Price’s plant collections were not only an inspiration to her art, they served an important scientific purpose. Dried plant specimens are used by botanists to categorize and name plants, and are used to verify species new to science. She discovered several new species of plants, five of which bear her name: an aster (Aster priceae), Price’s ground nut (Apios priceana), a dogwood (Cornus priceae), a wood sorrel (Oxalis priceana) and a violet (Viola priceana).

Just as Sadie Price was achieving notoriety in the field of botany, she died suddenly of dysentery in July of 1903 at the age of 54. Her sister Mary took on the effort of assembling and submitting Price’s final works for publication, and for the distribution of her specimens and artwork.  Dr. William Trelease, the first Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, purchased the plant specimens “2912 sheets of which 965 are sketches, largely in color,” for a modest fee. Mary Price tried in vain to find a buyer for another 250 of her sister’s paintings and eventually gave them to Missouri Botanical Garden in 1908. Over the years Mary Price assembled a detailed scrapbook of her sister’s work, including in the end obituarties from local papers and scientific journals. In one tribute Reverend Frank Thomas effuses “She was a true high-priestess of nature, a vestal Virgin lifting reverently the rustling veil which God is weaving to screen His face from mortal eyes.”