arnoldiaVolume 51 Number 3 Fall 1991

Arnoldia (ISBN 004-2633; USPS 866-100) is publishedquarterly, m winter, sprmg, summer, and fall, by theArnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Second-classpostage paid at Boston, Massachusetts.

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Arnoldia is set in Trump Mediaeval typeface andprinted by the Office of the University Publisher,Harvard University.

Copyright @ 1991, The President and Fellows ofHarvard College.

Page2 Lady into Landscape Gardener-Beatrix

Farrand’s Early Years at the ArnoldArboretumJane Brown

11 Why Study Mistletoes?Elizabeth A. Kellogg

18 The Sweet Pepperbush: A SummerSensationMichael A. Dirr

22 The Harvard Garden in Cuba-A BriefHistoryMarion D. Cahan

32 Correction: Ginkgo biloba

Front and back covers: The lotus pond at the Harvardtropical garden, Cienfuegos, Cuba, featuring thetraveler’s palm, Ravenala madagascanensis. Photofrom August, 1935.

Inside front cover: Sassafras albidum at the ArnoldArboretum. Photo by Racz and Debreczy.

Inside back cover: The striking foliage of Morus alba’Venosa’ growing at the Arnold Arboretum. Photo byRacz and Debreczy.

Lady into Landscape Gardener: Beatrix Farrand’sEarly Years at the Arnold Arboretum

Jane Brown

One of America’s great landscape gardeners, Beatrix Farrand was deeplyinfluenced by Professor C. S. Sargent, the Arboretum’s first director.

For the whole of her long and successfulcareer, Beatrix Farrand was consistently andloyally appreciative of the place she regardedas her alma mater, the Arnold Arboretum.Her gratitude and affection shine through herpublic writings, from a piece she called "TheDebt of Landscape Art to a Museum of Trees"for the Architectural Record of November1918/ to her pieces for Arnoldia in 1949,describing her work on the azalea border andher layout plan for Peters Hill.2 Her friendshipwith Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, heradored "Chief," who had taught her "byprecept and example," was maintained untilthe end of his life in 1927; and after that, sheconducted a lengthy and vigorous correspon-dence with Alfred Rehder and Karl Sax, andespecially with William Henry Judd, theArboretum’s English propagator, who died in1946. Judd, who had first come to the Arnoldin 1913, was her closest contact after Sargent’sdeath, and there was a rather sad irony in thatArnoldia of May 31, 1946,3 announced hissudden death from a heart attack at the sametime it made public Beatrix’s appointment asconsultant landscape architect. Beatrix’s lastsurviving letters on Arboretum matters-she

refers to herself as "the old lady" whose mindworks very slowly-are dated in the spring of1953, just six years before her death.This well-documented relationship of her

later years will be the subject of a futureArnoldia article, but for the moment, I wouldlike to concentrate upon how it all began. Formy forthcoming book on Beatrix Farrand’s lifeand work, I have had to piece together muchmore elusive evidence on how she came to

study at the Arnold in the 1890s and what shedid there. She left no diaries or letters of that

time, and her references to it were persistentlyvague, even to the drafting of what amountedto her own obituary, for the Reef Point Bulle-tin, where she mentioned "a fortunate meet-ing" (one of many in her life) with Mrs.Charles Sargent and how the Professorbecame interested in her love of plants. Shethen became "the grateful guest" of the Sar-gents, at which time the facilities of theArboretum were thrown open to her. Thus, asshe also wrote, her life was changed; it mostcertainly was, for chance and circumstanceshad brought her into the realm of perhaps theonly person, in the only place, where the res-trictions imposed by her native society could

A portrait photo of Beatrix Cadwalader Jones at her debut, circa 1890, the year she first met the Sargents. Reprintedcourtesy of the College of Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley.

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be overcome, and she could be launched intothe world of men as an independent profes-sional woman.

Family ConnectionsBeatrix Jones was born into a rigid society ofold-money New York in the 1870s, where itwas decreed that a lady’s name only appearedin print to announce her engagement and herdeath. She was an only child, born on 19 June1872, something over two years after the mar-riage of her parents, Frederic RhinelanderJones and Mary Cadwalader Rawle. Her father(who had a young sister who would grow upto be the novelist Edith Wharton) was rich,fun-loving, and purposeless; her mother waslively, bookish, and used to the company ofscholarly Philadelphia lawyers and soldiers inthe society from which she came. Mary hadprobably married in haste, and she and Freddysoon discovered their deep incompatibilities,so that by the time Beatrix was ten her fatherwas virtually absent from her life.

Beatrix was highly intelligent and well edu-cated ; she grew up to be a handsome younglady, of elegant bearing, always beautifullyturned out, but with an awesome brisknessof manner. This was probably a self-protectivedevice, a result of her fatherlessness. She wassurrounded by her mother’s friends, a

predominantly female society with a sprin-kling of eminent men, including John LaFarge, John Singer Sargent, Francis MarionCrawford, and later Henry James, as well asMary’s dour and fastidious cousin, the lawyerJohn Lambert Cadwalader. But of almostequal influence as any person on Beatrix(except for her mother) was the place she lovedmost, Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor inparticular, where she spent her summers.Beatrix explored every inch of the island, shewas an expert on its trees and wildflowers, andshe sailed her catboat around its rocky shores.At her home, "Reef Point" in Bar Harbor, shelearned to garden with a sympathy for thesoils and conditions of the island. She learnedfrom her parents at first, but as Mary Cad-

walader Jones became busy with other things,Beatrix took control of the garden and wasprobably in charge of its progress by the timeshe was fifteen or sixteen.

A Suitable Profession

Given her passion for the Maine landscapeand gardening, it seems likely that John Lam-bert Cadwalader suggested that she shouldstudy the subject seriously; he could well havebeen prompted by his friend MarianaGriswold van Rensselaer’s timely approval oflandscape gardening as a career for ladies.But the key to her decision was, as Beatrix

wrote, her "fortunate meeting" with Mary Sar-gent. Beatrix was immediately attracted byMrs. Sargent’s skill in botanical illustration;she was nearing completion of her set ofwatercolors of the flowers, leaves, and fruit ofeach tree represented in Professor Sargent’scollection of the woods of America. In herturn, Mary Sargent probably enjoyed Beatrix’senthusiastic and knowledgeable chatter aboutplants, which was in a lighter vein than thehigh-flown table talk of the Professor and hisacademic friends. Anyway, Beatrix Jones4 wassoon swept up into the comfortable and capa-cious milieu of the Sargents’ house, Holm Lea,where apparently the Professor too

appreciated her interest in plants. Her goodlooks and elegance were not wasted upon Sar-gent, but of course she in turn was quite usedto distinguished gentlemen, and would nothave been shy or daunted by his stem gaze andthe aloofness of his Boston soul.

