The Forgotten History of the Golden Poppy's Biggest Champion
For 117 years, the Golden Poppy has been California’s state flower. It's hard to miss the golden-orange cloak draping over the mountainside in California’s springtime, indicative of the gold-filled history of the Golden State. But the battle to establish the poppy as the state flower spans a decade of ignorance, political debate, and dismissal—a complicated and forgotten story, much like the woman accredited with securing the Golden Poppy as California’s state flower.
Sara Allen Plummer was born in New Gloucester, Maine, on September 3, 1836. Over her life, she was an art teacher, botanist, Civil War nurse, author, and pioneer. In 1870, she arrived in Santa Barbara seeking a warmer climate. Plummer knew that her health was dependent on escaping the bitter cold of the northeastern winters, and she decided to make the difficult decision to move across the country to California, where she didn’t know a single soul. She arrived in San Francisco before making the move down to Santa Barbara, which at the time had a population of only 3,000.
While in Santa Barbara, Plummer noticed the remarkable natural beauty of the landscape and became passionate about Western botany. She began studying and illustrating her botanical discoveries and was commonly found hiking out to ravines in Santa Barbara to discover new specimens. When she met her to-be husband, J.G. Lemmon, in 1876, they began an intimate correspondence on Californian botany, writing to one another on new discoveries they had found in the field. Together, the two became renowned self-taught pioneer botanists and married on Thanksgiving Day in 1880, becoming “botanical comrades” under the eye of the law.
Photo by F.H. Bushnell | Public Domain
Lemmon, previously Plummer, is attributed to discovering 110 species, roughly three percent, of all known species of California’s vascular plants and has two plants named directly after her, baccharis plummerae and plummera floribunda. Lemmon and her husband had two of the genera they discovered named after them, Lemmonia and Plummera, one of the highest botanical honors to be bestowed. She also provided scientific illustrations for her husband’s books— illustrations that were so revered that she was the first woman allowed to speak to the California Academy of Science.
Such reverence would diminish, and despite her successes in botany, Lemmon is only listed by name as co-author for one of her husband’s books, and she was only referred to as “J.G. Lemmon and Wife” in the accreditation of all his other works. The only book she is listed as a direct author for is an account of the history of the Pacific Slope of the Red Cross, titled “A Record of the Red Cross Work on the Pacific Slope: Including California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho with Their Auxiliaries.”
The remarkable beauty and accuracy of Lemmon’s floral depictions led to a more public acknowledgement that nature should be respected and preserved. At the 1893 World’s Fair, Lemmon delivered a lecture on the necessities of forest conservation, which reignited conversations about the country's growing need for a national and state flower. These flowers were meant to represent the unique beauty of each state, and Lemmon’s lecture roused the audience and popularized the movement so much that state flowers began to be regarded as “equal importance with that of the selection of a National Flag.” Growing pride for individual states, coupled with the different botanical environments among states, ultimately led to the creation of the National Floral Emblem Society in 1893.
At its inception, the campaign for state flowers was spearheaded by women, and women continued to oversee and guide what became an increasingly complicated and laborious process. Among many ambitions, the society’s intention was to encourage the study of flora of the U.S. and institute a national floral festival day, upon which all states would come together to showcase a united statehood through the display of each state flower. Such plans encouraged sentiments about the unity of the nation that also appreciated the individuality of each state and, as the Los Angeles Herald remarked, “that shall symbolize our highest national thought and deepest understanding of the spirit of our institutions - referring to our past, yet holding us to a more glorious future.”
“All around California, the Golden Poppy grows wild, beaming up at the sky with its satin-like petals and stored-up sunshine, radiating through its deep, golden-orange hue. Its glow serves as a reminder that it is thanks to Lemmon that the Golden Poppy has secured a permanent place in Californian history.”
In 1890, the California State Floral Society put three flowers up for candidacy to become California's state flower, and on December 12th of 1890, the Golden Poppy won overwhelmingly. Lemmon, who was appointed chairwoman of the California State Committee of the National Floral Emblem Society, was then tasked with what became an increasingly frustrating and arduous endeavor of persuading the California Legislature to legalize the Golden Poppy as California's state flower.
