Margaret Warriner Buck

Buck was born Margaret Warriner in New York, New York, in 1857.^[1] She studied art at Yale Art School before moving to San Francisco in 1891. She gained a reputation as a botanical artist and specialist in depicting California wildflowers.^[2] In the 1890s, she and writer Mary Elizabeth Parsons hiked around California with an eye to publishing a book about California flora. The result was the very successful The Wild Flowers of California: Their Names, Haunts, and Habits (1897), written by Parsons with over 100 illustrations engraved from Buck's pen-and-ink drawings.^[3][4] It went through many printings and several editions and was still being reprinted into the 1950s.^[5][6]

After the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, she worked for Sunset magazine.^[2] She died in San Rafael, California, in 1929.^[7]