between 1926 and 1931, Bernard and
Lester (which she had now taken as her
first name) lived in the large stone
house they built in the Carmel
Highlands.
With 3 acres to garden, Lester
turned her full attention to native
plants, both at home and in the field,
equipped as she was with a new
driver’s license and her own car.
But domestic bliss was evasive,
and in 1931 she and Bernard divorced.
Although the gypsy in her was free to
wander, Lester was also broke and
homeless at age 52:
“I was convinced I was going to starve.
But every morning when I would awake
and see the sun I would be cheered
that I had made it to another day…..I
made the break, and my life began!”

22. Lester’s House on the
Hill
Within a year of the divorce,
in 1932, while photographing
plants higher up the hill from
where she and Bernard lived,
Lester found a sunny spot
above the coastal Monterey
Pine forest where her spirit
called out “Build here; build
here!”. With money from her
writings and by bartering her
gardening skills with local
craftspeople, she built the
house that was her logistical
and spiritual home for the
rest of her life.

23. “…the life I always longed for”
“It took adversity to bring me to the sort of life I always longed for. Not until
my domestic happiness had gone to smash did I realize I was free to trek up and
down the long state of California, to write down their tricks and manners in
my notebook, to photograph their flowers, collect their seeds, to bring home
seedlings in cans just emptied of tomato juice…
“I didn’t take up this for the poetry of it. I had no ambition to become a
picturesque Lady Gipsy. I honestly wanted to find out about California
flowers. There was little written about them in their habitats and nothing at
all about their behavior in the garden, so I made it my job to discover the
facts for myself.
“I inhabit my hillside home only from November to February, while the
winter storms are blowing and the winter rains pouring. In March and April I
have long shining days in the desert, in May happy weeks in the foothill,
where a chorus of robins wakes me, and my morning bath is in a rushing
stream of just-melted snow. In June I am in the northern counties scented
with new-mown hay and wild strawberries. In July in the higher mountains,
and in August and September up in the alpine zone with mule or burro.”
Lester Rowntree, “The Lone Hunter”, Atlantic Monthly, 163 (June 1939) pp 809-
10

24. Lester’s Life as Native Plant
Botanist and Horticulturalist
The 1930s, 40s, 50s

25. Lester in the Field
One of Lester’s many
contributions to native plant
ecology was her knowledge
of plants in their natural
habitat, knowledge garnered
through vast amounts of
time in the field. To do so
she spent half the year
doing fieldwork, traveling
California from low desert to
high mountains. In this
photo she is with her mule
“Skimpy” on Piute Pass in
the Sierra. Much of the
mule’s load is camera and
collecting material since
Lester herself preferred
sleeping outside in her
bedroll, not in a tent.

26. High Sierra Campsite
When asked about this
photo Lester took in the
High Sierra, and specifically
about the tent in the lower
left, she said rather
indignantly, “Oh, the tent
was to protect the camera
gear---I always sleep in the
open!”

27. Besides fieldwork in California Lester botanized widely
throughout the West, including several winter seasons in
northern Mexico This photo is in the Beartooth Range of
Montana
.

28. The Trials of Fieldwork
“The plant stalking business is not all beer and skittles. Fatigue brings
moments when you are drenched in gloom. Intense heat, severe cold, attacks
of loneliness, the limited diet, thunder and lightning sweeping above you as
you cling to some bald mountain, all carry with them times of profound
misery. Dust and ants get in your food; burrs and stickers in your clothes;
snakes in your sleeping bag; insects sting, and bears raid the food supply.
None of these discomforts are so great that the spirit of enthusiasm cannot
surmount them…
“But you must steel yourself to bear the agonizing disappointment of
some precious seed or flower missed by just a day or two, of high winds on
the one chance of a good photograph, or devastation wrought by cattle,
sheep, or deer. You may go five hundred miles more in search of a certain
plant only to find that the bloom is just spent or the seed just fallen, or that
will not be ripe for a fortnight….or that the ardent real estate developer has
outstripped you by a couple of days, torn out the rare endemic dwarf
Manzanita and planted in their place the ubiquitous Pittosporum.”
“A Plant Hunter Writes About Her Profession”. House and Garden, (1936)
p36

