Desert Botanical Garden

2020 Eloise Payne Luquer Medal

For exceptional achievement in botanical research, education, exhibition and conservation of desert plants of the world, with special emphasis on the Sonoran Desert.

Proposed by: Arizona Columbine Garden Club, Zone XII

The Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), founded in 1937, pursues its mission to research, conserve, exhibit, and educate people about plants from arid areas around the world, especially the plants of the Sonoran Desert. With 25,000 plants and over 4,000 species, the DBG engages in world-class botanical work, collaborating with the Center for Plant Conservation, by maintaining a National Collection of Endangered Plants, including 58 imperiled species, an Herbarium with 83,000 specimens, and a seed bank with frozen seed and pollen. Annually, over 700,000 visitors experience the beauty of desert plants and, through robust educational programs, learn about the environment, natural history, horticulture, gardening, and landscaping.

The Eloise Payne Luquer Medal is awarded for special achievement in the field of botany that may include medical research, the fine arts, or education. The interpretation of the award is to be elastic and imaginative.

Eloise Payne Luquer (1862–1947) was a founder of the Bedford Garden Club, Zone III, GCA Conservation Committee chair (1929–36), and 1936 recipient of the GCA’s Achievement Medal. Eloise was a botanist, naturalist, lecturer, and wildflower painter. Her wide-ranging interests encompassed work with the District Nursing Association of Northwestern Westchester County, the establishment of the Trailside Nature Museum and nature trails at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, and teaching gardening at the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills. The medal was designed in 1949 by sculptor Chester Beach and endowed by Bedford Garden Club in memory of their distinguished member.

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