It wasn’t until 1895 that Lemmon finally succeeded in getting the first poppy bill introduced to the floor of the State Senate. She had spent the time lecturing “from one end of California to the other,” on the subject of the poppy bill to California residents, writing, “In each assembly addressed, without exception, the expression was unanimously in favor of legalizing by the Legislature the Eschscholzia [Golden Poppy] as the State floral emblem.”
The poppy bill passed almost unanimously, bringing hope to the California State Assembly that the poppy was as valued and prized as they had believed. But time slowly passed, and a confusing quiet descended. The bill, as later discovered, had been intentionally left to expire on Governor James Budd’s desk, rendering its contents null. Lemmon writes that Budd’s omission in signing the bill “stemmed from personal political reasons” while Budd claimed that he intended to sign the poppy bill but had merely overlooked it. Yet many believe that the bill was amongst the many that were pocketed by Budd due to improper governmental procedure as well as an attempt in cutting state costs.
Lemmon was undeterred by the unjust event and wrote of her promise in Emory Evans Smith’s book “The Golden Poppy” that the bill would be introduced again and again “until a Governor is found who is broad enough to bury his petty animosities in the interest of the people whose servant he is, and who has good sense enough to encourage innocent sentiment and patriotism.”
Lemmon waited until Budd’s term was finally over and then rallied the State Committee to propose another poppy bill in 1899, hoping that newly elected California Governor Henry Gage would behave differently. But Lemmon quickly learned that Gage shared the same sentiments as Budd, only with more transparency. His veto of the bill was again a decision tied to political and personal reasons. Gage stated, “I do not think the adoption of a state flower is a proper subject for legislation” and The Stockton Record reported that they “more than half suspect that Governor Gage is somewhat imbued with locality prejudice and is partial to the cactus of the southland.”
When Gage’s governmental term finally expired in 1903, Lemmon pushed the poppy bill once more, and at long last, the fourth and final poppy bill was passed, with a nearly unanimous vote of 28 to 1. This prevailing, decade-long fight for the state flower convinced newly elected Governor George Pardee to finally sign and approve the bill (Senate Bill No. 251) in 1903.
Photo taken by and courtesy of Stephanie Cher
Walking into the Senate's chamber on March 2, 1903, Senator Smith of Los Angeles and Assemblyman Bliss of Alameda, the two congressmen who introduced Senate Bill 251, placed a heap of poppies on the desk of the presiding officer of the Senate. Over this massive pile of poppies, Governor Pardee’s message was read: “I have the honor to inform your honorable body that I have approved Senate Bill No. 251—An Act to select and adopt the ‘Golden Poppy’ as the State Flower of California.”
Cheers erupted in the chamber, and Lemmon was escorted to a prominent chair beside the presiding officers at the Senate and was asked to give a speech on her “energetic work” of the past decade. She spoke briefly and humbly, reiterating the hard-earned battle in the poppy’s designation of state flower. After a decade-long fight, Lemmon’s job as California’s representative in the Society was finally complete.
As time has passed, however, her vital contributions to this momentous event and her pioneering botanical work would fade from public knowledge. Lemmon would eventually become a forgotten figure in science and botany.
After her speech, Lemmon was presented with a gold-mounted eagle’s quill—the same quill Gov. Pardee used to sign his name to the bill. Assemblyman Bliss concluded the session with a poem titled “California’s Cup of Gold” from poet Joaquin Miller, a California eccentric who was inspired by gazing at the Golden Poppy:
The Golden Poppy is God’s gold,
The gold that lifts, nor weighs us down,
The gold that knows no miser’s hold
The gold that banks not in the town,
But singing, laughing, freely spills
Its hoard far up the happy hills;
Far up, far down, at every turn,—
What beggar has not gold to burn!
The Golden Poppy’s place as California’s state flower rests on the talent and incredible determination of Sara Plummer Lemmon. Her botanical passion and steadfastness in the face of legislative roadblocks and dismissal shows that like the Golden Poppy, she too has a rich, layered, and forgotten history. All around California, the Golden Poppy grows wild, beaming up at the sky with its satin-like petals and stored-up sunshine, radiating through its deep, golden-orange hue. Its glow serves as a reminder that it is thanks to Lemmon that the Golden Poppy has secured a permanent place in Californian history.
Further Reading
A Record of the Red Cross Work on the Pacific Slope: Including California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho with Their Auxiliaries by Sara Plummer Lemmon
Image credit: Photo taken by and courtesy of Stephanie Cher