29. GIVING TALKS AND
LECTURES
An important part of Lester’s
income came from giving
public talks and lectures
about native plants,
horticulture, and her travels.
Lester often combined
fieldwork with giving talks, as
Lester discusses on the next
two slides.
This photo is a publicity shot
taken to advertise a lecture in
1940

30. “Throwing a Talk”
“In 1940 I decided to get to the states I hadn’t seen
before, so I “talked” my way by giving addresses at
garden clubs and schools. I’d wake up on the top of
some mountain and remember that I was broke, so
I’d have to hike to town, change from gypsy garb to
“lady clothes”, sleep in a stuffy room overnight,
“throw a talk”, and then get back to my mountains--
-perhaps the “balds” of Kentucky and Tennessee”
John Woolfended, “Lester Rowntree”, Journal of the California Horticultural
Society 1968

31. The Dual Life of Gypsy and Lady
“One of the trials of my life is the difficulty of combining the
arrangements of a lady with those of a gypsy. I don’t want to give
up either sort of existence, and yet they just don’t mix, especially
when I must be both on the same trip. The flower presses
scratch my good luggage, the canteens rip on my handbag, my
hat flies out the window, and I have to go to a town and buy
another. A large and benevolent steamer rug is supposed to
cover the manifold trappings in the car, but a sudden jolting stop
is sure to bring all the disgraces tumbling out into the light, and
before I have tucked them back in again my nice clean hands are
dusty and there is a run in my silk stockings.”
Lester Rowntree, “Lone Hunter” Atlantic Monthly , 1939

32. A publicity photo, this one taken in 1936 by a local newspaper to
publicize Lester’s lecture at the Santa Barbara Natural History
Museum. Note how her the car is stuffed with field gear, and that
the passenger seat has been removed for better access to the gear
storage area in the back.

33. Lester’s Cars and Field Gear
“Early in the spring my travels begin, but first I must load the
car. There are no large seats in my car, only my own little
leather driver’s seat, which stays with me when one model is
turned in for the next. Because on rainy or snowy nights I
leave the ground and crawl into the car to sleep, it must have
a flat floor; and since it is my home for weeks at a time it must
have room for a great many things---flower presses, books,
photographic gadgets, canteens, tools, and seed bags. Each
year I also take a long-handled shovel and a forbidding-looking
axe on a 10,000 mile ride. They go along only because the
Forest Service requires it---both are far too big and heavy for
me to handle”.
Lester Rowntree, “Lone Hunter”, Atlantic Monthly 1939

34. Lester Rowntree Seed Company
• In 1929 Lester and her Westtown friend, Lila
Clevenger, formed the Lester Rowntree
seed company.
• After the divorce in 1931, as Lester spent
more time in the field, Ms Clevenger, who
built a small house near Lester’s in the
Carmel Highlands, tended the nursery and
business end of matters in Carmel while
Lester did the collecting in the field.
• In 1946, because of ill health, Lila Clevenger
left the partnership.
• At the company’s apogee in the late 1930s,
the catalog listed seeds from 400 native
plants, with over 4000 subscribers.

35. Conserving Native
Plants
The conservation of native
wildflowers was central to Lester’s
concerns, and was a pioneer in
promoting ways to save native
flora in the early 1930s:
“Conservation must not stop
simply at preventing a plant from
being destroyed in
situ….conservation in its broadest
sense means also seeing to it that
the desirable species exposed to
extermination are perpetuated, or
at least being given a chance to
carry on in another place.”
Plant Collecting: An Aid to
Conservation (1938)

36. Seed Collecting as Conservation
“I wish there was a word one could use instead
of the acquisitive-sounding “collecting”, which
has such a vampirish and predatory ring.
Intelligent collecting is a conservation measure;
indeed the work is legitimate only when done
with knowledge and forethought and when the
motive is the preservation of the plants
themselves.”
Lester Rowntree Hardy Californians, 1936 p 12.