By the summer of 1893, the Sargents wereconvinced of the seriousness of Beatrix’sinterest in landscape gardening. Beatrix andher mother Mary had visited Holm Lea enroute from New York to Maine (this becamea regular habit in later years) in June when therhododendrons were at their best. The Sar-gents may have visited them at Reef Point(this too became a regular event in later years),but the Professor had most certainlyinstructed Beatrix to make the most of hersummer, to use her eyes, to observe good land-

5

The pond at Professor Sargent’s estate, Holm Lea, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Photographed in 1900 byThomas Marr.

scape effects and plant relationships and notethem down. Her summer flew by, as happyholidays are wont to do, but towards the endof September she remembered that sheneeded something to show her "Chief," andbought a brand-new notebook. This wasalmost certainly not her first, but it was theonly one she kept as a treasured reminder ofwhat were to be some of the most momen-tous days of her young life.

Observing the LandscapeThe notebook begins on 10 October 1983 withher comments on the landscape around BarHarbor; one of her favorite haunts is the Dorrfamily’s Oldfarm at Compass Harbor, where

she finds many good planting ideas, but sheis noticeably critical of exotics on her islandsetting, including Mrs. Dorr’s "unfortunate"weakness for magnolias. Her last holidayentries are made on the train as she leaves forBoston to meet up with the Sargents, who hadpromised to take her to the World’s Colom-bian Exposition in Chicago, to see thewonders of the fair, but especially the triumphof Olmsted’s landscape setting. After a shortrest at Holm Lea, Beatrix and the Sargents arebound for Chicago, where they arrive onOctober 19.

For a week she wandered around the Expo-sition, investigating details of design andplanting, and noting them down; she was mys-

6

An aerial view of Beatrix Farrand’s home, Reef Point, m Bar Hurbur, Maine. Repnnted courtesy of the Collegeof Environmental Design Documents Collection, University of California, Berkeley.

tified by the first Japanese bonsai that she saw,but entranced by the mix of gardens and con-trived wilderness on Olmsted’s preciouswooded island. Being at the fair under the Sar-gents’ wing taught Beatrix a great deal, but italso brought her into the inner circle of herchosen profession. She was no longer on theoutside, but having met so many people andheard so many conversations on the hard-wontriumph of the fair, she became one of the"few" who realized, as Sargent had thunderedin Garden and Forest "that the harmony ofthe scene and the perfection and convenienceof the whole scheme of arrangement were dueto the genius of one man, Frederick LawOlmsted."5

Beatrix returned to New York to continueher reading, but her future was decided andmust have been talked about; the followingFebruary (1894) she and her mother were inthe Sargents’ party to visit Biltmore, whichcaused Olmsted to remark rather grumpilythat she was "inclined to dabble in LandscapeArchitecture."6 This much-quoted slight re-veals the depths of the difficulties Beatrix hadto overcome, and just how important Sargent’sfaith in her was to her eventual success.Olmsted was on the summit of his fame, yetconscious of his failing energies; he had apunishing schedule of travels that spring of1894, and was obsessed with the "exceptional"education of his son, Frederick, Jr., who, on

7

the point of graduating from Harvard, wasbeing fitted to be his heir. No man, withOlmsted’s almost messianic fervor, could lookkindly on a society lady who dared to dabblein his precious profession. But, on Beatrix’sside, was it not hard for her that her contem-poraries, her equals in so many ways, CharlesEliot, Henry Sargent Codman, and FrederickOlmsted, Jr., should be pampered, eased, andushered through the surveying and field work,the European travels, and the office experiencenecessary to becoming a landscape architect?She had to do it all on her own. It was thisimbalance that made Sargent’s encourage-ment crucial. He was kindly, he had that Brah-min tendency to give a serious-mindedwoman encouragement, and just perhaps, sheappeared at the right moment, with herbrightness and enthusiasm, to fill the gap leftby the death of his former protege, Henry Sar-gent Codman, in early 1893.

Beatrix probably never knew of Olmsted’sslight, but the situation was clear enough; itwas to affect her life greatly, as well as herlater relationship with the American Societyof Landscape Architects. She refused to callherself a landscape architect, always preferringthe term gardener.

After the trip to Biltmore in February 1894,she returned to Holm Lea in the summer forwhat was to be her longest stay; she studiedat the Arboretum and was ushered aroundBrookline by Sargent (including a visit to H.H. Hunnewell at Wellesley, and he was

impressed by her knowledge and manner). OnJune 5, she faced up to her Waterloo, takinga chance to visit Olmsted’s office (in hisabsence). She was allowed a thorough lookaround the shrine she could never enter

professionally. Her notes were detailed: "Theentrance is quite charming, a lych gatecovered with Euonymus radicans, both theplain and variegated, and quite bushy on top.The road goes around a tiny island withshrubs planted on a high mound and com-pletely shutting out the gate. To the right theground has been dug away making a littledell..." Her description goes on, and has

gathered interest with time, for the entranceto 99 Warren Street is still much the same asshe saw it. She describes the planting aroundthe house, noting some "badly arranged"shrubs and the clashing azalea flowers inbluish pink and bright orange.But she was really interested in the Olmsted

office, and she was allowed to see every aspectof the work, as her detailed notes reveal. Shewas shown, perhaps by the affable JohnCharles Olmsted, how design layouts andareas for planting were sketched on tracingpaper over the site surveys, and how plantingplans were made by reference to a card index,which gave size, shape, availability, andrequired growing conditions for each plant.The plants were keyed into the design by anumber. All she saw was of vital interest to

Beatrix, and she carried all the ideas andmethods away with her for future reference.On the following Sunday, June 10, 1894,

Professor Sargent drove her to the Arboretum;she took this in her stride since for her to havea private tutorial was almost certainly not aunique occasion, but it is the only excursionshe recorded in detail:

On the way we stopped and looked at Mr. Parkman’scollection of shrubs. It was awfully dreary-houseand grounds taken by the Park Commission, housebeing torn down [Parkman had died the previousyear]. Only a year ago the grounds were under culti-vation and now they look as if they had been desertedfor years, paths overgrown, and long grass springingup everywhere. St. Brunds lily in full bloom-Azaleacalendulacea still fine too, Magnolia macrophyllanot flowering yet-the largest in the neighborhood.Aruncus spirea in bed quite handsome althd a lit-tle coarse ... Jamaica Pond is lovely-or at least musthave been lovely before the Parkway took it-Mr S.is trying to make the Commission give up the planfor the road along the shore in one of the loveliestspots.

In the Arboretum itself a great deal of work hasbeen done, especially behind the building [the Hun-newell laboratory was completed m 1892] where theMagnolias are to begin.

