WALLACE, William Allen

WALLACE, William Allen (1815-1893) was born in Pembroke, New Hampshire, and moved with his family to Canaan, New Hampshire, in 1817. In 1850, he went to California, where he worked as a gold miner, schoolteacher, and newspaper editor. He was editor and proprietor of the Los Angeles Star during 1853-1856, and in 1857 became a correspondent for San Francisco's Daily Alta California, reporting on travels in the West and from Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. Wallace settled in Canaan in 1865, where he conducted research for a town history, published posthumously in 1910.

Wallace collected plants in the Los Angeles area in 1854. Solanum wallacei, also known as Wallace's nightshade, Catalina nightshade, Northern island nightshade, or Wild Tomato, is a perennial plant that produces purple flowers, but otherwise resembles a tomato plant. The foliage and purple-black berries are poisonous. This rare plant is native to canyons and hillsides on two of the Channel Islands of California, as well as Guadalupe Island off Baja California. It blooms in April and May.

Eriophyllum wallacei, the woolly daisy, is also named for him, among others.

Millspaugh & Nuttall (Flora of Santa Catalina Island, 1924) note that Wallace collected on Santa Catalina Island about 1854. His specimens were sent to Dr. Gray and are now in Gray Herbarium, Harvard.

Island Collections~

Santa Catalina Island

in about 1854