37. “I Garnered it Ghoulishly in a Gunnysack”
Although Lester always collected seeds legally,
armed with the proper permits, there were times
when extra-legal measures seemed appropriate.
After the city of San Francisco turned a deaf
ear to Lester and Alice Eastwood’s pleading to
preserve a rare manzanita (A. franciscana) found
on the Laurel Hill cemetery site, Lester snuck into
the area under the cover of night and collected
several of the plants before the bulldozers arrived.
She then delivered one plant to Jim Roof, curator
of the Tilden Park Botanic Garden in Berkeley, who
asked how she got it. “I garnered it ghoulishly in a
gunnysack” Lester replied.
Long thought to be extinct, what might be the
last remaining wild A. franciscana was discovered
in 2009 at a highway construction site near the
Golden Gate Bridge.

38. Lester’s Writings
Lester was a prolific writer who disseminated
her knowledge of native plants and their
horticultural uses while also arguing for their
conservation and protection.
She wrote two well-received books, over 700
articles, and, after a fire destroyed her field
notes and manuscripts in progress, 4 children’s
books.

39. Lester’s Writings (con’t)
Her first article was published in 1928, with 300 more
following by 1941. During that period Lester also
authored two books.
Lester published regularly through 1956 (she was 80 in
1959), with production slowing considerably in the 1960s.
Lester’s last 4 articles were published in the California
Native Plant Society’s Fremontia, 1975-1977. (Lester was
now in her 90s) These articles were on Sierra-Nevada
plants, drafted in the late 1940s for another project.
Margaret Campbell of the California Academy of Science
worked with Lester on these articles before they
appeared in Fremontia

40. Her two Books were reprinted several times: Hardy
Californians in 1936, 1980, and 2006; Flowering Shrubs
of California in 1939 and 1948

41. Hardy Californians: A Woman’s Life with
Native Plants (2006)
The 2006 edition contains all
of Lester’s 1936 content,
along with a detailed
biography by her two
grandsons, a chapter by
Judith Lowry on Lester’s
horticultural legacy, a
complete bibliography of
Lester’s writings by
Rosemary Foster, and an
updated species list by
Allison Green Kidder

42. The Bibliography of Lester’s Writings
If Lester kept a bibliography of her published
articles it was destroyed in the 1949 fire for her
family did not know of her prolific writings until
Rosemary Foster, a family friend and
horticulturalist, took on the task in 1983 as a
Senior Project for her degree at Cal Poly, San
Luis Obispo. The details of her work---as well as
a complete bibliography of over 700 articles---
are found in the 2006 expanded edition of
Hardy Californians.

43. The 1949 Fires
In 1949, when Lester was 70, a series of wildfires ravaged her life
by destroying her seed collections, the nursery house with its
hundreds of potted plants and seed bags, and, perhaps most
devastating, the writing studio that contained her field notes,
photographs, and several book manuscripts in progress.
Jim Roof described the aftermath “It (the studio) had all her
notes from the time she finished “Flowering Shrubs (in
1939)…and losing all of that really broke her up. She was never
the same again. She lost all the notes that she had made on the
ground in the Sierra”. Several years later, Lester was more
sanguine, saying only, “the fires were a great help in simplifying
my life”.

44. Lester’s Children’s Books
After the fire that destroyed the manuscripts
for several books on the plants and trees of
California, Lester found solace of sorts by
writing four children’s books during the 1950s:
1952, Ronnie
1953, Ronnie and Don
1955, Little Turkey
1959, Denny and the Indian Magic
All were published by Viking Press in New York,
and were illustrated by several different
freelance artists.
In these books Lester drew heavily upon
her field experiences for her characters,
landscapes, and animal lore. All of these books
have strong natural history themes as her
characters learn life lessons through their
interactions with nature.

45. With her usual modesty Lester considered her last book, Denny and the Indian
Magic, the “least bad of the four”. In that book young Denny is blinded by an
outdoor accident, then recovers his sight during a hospital stay during which he is
kept company and healed by visitations from wild animals. Lester drafted this
book when she herself was hospitalized after an accident that left her
temporarily blinded.

46. Lester’s Photography
Lester illustrated her lectures, books, and articles
with her own photos of native plants, taken with
a large format camera mounted on a tripod.
Within the family we’ve wondered how she
learned her photographic skills. Several
possibilities come to mind

47. Ansel Adams
Although Lester became good friends
with Ansel Adams after he moved to
the Carmel Highlands in 1963, one
wonders if she had met him earlier in
the 1930s, perhaps in the Sierra, and
learned from Adams large format
photography.