Beatrix noted Magnolia parviflora [= M.sieboldii) in bloom, though only a small bush,and Magnolia glauca (= M. virginiana), per-fumed almost like a rose. Professor Sargent led

8

An 1894 photograph of F. L. Olmsted’s Brookline home and office, Fairstead. Beatiix Farrand visited Fairsteadon June 5 of that year. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service.

her on to the roses-Rosa spinosissima inbloom and also R. nitida, R. lucida, R. setigeiamultiflora, and the Austrian briar were allnoted for future use. Other shrubs that caughther eye were the hydrangeas, stewartia, Vibur-num molle, and V dentatum in bloom andFothergilla gardenii, just beginning to fruit.

Sargent must have insisted-if Beatrixneeded any bidding-that she attend J. G.Jack’s dendrology lectures, which he gave thatJune; and being Beatrix, she would have madethe most of every chance to learn from thatremarkable character, the chief propagator andArboretum superintendent, Jackson Dawson.Dawson, a jovial, good-natured Yorkshireman,resplendent each morning in a fresh boiledwhite shirt (on which he invariably wiped hisplant labels), knew everyone who had any bus-iness among his precious plants in the Arbore-

turn. Beatrix would have found him animmensely attractive personality, always will-ing to answer her questions and explain whathe was doing. It seems likely that her laterfriendship with Chief Propagator Judd wasfounded on her earlier good relationship withJackson Dawson.

If Beatrix had acquired a foundation of goodplant knowledge from her visits to Holm Leaand the Arboretum, especially in that sum-mer of 1894, she still needed to learn in otherways. In the autumn she made arrangementsfor private courses in technical drawing andsurveying from the teachers at Columbia’sfledgling School of Architecture, and shemade plans for her very necessary Europeanstudy tour.This first important tour lasted for six

months, from March until October of 1895;

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she and her mother traveled alone (except fortheir lady’s maid) but met old and new friendsin many places, including Teddy and EdithWharton. Beatrix wrote that Sargent exhortedher "to see all the gardens she could, and learnfrom all the great arts as all art is akin." Hegave her introductions to the Jardin d’Essai inAlgiers, where she studied subtropical plants,and to the Rovelli brothers who had a collec-tion of azaleas and rhododendrons near Milan.Charles Eliot was also very helpful, with goodadvice on parks and gardens he had seen inParis and Berlin, giving her as well an

introduction to the "very kindly" Carl Bolleand his marvelous garden of trees on an islandin the Tegel. Sargent may well have paved theway for her to meet the reigning triumvirateof English gardeners, William Robinson, Ger-trude Jekyll and Theresa Earle, which she did,all in one week in July.Olmsted’s advice to William Platt had

included his opinion that the "fine and costly"Italian gardens had less to offer the younglandscape architect than the carefullyobserved details of the everyday landscape andcommon places. Beatrix, attuned by Holm Leadinner-table conversations to the sensitivitiesof formal versus natural landscape tastes,adopted right from this start her carefullyjudged position along the middle way, thatwas to mark the whole of her career. She sawover twenty villa gardens in Italy, as well asthe great formal gardens of Germany, France,and England, but it is interesting to note thather first contribution to Garden and Forest

(and her first published piece of writing)7 wason the merits of a vernacular stone bridge shehad seen in the English Lake District. (Shedesigned very similar bridges for the woodlandat Dumbarton Oaks over thirty years after-wards.) She pursued further egalitarianinterests in city parks on her return, and itwas her ideas for these that brought her to thenotice of Samuel Parsons and eventually theembryonic American Society of LandscapeArchitects.

In the April 7, 1897, issue of Garden andForest, she wrote about a paper that the land-

Portrait of Jackson Dawson, chief propagator at theArnold Arboretum, and a good friend of BeatrixFarrand. Photograph from the Arnold ArboretumArchmes.

scape gardener Henry Ernest Milner had deli-vered in London on "The Garden in Relationto the House;’ which was really concernedwith the architect in relation to the landscapegardener. By this time also, Professor Sargenthad delighted her by finding her a little job,which she described as to do "some tree thin-ning and remodel a little planting on a gardenslope." By the following autumn, when shegave her first professional interview to theNew York Sun (October 31, 1897), she couldspeak with a breezy, though conscientiousconfidence of her work-draining a 25-acreswamp, clearing a 40-acre forest plot in BarHarbor and transforming it "into a pleasinggrove," laying out a cemetery at Seal Harbor,as well as more garden work in Bar Harbor andthe landscaping of the entrance to TuxedoPark in New York State-these last two jobs

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The bridge over the River Kent at Levens Hall, from Garden and Forest, 1896 (vol. 9, no. 25). In her first publishedarticle, Beatnx Jones described the bridge this way: "The simple lines and quiet color of this ivy-draped bridgein Westmoreland are what make it satisfying to the eye and an added charm to the stream; it is made fromthe stone of the country, and the native plants grow about it as familiarly as though it were a boulder playfullydeposited there by nature m the ice age."

being current. The Sun reporter noted her longbox full of plans, the three hundred books onher subject, and asked if landscape gardeningwas profitable, and could a young womanafford to marry on it? Beatrix laughed as shereplied that "she did not think a young womandedicated to her profession could afford tomarry at all."Miss Jones, "twenty-five years old and

comely" was well on her way, to a full andbusy life and a professional reputation for finework that was truly deserved. Beatrix, whosehonesty was one of her most engaging fea-tures, never ever forgot that she owed so muchto that "kindliest of autocrats,"8 her "Chief’Charles Sprague Sargent and his generouslyhelping her over so many of the professionalhurdles that time and society placed in herway. Probably we shall never now know thefull extent of his kindnesses. And, of course,

he also opened up for her his living textbookof shrubs and trees, her professional stock intrade.

Endnotes

Vol. 44 (5). 407.2 Arnoldia 9 (2): 6-7, Vol. 9 (9)- 38-43.3 Vol. 6 (4): 5.4 Beatrix married Max Farrand in 1913.5 May 3, 1893, editorial.6 Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Biography of FrederickLaw Olmsted, John Hopkms, 1973, p. 455.

7 Garden and Forest, January 15, 1896.8 E. H. Wilson, quoted m A Reunion of Trees, by S. A.Spongberg, Harvard U. Press, 1990.

Jane Brown studied landscape design, but, as she says,"happily diverted to writing." She is a prolific writer onthe subject of garden history and design, and is currentlyworking on a biography of Beatrix Farrand, from whichthe above article is extracted.

Why Study Mistletoes?

Elizabeth A. Kellogg

This unlikely plant group provides insight into the purposes and processes ofbasic research.

If athletes get athlete’s foot, what do astro-nauts get! Yup, you guessed it-mistletoe.

