Lemmon, Sarah Plummer (1836–1923)
Lemmon, Sarah Plummer (1836–1923)
American botanist . Born Sarah Plummer in New Gloucester, Maine, in 1836; died in Stockton, California, in 1923; attended the Female College, Worcester, Massachusetts; attended Cooper Union, New York City; married John Gill Lemmon (a botanist), in 1880 (died 1909).
Sarah Plummer was born in New Gloucester, Maine, in 1836. She was a hospital nurse during the Civil War, after which she moved to California. Her interest in plants began with her marriage in 1880 to botanist John Gill Lemmon, and she developed into a noted collector and painter. A series of 80 sketches of flowers she made in the field won a prize at the World's Exposition in New Orleans in 1884–85, and she also created a series of watercolor paintings of flora found on the Pacific slope. She is credited with several scientific papers, and contributed occasionally to her husband's works. A new genus of plants that she discovered in 1882 was later named Plummera floribunda in her honor.