The Dunlap Cactus Collection at Lotusland
Merritt Sigsbee Dunlap began collecting cactus in 1929 after a road trip to Coachella when he was student at UCLA. One can only speculate how long it must have taken to get from Westwood to Palm Springs in the 1920s, and what prompted him to make this journey was not mentioned in any of the sources I found. The internet was not particularly fertile when it came to Mr Dunlap, but I eventually was able to stitch together some background thanks to the LA Times and Pacific Horticulture. Dunlap met Madame Ganna Walska in 1941 when he was stationed in Santa Barbara as an army engineer. They were both collectors and I would suppose paths of collectors crossed back in the 40's much like they do today. He served in WW2, lived in Glendale post war with a career in municipal engineering and at some point in the 70's moved himself and his cactus collection to the avocado belt town of Fallbrook in North San Diego County. In the 1960's he expressed his intent to bequeath his col