I am getting to an age when I am pleasedthat I can remember anything I learned in thefourth grade, even if it’s just a joke. For-

tunately, I have some reason to remember theastronaut one fairly frequently as I continuework on the genus Phoradendron, the largestgenus of mistletoes in the Western

Hemisphere. It is a group of plants that so fewpeople know about that I feel compelled towrite this article in self-defense, not only toexplain what mistletoes are (they are oftenbeautiful plants) but also to explain what I amdoing with them and a bit about why I amdoing it.The most familiar mistletoe, of course, is

the waxy little plant that is hung in strategicplaces at Christmas time. In this country thespecies is Phoradendron leucarpum, a U.S.native; most plants sold commercially comefrom New Mexico and Oklahoma (Howardand Wood, 1955). Its European counterpart isViscum album, a plant that figures in Norsemythology and later was endowed with mag-ical properties by the Druids.

All mistletoes are parasites on woodyplants. Like most other plants, they have greenleaves and manufacture their own food, butunlike other plants, they have no roots;instead they form a complex absorptive organcalled a haustorium that penetrates the vas-cular system of their host, absorbing water

and nutrients. Thus they grow right into thetree trunk or branch, unlike other epiphytes,such as orchids and tropical ferns, that merelyperch. Mistletoes have fleshy fruits with alayer of sticky mucilage surrounding the seed.The fruits are generally bird-dispersed. Afterthe seed has passed through the bird’s gut, themucilage allows it to stick firmly to a branchwhere it will then germinate and form a newhaustorium.

Taxonomy of a Little-Known FamilyThe mistletoes are sometimes grouped in asingle family, the Loranthaceae, but theloranths are more often divided into severaldifferent families (Loranthaceae, Viscaceae,Eremolepidaceae, and Misodendraceae)because of major differences in floral form andpossibly of evolutionary history; Loranthaceaeand Viscaceae together comprise by far themajority of the species. The Loranthaceae, inits most narrow sense, includes mistletoesmostly with large, strikingly colored, bird-pollinated flowers and equally showy fruits.The mistletoes that I study, however, are inthe Viscaceae, in which the major genera areViscum, Phoradendron, and Dendrophthora,all bearing tiny, inelegant flowers with threeor four sepals and no petals at all. Alsoincluded here are dwarf mistletoes, the genusArceuthobium, a serious pest in timber treesin the western United States. As the hausto-rium of these dwarf mistletoes penetrates thewood, it causes strange deformations and

12 .

Vicium album, the legendary mistletoe of Europe. In North America, species in the genus Phoradendron are usedas substitutes for this plant at Christmas time. From The Biology of Parasitic Flowering Plants by Job Kuijt,University of California Press, 1969.

excessive branching, which effectively ruinsthat portion of the tree for lumber.

Despite the lack of showy flowers, Vis-caceae are frequently beautiful when alive.Their leaves are thick and glossy, often a yel-lowish green that contrasts with the surround-ing trees. The plants have white, red, or orangeberries that stand out against the leafy stems.

When the plants are collected, pressed, anddried, however, they become something onlya taxonomist could love-and only a few tax-onomists at that. The glossy foliage becomesdull and turns dark brown; the berries shriveland lose their color; the flowers solidify. Moreannoying, the jointed stems tend to break atthe nodes, so the leaves and inflorescences fall

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off. All herbarium specimens are accompa-nied by an envelope of fallen leaves, brokenstems, and inflorescences; in fact, with somespecimens, nothing is glued to the herbariumsheet at all-everything is stuffed into theenvelope.A Personal Encounter

I began studying mistletoes seven years agowhile I was working with Dr. Richard

Howard, former director of the Arboretum, onhis Flora of the Lesser Antilles. At that timehe asked me to prepare descriptions and keysfor the Loranthaceae and Viscaceae of the area

(Kellogg, 1987a, b). Writing up most generawas straightforward because I could refer tothe work of Dr. Job Kuijt (now at the Univer-sity of Victoria, Victoria, B. C.), who has spenthis career studying the natural history, tax-onomy, and biology of parasitic plants (forexample, see Kuijt, 1961, 1966). Possibly theonly group Job has tried to avoid is the genusPhoradendron. As I began working on it, Icould see why.The problems with Phoradendron are

several: First, there are between 100 and 150species, primarily in Central and SouthAmerica, with many of these extending intothe Caribbean region. Second, leaf shapewithin a single species is very variable, mak-ing it hard to tell if two dissimilar plants mayreally be representatives of the same species.Third, and most important, the botanist Wil-liam Trelease worked on the genus; in 1916he published a massive volume on its tax-onomy (Trelease, 1916). Trelease, like manybotanists around the turn of the century, hadwhat is called "a narrow species concept." Thismeans that virtually any variation, no mat-ter how subtle, was assumed to represent adifferent species and thus to require a newname. If the slightly different plant occurredin a different place, all the more reason toname it. Thus, for example, Phoradendronpiperoides is a South American species, andthe name had also been used for similar plantsin the Caribbean. Trelease, however, felt thatsome of the Caribbean plants had a distinc-

Phoradendron guatemalense Kuiit. Reprinted fromProc. Kon. Ned. Akad. v. Wetensch. Vol. 93, no. 2,p. 146 (1990).

tive leaf shape, which meant they should geta new name so he called them P. ficulneum.My task in studying the Caribbean Phoraden-drons was to link up these names and to deter-mine if Trelease’s distinctions held up. Insome cases they did, but in others, like P.

piperoideslficulneum, there seemed no reasonto think that the two were different species;hence all are now grouped under the name P.piperoides.An aid in this sort of detective work is the

requirement that all botanists designate a typespecimen when they describe a new species.Thus when Trelease gave the name Phoraden-

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dron ficulneum to a group of plants, he noteda particular specimen as being a representa-tive of that name. The specimen happens tohave been collected by E. L. Ekman in Haitiand a duplicate (isotype) is in the herbariumat Kew. When I went to Kew to see the speci-men (among others), it was easy to see thatit could be included in P. piperoides.

I also discovered that Trelease occasionallyused the same type specimen for two differ-ent species names, that is, he named the samething twice, perhaps an easy mistake to makewhen you consider how many names heproduced in his lifetime. Once I determinedwhat had happened, I could correct it, withthe earliest name taking precedence. Theresults of this work were presented in aregional monograph, or revision (Kellogg andHoward, 1986).

The Job Gets BiggerSome time after I had finished the Caribbeanwork, I was asked by the late Dr. Julian Steyer-mark, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, towrite keys to the species of Phoradendron forhis Flora of the Venezuelan Guyana, theeastern part of Venezuela that includes thetepuis. Job Kuijt was working on Den-

drophthora, the closest relative of Phoraden-dron, as well as all the other Venezuelanmistletoes, but Phoradendron required a

major independent commitment of time. Fur-thermore, the nature of the work in Phoraden-dron demands a big herbarium with a

comprehensive library, such as the HarvardUniversity Herbaria, one of only a few insti-tutions where this sort of study can be easilydone.