48. Edward Weston
Another possibility is
that Lester learned
photography from
Edward Weston, a
neighbor in the Carmel
Highlands from 1929 on,
and owner of a camera
shop in Carmel where
receipts tell us Lester
had her film developed
and prints made.

49. Imogene
Cunningham
In the 1920s when she
was living in San
Francisco, Imogene
Cunningham developed
an interest in flowers and
learned more about
plants from Jimmy West,
a mutual friend at the UC
Botanical Garden.
However, Lester never
mentioned that the two
had met previously when
Cunningham came to
Carmel in the early 1970s
to photograph Lester for
a book about elderly
people.
.

50. Lester’s Later (and last) Years

51. Lester turned 80 in 1959 and continued her active life of fieldwork, travel,
lecturing, and writing until she lost her driver’s license 1968, a year before her
90th birthday. This was a devastating blow to her independent life for no longer
could she move about as she pleased. Instead, she had to depend on others to do
her shopping in town or drive her to field sites. A silver lining for her two
grandsons is they learned much about native plants while driving Lester about the
California countryside.
The photo below is of Lester giving a talk at UC Davis in 1968.

52. Winters in Joshua Tree National Monument
From the late 1950s until Lester lost her driver’s license in 1968, she would load up her
Jeep Station Wagon with gear and spend much of the California winter doing fieldwork
and writing in or near the Joshua Tree National Monument. Often she’d work out of a
house owned by a friend in Twenty Nine Palms that backed up to the Monument border.
Often Lester would hike out the backdoor and into the park, commonly spending much of
the day in the desert landscape. In these two photos Nancy St Clair visits with Lester in
the desert.

53. Honorary President of CNPS
The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) was formed in 1965, initially as an
organization to protect the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley’s Tilden Park,
then, later that year once the Garden’s future was assured, CNPS broadened its goals
to study, inventory, and protect native plants throughout the state.
Because of her long involvement with California native plants, Lester was named
the new organization’s Honorary President, a position she held until her death in
January 1979.
Lester was also honored by the American Horticultural Society in 1971 and the
California Horticultural Society in 1974.

54. In 1978 the Regional Oral History Office of UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library
started a project on Lester’s life, interviewing her, the family, and many
others including a wide array of native plan botanists and horticulturalists.
Rosemary Levenson was the project director and major interviewer. The
resulting volume and film, Lester Rowntree, California Native Plan Woman,
appeared in 1979, several months after Lester’s death.
Unfortunately, the film portion of the project was done just after Lester
had a minor stroke that impaired her speech, consequently she does not
come across particularly well in the film.
(An online version of the Lester Rowntree oral history can be accessed
from the address on the Internet Resources slide. First, however, one must
click on an “agree” statement from ROHO. A bit confusing, true, yet
eventually one will get to the Rowntree project)

55. A Four Generation Rowntree
Home
Lester’s house---referred to simply
as “The Hill”--- was not only her
home, nursery, and garden, but over
the decades became the locus for
the whole Rowntree family, a place
she shared graciously with four
generations. This was where her son
and daughter-in-law lived while
caring for Lester in her later years; a
place where grandchildren were
always welcome, where they
married and birthed great-
grandchildren; where family and
friends always found joy and
renewal.

56. Lester with Great-Grandchildren
As mentioned, Lester’s home on the hills above the Pacific was a
favorite gathering place for the Rowntree family, not just for visits but
for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, even birthing. On the left
Lester holds a young Jenny Rowntree in 1962; on the right she cradles
Erika Rowntree who was born in 1965 a few days earlier in the
Highlands house. In 1980, Timmy Nash was also born in her house

57. Lester’s Final Days
Several weeks before her 100th
birthday Lester’s health
deteriorated to the point where
she had to be moved off her
beloved hill to a Carmel hospice.
Despite her poor health, Lester
hung on until her 100th birthday,
knowing, we think, that she would
receive a telegram of
congratulations from Queen
Elizabeth of England. When we
read her the telegram (Lester’s
eyesight had failed), she asked
that it be read once again, which
we did. Lester’s only response---
and her last words--- was an
emphatic “There!”. She passed 5
days later.