In undertaking the project, I have had tobecome familiar with the South Americanmembers of the genus and have begun toproduce a full monograph, which will quitelikely be completed by Job, including all thenames (wrong ones linked with the right -ones), complete species descriptions, and listsof representative specimens. I have nearlyfinished the Venezuelan species, and from thelong monographic manuscript I have extracted

the necessary information for Steyermark’sflora (now being completed under the editor-ship of Dr. Paul Berry). In the process of doingthis flora, we have found what appear to beseveral new species-ones without any namesat all, Trelease notwithstanding. This is notsurprising for a plant that grows on rain foresttrees: the trees themselves are often poorlyknown, and plants growing in their uppermostbranches are even more unlikely to have beenfound.

My study of Phoradendron is in many waysa typical piece of systematic work, the kindof study undertaken by research botanists atthe Arnold Arboretum since its establish-ment. In this large genus, new species are rou-tinely found by plant collectors; the existingtaxonomic literature is large and somewhat

Phoradendron molinae Kuijt. Reprinted from Ann.Missouri Bot. Gard. Vol. 74, p. 520 (1987).

15

confused. The approach I take is illustrativeof the analytical nature of taxonomy: thespecimens are first grouped into sets of plantsthat look alike; they are quite literally put intopiles of matching plants. This is the mosttime-consuming part of the process, and thestage at which most of the analysis takesplace. It requires solving dozens of smallerproblems along the way: for example, if leafshape varies among some of the plants, doesthis mean that they belong in separate stacksof specimens (that is, represent separate spe-cies), or does it just mean that shape changesin response to light or moisture conditions?Or, as another example, if one plant is whollymale and another wholly female, do theyreally belong together, or have I found themale of one species and the female of another?Once I am happy with the contents of each

stack of specimens, I write a formal speciesdescription. Only then can the appropriatename be determined-by working out whichtype specimens fall into each stack. Finally,an identification key can be constructed.Traditionally, all this is solitary work; thePhoradendron study is somewhat unusual inthat it requires close collaboration with Job.Although he is studying the sister genus toPhoradendron, the two groups are so similarthat we sometimes make mistakes and end upwith each other’s specimens.

What Is Basic Research?

But all of the foregoing begs the question, Sowhat? How do I justify days and weeks spentwriting descriptions and keys of an obscuretropical plant? The answer lies in part in thenature of basic research: basic, as opposed toapplied, research is work with no immediateapplication. It increases the store of humanknowledge on the assumption that theincrease is a good thing in itself, and will leadto future application. Consider, for instance,the work of Gregor Mendel, whose experi-ments and results are studied and memorizedby every beginning student of biology. Men-del was an Austrian monk who, in the mid-nineteenth century, did a series of experi-

The mucilaginous fruits of Phoradendron trinervium.Photographed in Montserrat by R. A. Howard.

ments on garden peas, experiments that formthe basis of the modem science of genetics.Mendel crossed plants that produced smoothyellow peas with those that produced wrin-kled green peas and counted the number ofsmooth and wrinkled yellow and green peasin the resulting offspring. He was able to showthat each characteristic was controlled by asingle inherited factor that we would now calla gene. But we can be sure that he didn’t knowthat his work would form the basis for suchdiverse applications as plant breeding, animalproduction, and understanding of such herita-ble diseases as hemophilia and cystic fibrosis.This is typical of basic research-its

immediate value is negligible and its ultimate

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Tbby Kellogg collecting a mistletoe in the genus Amyema in Australia in 1988.

17

value cannot possibly be assessed. The workitself seems arcane, even silly at times; some-how counting smooth and wrinkled peas doesnot fit with an image of "serious" scholarship.Yet that work has profoundly affected our livesover a century later.There are currently many questions about

the relationship of basic research to societytoday: how much scientific effort should bedirected to basic, rather than applied,research? To what extent should the generalpublic foot the bill? How should somethingwithout obvious application be evaluated?These are not easy questions, particularly intimes when public money is in short supply.

The Desire to Know

But there is a more immediate and personalquestion, and that is, How does an individualmotivate herself for such work? I don’t get paidto do it, and even those who are paid willnever become wealthy, so money is hardly theanswer. There is a large element of deferredgratification, in some respects like teaching,in that a teacher will probably never reallyknow the sort of impact she has had on herstudents. Similarly, I may never know thevalue (if any) of my work on Phoradendron.

Certainly any taxonomic study of a tropi-cal plant group can be justified by the rapiddestruction of the rain forest. We need toknow what grows there before it is goneforever; we need to know areas of greatestdiversity to set priorities for what to preserve.And there is the argument that many, manymedicines were originally extracted fromplants. The National Cancer Institute con-tinues to fund plant collection in order toscreen plants for anticarcinogens; some of thiswork is currently being done by Dr. JohnBurley at the Arboretum. Similarly, the Pacificyew, Taxus brevifolia, has been used effec-tively in treating some forms of ovariancancer. This application has generated interestin other species of the genus, which in turnrequires that someone has already completedthe basic work describing what species thereare and how to tell them apart.

But I would never work on Phoradendronif the sole incentive were the possibility thatsomeday someone would find a use for it. Themotivation is much more immediate and fun-damental, what the poet Robinson Jefferscalled "the curious desire for knowing." It issomething as human as the desire to createa symphony or a song, or a sculpture or a story.It is the desire to solve a puzzle that explainspart of the world. The truth is Phoradendronis fun.Which brings me back to the fourth grade.

Remember how clever you felt when youthought you’d learned a secret? I now knowa lot about some very curious plants-I knowa secret now. And the next most fun part ofsecrets, of course, is telling them to yourfriends.

References

Howard, R. A., and C. E. Wood. 1955. Christmas plantsin the Boston area. Arnoldia 15: 61-84.

Kellogg, E. A., and R. A. Howard. 1986. A revision of theWest Indian species of Phoradendron (Vis-caceae). Jour Arnold Arbor. 67: 65-107.

Kellogg, E. A., and R. A. Howard. 1988 Loranthaceae. InVol. 4, Flora of the Lesser Antilles, R. A. Howard(ed.). Jamaica Plain, Mass.: Arnold Arboretum,pp. 97-101.

Kellogg, E. A., and R. A. Howard. 1988. Viscaceae. In Vol.4, Flora of the Lesser Antilles, R. A. Howard(ed.). Jamaica Plain, Mass.: Arnold Arboretum,pp. 102-114.

Kuijt,.J. 1961. A revision of Dendrophthora (Loranthaceae).Wentia 6: 1-145.

Kui]t, J. 1969. The Biology of Parasitic Flowering Plants.Berkeley: U. Calif. Press.

Trelease, W. 1916. The genus Phoradendron. Urbana: U.Illinois.

AcknowledgmentsThanks to L. Pierce and J. Kuijt for their helpful com-ments on the manuscript.

Elizabeth Kellogg earned her Ph.D. in biology from Har-vard m 1983, and is an Associate of the Arnold Arboretum.

Sweet Pepperbush: A Summer Sensation

Michael A. Dirr

Native to the wetlands of much of eastern North America, Clethra alnifoliais now spreading into the cultivated landscape.

My olfactory senses have often been inun-dated by the sweet floral perfume of the seem-ingly ubiquitous sweet pepperbush thatoccurs along water edges and moist areasthroughout its Maine to Florida range. WhileClethra alnifolia’s landscape worthiness hasnever been exploited by gardeners and nurs-eries, new and resurrected cultivars of the spe-cies are currently stimulating interest.Gardeners are pleading for flowering shrubsout of synchronization with the April-Maybonanza. Clethra typically flowers in July andAugust, and it is obvious from observingnative populations that selections for a con-tinuum of flowering times could be made.The delightful sweet floral fragrance from

which the plant derives its common name isamong the best in the shrub world. Theindividual five-petaled, white flowers are 8millimeters in diameter and occur in racemes5 to 15 centimeters long (2 to 6 inches) and2 centimeters wide (0.75 inches). The fruit isa dry, dehiscent, five-valved capsule that per-sists into winter.The lustrous medium to dark green leaves

are 3 to 10 centimeters long (1 to 4 inches) andsharply serrate. In the fall the leaves developa lovely golden to yellow color that ages to agolden brown. The fall foliage, like that ofFothergilla and Calycanthus, is quite long-lasting, due in part to its resistance to damagefrom freezing temperatures.The growth habit of this late-summer-

blooming shrub is distinctly rounded to broad-

rounded because of its suckering, colonizingnature. Size is extremely variable with aheight of 2 to 3 meters (6 to 9 feet) occurringmost commonly. However, at the Howe Estatein Newport, Rhode Island, I stared in disbeliefat a six-meter-tall (18 feet) specimen and mut-tered repeatedly, "It’s not supposed to growthis large."

In the Arnold Arboretum’s extensive collec-tions, Clethra alni folia is represented byseventeen different accessions, with #23139-A(a compact, densely branched, heavily flo-wered colony of unknown origin) measuring2.5 meters high (8 feet), 12 meters wide (36feet), and 13 meters long (40 feet). Remarka-bly it is prospering in the shade and root com-petition of two large shagbark hickories(Carya ovata).

PropagationClethra is easily propagated from seeds thatrequire no preconditioning and can be sownas soon as ripe. Softwood cuttings root read-ily with or without a hormone treatment, buta five-second dip in an aqueous solution of1000-ppm KIBA is an inexpensive insurance.Jack Alexander, chief propagator at theArboretum, and I conducted a media rootingstudy utilizing Clethra alni folia as the testplant. Rooting was 94% in a peat and perlitemix, 83% in perlite, 78% in peat, and 56%in sand or sand/perlite. Clethra is one of thefew plants in which cuttings continue to growwhile under mist.

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A large colony of Clethra alnifolia, Accession #23139-A, growmg at the Arnold Arboretum. Of unknown age,the colony is now 2.5 meters high, 12 meters wide, and 13 meters long. Photo by Racz and Debreczy.

The cultural adaptability of Clethra alnifo-lia is phenomenal, and I have observed thriv-ing specimens throughout the upper Midwest,New England, and south into Georgia. Thespecies adapts to wet and dry sites as well asto a variety of soil pH’s. The dry New England

summer of 1991 exposed many shrubs, suchas weigela, deutzia, philadelphus and hydran-gea, as less than drought tolerant. Sweet pep-perbush, however, showed no signs of droughtstress. But mites can be a problem when con-ditions are extremely hot and dry.

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With the new and resurrected cultivars,Clethra can find a home in any landscape.Mass plantings along waterways and shadyareas are always effective. Use the pink-flowered or compact forms in shrub and peren-nial borders. I used the pink form as a foun-dation plant in my Georgia garden and havepruned it back once in thirteen years. Since

flowers develop on the new growth of the sea-son, late winter or early spring pruning isrecommended.

Cultivar List

’Anne Bidwell’ was grown by Mrs. JohnBidwell, of Cotuit, Massachusetts, from, C.alnifolia seed purchased through F. W.

The inflorescences of Clethra alnifolia, Accession #23139-A. Photograph by Rdcz and Debreczy.

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Schumacher of Sandwich, Massachusetts.The habit is more restrained (4 to 6 feet high)than the species, but the genuine differenceresides in the large, multibranched, almostfluffy, flower panicles that are 10 to 15 cen-timeters long (4 to 6 inches) and 8 to 12centimeters wide (3 to 5 inches). In Mas-sachusetts the flowers open two to threeweeks later than those of the species. Thisclone is currently being propagated and willsoon be released through the Arnold Arbore-tum’s Plant Introduction Program. Anannouncement of its availability will appearin a forthcoming issue of Arnoldia.

’Compacta’ (’Nana’) was given to me by Mr.Vincent Simeone, an undergraduate at theUniversity of Georgia, who obtained it froma friend on Long Island. It is more compactthan the species and will probably maturebetween 1 and 1.5 meters tall (3 to 4 feet).Leaves and flowers, to date, are smaller thanthose typically found in the species.

’Creel’s Calico’ is, as of this writing, anunreleased selection with beautiful variegatedfoliage. The leaves emerge with cream varie-gation that is primarily speckled but withsome solid areas on some leaves. In transitionthe leaves are bright green with creamy varie-gation ; in maturity, they are black green withpure white variegation. The leaves are largeand average 10 centimeters long (4 inches).The original plant was a stoloniferous colonyabout one meter high (3 feet). To myknowledge, this is the first variegated cloneof the species. In shady environments, a massplanting would provide eye-catching color.

’Hummingbird’ is the current haute coutureof plant fashion. Its compact habit (1 to 1.5meters), in conjunction with normal-sizedleaves, flowers, and fruits, is this cultivar’sprincipal asset. Plants will be wider than highat maturity. Random measurements of twelve

inflorescences produced a range from 7 to 19centimeters (2.75 to 6.25 inches) with an aver-age length of 10 centimeters (4 inches). AtSwarthmore College, ’Hummingbird’ is usedas an effective ground cover. I am extremelypositive about the landscape possibilities ofthis selection. Fred Galle of Hamilton, Geor-gia, is responsible for bringing this plant intocultivation.

’Paniculata’ supposedly represents a clonewith multibranched inflorescences. What cur-rently poses in the trade for ’Paniculata’ isdoubtful and certainly no better than whatcan be found in many wild populations. I sur-veyed several native populations on Cape Codand found everything from the singleunbranched raceme type to many clones withthe multibranched racemose-panicle.