58. Articles About Lester Rowntree (1)
• Barker, Philip A. “A Visit with Lester Rowntree.” American
Horticultural Magazine 44. No 1 (January 1965): 32-35
• Begg, Virginia Lopez. “As Thrilling as Any Western
Romance.” Pacific Horticulture 55, no 2 (1994): 16-18.
• Brandt, Cora R. “Lester Rowntree: Denizen of the
Mountains.” Journal of the California Horticultural Society
14. No 1 (January 1955): 8-17.
• Crane, Marion. Gardens in America. New York: Macmillan.
1932
• Donlon, Rosemary. “Lester Rowntree.” Manzanita (Summer
1988): 8-9.
• Dutton, Joan Parry. Enjoying America’s Gardens. New York:
Reynal. 1958.

59. Articles About Lester Rowntree (2)
• Hamann, Skee. “Lester Rowntree, Mountain Mystic.” Journal
of the California Horticultural Society 35, no 2 (1974): 73-76
• --------- “The Seed Collector.” The Countryman (Summer 1974):
160-162
• --------- “The Wildflower Lover at Ninety-Seven.” Fremontia 3,
no 4 (January 1976): 3-8
• Ingram, Marie. “Lester Rowntree (1879-1979). Part One: The
Peripatetic Gilbert White.” Hortus 8, no 3 (1994): 2-81.
• -------- “Lester Rowntree (1879-1979). Part Two: Sanctuary---
Conserving the Worthwhile.” Hortus 8, no 4 (1994): 81-96.
• -------- “Lester Rowntree (1879-1979). Part Three: A Sprit of
Keen Joy.” Hortus 9, no 1 (1995) 69-87.
• -------- “Lester Rowntree (1879-1979). Part Three: A Sprit of
Keen Joy.” Hortus 9, no 1 (1995) 69-87.

60. Articles About Lester Rowntree (3)
• Levenson, Rosemary. Lester Rowntree: California Native Plant
Woman. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library,
University of California. 1979. 344 pages
• Lowry, Judith L. “Lester Rowntree’s Horticultural Legacy.”
Hardy Californians: A Woman’s Life with Native Plants. New,
Expanded Edition. Lester B. Rowntree, editor. University of
California Press. 2006. xlvii-lxxiv
• -------- “Supreme Advocate for California Native Plants: Lester
Rowntree.” The Landscaping Ideas of Jays. University of
California Press. 2007. 78-91.
• O’Conner, Natalie G. “Plantsmen in Profile. XI: Lester
Rowntree.” Baileya. 11, no. 2 (June 1963): 53.

61. Articles About Lester Rowntree (4)
• O’Grady, Sean. “Lester Rowntree: Vernacular Natural
Historian”. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and
Environment. Spring 1993/ v 1 no 1, pp 97-105
• Pearce, F. Owen. “Lester Rowntree.” Bulletin of the Alpine
Rock Garden Society 35, no 1 (Winter 1980): 13-19.
• Rowntree, Lester B. and Rowan A. Rowntree. “About
Lester.” Hardy Californians: A Woman’s Life with Native
Plants. New, Expanded Edition. University of California
Press. Lester B. Rowntree, editor. 2006. xv-xlvi
• Woolfenden, John. “Lester Rowntree.” Journal of the
California Horticultural Society 29, no.4 (October 1968):
98-126.

62. Internet Resources (1)
California State Library
March 2013 Women’s History Calendar
Lester Rowntree: Field Botanist, Horticulturalist
http://www.library.ca.gov/calhist/calendar4.html
David Douglas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Douglas
Lester Rowntree, California Native Plant Woman
Regional Oral History Office
University of California, Berkeley
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/cgi-
bin/roho_disclaimer_cgi.pl?target=http://www.archive.org/details/nativepl
antwomen00lestrich

63. Internet Resources (2)
Lester Rowntree
http://www.lesrowntree.com/
Lester Rowntree Native Plant Garden
http://www.flandersfoundation.org/historymtnp.htm
University of California Press. Hardy Californians (2006)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=97805202505
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