’Pink Spires’ and ’Rosea’ (forma rosea) arepink-flowered forms with the wonderfulfragrance of the species. Although ’Rosea’ isdescribed as pink fading to pinkish white,plants in my Georgia garden maintain thepink coloration until senescence. Supposedly,’Pink Spires’ remains uniformly pink through-out the flowering cycle. I examined bothclones at the Arnold and saw no difference incolor. ’Rosea’ was introduced in 1906, and itis possible that ’Pink Spires’ is simply arename. Both clones are vigorous growers, eas-ily reaching 2 to 3 meters (6 to 9 feet). Theleaves are lustrous dark green, perhaps severaldegrees darker than the white-flowered types.Inflorescences average 7 to 9 centimeters (3to 3.5 inches), and the buds are deep rose-pinkwhile the open flowers are lighter pink. Inboth of these clones, the peak flowering periodis about a week later than the species.

Michael Dirr is a Professor of Horticulture at the Univer-sity of Georgia m Athens and recently concluded a sab-batical leave as a Putnam Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum.

The Harvard Garden in Cuba-A Brief History

Marion D. Cahan

Begun in 1899, the Atkins Garden became a model for the development ofmany later tropical botanical gardens.

The Harvard garden in Cuba was Harvard’s vir-tually unknown jewel. Few people, other thanthose actively involved in the study of tropi-cal plants, have ever been aware of its exis-tence. While the garden was primarily devotedto the improvement of sugar cane for commer-cial purposes, it was also the site of researchin other areas of tropical agriculture andbotany. The unique blend of economic real-ity and academic vision that characterized thegarden produced farsighted results that sub-sequently served as a model for the develop-ment of tropical botanical gardens in othercountries.As a center for tropical plant research and

sugar cane investigation, the Harvard BotanicStation was established on the Atkins sugarestate at Soledad, Cienfuegos, Cuba, in thesummer of 1899 at a conference attended bybusinessman Edwin F. Atkins and ProfessorsOakes Ames and George L. Goodale, both ofHarvard University. This meeting initiatedthe development of what was to become oneof the richest tropical gardens in the world.Without the vision of the those who were sodeeply involved in its conception and

implementation, this institution would prob-ably not have been created.

The Inception of the GardenAs a businessman, Edwin Atkins wasinterested in increasing the profits from hissugar cane operation. He had previously con-sulted Edward Wilson, then Secretary of

Agriculture, to seek his opinion about expand-ing the sugar cane industry in Cuba. Wilsondiscouraged him, believing that the climateof Cuba was not suitable for the enterprise,and warned against spending large sums ofmoney on a wholly doubtful venture. Atkins’sresponse at the time was, "When one lawyergives me advice that I do not like, I go toanother lawyer," and so he consulted Profes-sor George Goodale of Harvard for his opin-ion, who in turn consulted his colleague,Professor Oakes Ames of the botany depart-ment. Both Goodale and Ames supportedAtkins’s proposal with enthusiasm, and his-tory eventually proved Atkins right about thesuitability of Cuba for expanded sugar canecultivation.As a result of that first meeting in Cuba in

1899, Edwin Atkins gave Harvard Universitya gift of $2,500, of which $2,000 was to beused for a traveling fellowship in economicbotany. The recipient of this fund was to visitcertain stations in the far eastern and westerntropics where experiments on the improve-ment of economically important plants, par-ticularly sugar cane, were in progress.

In these early days, there was no officialconnection between the Botanical Garden ofHarvard University and the garden in Cuba-the latter being Mr. Atkins’s personalproperty-nor was there an endowment orland to which the university had title. Thecooperative efforts of Atkins and Harvard tofurther research and development in the field

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Enterolobium cyclocarpum (Legummosae) growing in the Harvard tropical garden in Cienfuegos. The tree is 50feet tall with a spread of 100 feet. Photographed in 1928 by Alfred Rehder.

of tropical botany served their mutual benefit.The first superintendent, Robert M. Grey, waspaid by the Atkins fund, chiefly for servicesrendered in the development of sugar cane.Both Ames and Goodale were optimistic andkeenly interested in establishing a biologicalinstitute in Cuba. Goodale, whose primaryinterest was zoology, "adopted" the garden onhis own authority. At a later date, ProfessorAmes was appointed its first official director.

Early HistoryThe history of the garden is inextricablylinked to the history of Cuba. Shortly after thediscovery of the island by Europeans, thenative American Indians were either killed ordied as a result of introduced diseases. The

island became a colony of Spain, and slaveswere eventually brought in from Africa towork the fields that were created by cuttingdown the indigenous forest. While the islandwas initially populated by the descendents ofthese slaves and by immigrants from Spain,many other nationalities settled in Cuba,including an influx of North Americanbusinessmen in the mid-1800s.The town of Cienfuegos, located on the

western side of Cuba, was founded in 1819 asa result of the development of sugar lands byTrinidadian families who had come to theisland with their slaves for that purpose. Even-

tually the area became one of the most eco-nomically important parts of the island. AnAmerican, Elisha F. Atkins, had established

24 ’

A panoramic view of the palm collection at the Harvard tropical garden. Photograph by E. G. Stillman, 1941.

A vista of the Harvard tropical garden. Photograph by E. G. Stillman, 1941.

25

26

Hura crepitans (Euphorbiaceae) growing in front of the Harvard house at the Harvard tropical garden in Cienfuegos.Photographed in 1928 by Al fred Rehder.

a sugar business in Cuba in 1838, heading thefirm called E. Atkins & Co. Initially he hadstarted a banking commission business forCuban sugar producers, advancing money onsugar crops and molasses to be shipped to theUnited States. Through purchases and fore-closure proceedings, the Atkins Companyeventually acquired many sugar estates,including Soledad, the most important onedeveloped prior to 1850.When Elisha Atkins first came to Cien-

fuegos, practically all the sugar business wasin the hands of Spanish merchants. This sit-uation changed during the 1870s when beetsugar produced in Europe first provided seri-ous competition to cane sugar. To counteractthis situation, Elisha’s son Edwin expandedhis father’s commission business to includethe actual cultivation and production of sugar.

At the age of sixteen, Edwin had left thefamily home in Boston on January 24, 1866,and had sailed from New York to take chargeof his father’s business interests in Cien-

fuegos. Initially a receiving clerk, within twoyears he was given responsibility for the

management of the business, his father hav-ing assumed the vice presidency of the UnionPacific Railroad, a post he held until his deathin 1882.The year 1882 marked the beginning of the

Atkins sugar-producing business in Cuba.Soledad, the primary plantation, which con-sisted of 4,500 acres of beautiful land isolatedby hills and mountains, was taken over byAtkins by foreclosure in 1884. With Edwinassuming active supervision, the mill wasready for production within a year with alabor force comprised of Africans and

27

Chinese. He gradually acquired more landand, within twenty-five years, had one of themost modern and progressively managedsugar estates on the island.

In 1892, Edwin took over another large plan-tation in the city of Trinidad on a long-termlease and became president of the TrinidadSugar Company, eventually acquiring manyadjacent sugar estates. The success of theseventures attracted a large colony of Americansto the area.

In 1894, general political unrest spreadthroughout Cuba, due primarily to Spain’sincreasingly repressive presence on the island.Serious problems existed in the form of lowproduction, unemployment, theft, hunger,and poverty. Because of these persistentdifficulties, Atkins kept plantation employ-ment at a low level. Fostered by American bus-iness interests, there was a growing sentimentin the United States to encourage the indepen-dence of Cuba. The island was still underSpanish military rule in 1896 when Atkinslobbied Washington to protect Americanproperties. The political tensions ultimatelyled to the Spanish-American War, which Spainlost-along with Cuba, her last colony. A briefAmerican occupation of the island followedthe conclusion of the war, and in 1898 theUnited States recognized the independence ofCuba.

The Growth of the Garden

The original Atkins fund, established in 1899,was to be used to support the garden afterEdwin’s death. In 1901, the Harvard BotanicStation for research and sugar cane investiga-tion was formally inaugurated, situated in thearea called Colonia Limones, a barren but pic-turesque site.

Robert M. Grey, a renowned horticulturistemployed by Professor Ames, was commis-sioned to visit Soledad in December 1900 toinvestigate the cane-flowering conditions andto locate a site for the new garden. He hadlived in the warm tropics of South Americaand was admirably qualified for this new taskin subtropical Cuba. In 1901, he was

appointed superintendent of the garden, withhis salary paid out of the Atkins fund. Histasks were to lay out trial beds for vegetablesand to produce new varieties of sugar cane byhybridizing different strains. The overall pur-pose of the project was to develop cane thatnot only was resistant to the fungal diseasesbut also had a higher sugar content. Perfect-ing his own techniques with great success,Grey remained in Cuba for over thirty years,maintaining a record of distinguished serviceuntil his retirement in 1936.

During the first few years, operations atCienfuegos were largely devoted to the sugarcane work; however, Grey also imported manyother plants and fruit trees from Florida forexperimentation, developing one of the largestcollections of tropical plants in the WesternHemisphere. An additional purpose of thegarden, beyond the study of sugar cane, wasto introduce as many different kinds of plantsas possible and to experiment with their cul-tivation. Letters from 1901 to 1902 sent toProfessor Ames by Hugo Bohnhof, an assistantto Mr. Grey, reported good results with let-tuce, tomatoes, cabbage, beans, cucumbers,and artichokes. In later years, experimentswith bananas, cocoa, coffee, and rubber provedsuccessful; however, cotton and tea crops werefailures.

In the early days of the garden, many of thebest-known tropical fruit trees were estab-lished on a trial basis. Citrus was one of theearly subjects of the research program;hundreds of hybrid mango seedlings wereproduced and tested. A choice collection ofornamental plants from Professor Ames’s con-servatories in North Easton, Massachusetts,were also sent to the garden in 1901, alongwith seeds and plants from the Harvard Botan-ical Garden in Cambridge.

Sugar BreedingBefore the inception of the garden, and dur-ing its early years, the principal variety ofsugar cane grown in Cuba, ’Cristalina,’ wasperforming badly because of a combination offactors, primarily fungal diseases, exhausted

28

soil, and climatic problems. A small collec-tion of newer cane varieties was immediatelyplanted, but these produced little or no

improvement over the older cultivars.Between 1902 and 1904, the first improvedcane seedlings were produced as a result of thesuccessful hybridization experimentsinitiated by Grey.During the cane breeding season of 1906-07,

320 clones, mostly hybrid seedlings producedby Grey, were retained for use in the cane-breeding program. Several varieties, superiorto ’Cristalina’ in size and sugar content, wereselected for large-scale commercial cultiva-tion. They proved drought resistant, diseasetolerant, and high yielding under a variety ofsoil types. The best all-round performer wasHarvard #12,029.

In 1908, experimental hybridizing betweenthe best varieties of these commercial canesand Japanese canes took place. Eventuallythese seedlings were crossed with Chineseand North Indian varieties, and they tooproved to be commercially successful.By 1912, at the second Cuban National

Exposition, the Atkins garden exhibited thirtydistinct varieties of the new Harvard seed-

lings. These plants had the distinction ofbeing the only canes of Cuban origin amongthe many others exhibited. Subsequently,cane breeding on other estates in Cuba wassuccessfully carried out.

Building the CollectionsBy 1903, the garden contained some 243genera and 400 species of plants. The grow-ing collection, constantly augmented byimported plants as well as native species fromdifferent parts of the island, necessitated theconstruction of a second greenhouse in 1907.Also in 1903, eighteen Cuban-grown banana

varieties were brought together to form a col-lection, which was still being maintained in1926. There were, in addition, a few speciesof cycads, a large palm collection, and a fineassemblage of bamboo and other grasses.Leading varieties of strawberries and theirhybrids were successfully cultivated for many

years. Grey also hybridized oranges, grapefruit,mangos, and many other fruit trees that flo-wered in the garden. But sedges, plantedexperimentally, grew so rapidly that they werea costly nuisance and were eventually eradi-cated. Forage legumes and grasses also gaveunsatisfactory results.

In 1908, experiments with flowering andornamental plants (northern annuals, herba-ceous perennials, bulbs, and roses) failedbecause of the hot, damp summer weatherand the prevalent fungal diseases. The rosecollection brought together in 1908 was dis-continued in 1925, at which time there wereabout seventy different varieties.On June 3, 1911, a forty-five minute cyclone

severely damaged or destroyed buildings, trees,and crops. Replanting was initiated immedi-ately and recovery was rapid. The followingyears were devoted to planting new speciesand increasing the garden area. By December31, 1925, the garden contained 144 families,629 genera, and 1358 species-exclusive ofnative species.

Stronger Ties with HarvardPleased with the sugar cane research andother developments at the garden, and by thistime deeply interested in the scientific

approach to tropical agriculture, Atkins, onDecember 9, 1919, gave $100,000 to perpetu-ate the project. From the beginning, the Har-vard Botanical Station in Cuba and Harvard

University had maintained a hazy relation-ship, as Atkins had never passed any land toHarvard and had paid only for the expensesof the garden.

In 1920, the connection between the gardenand Harvard was cemented by this large giftof money, and the garden became a recognizedpart of the university. Edwin Atkins died inCuba in 1926 at the age of seventy-four; hiswife continued the family interest in thegarden throughout her long life.

In 1924, the Harvard Biological Laboratorywas constructed at the garden, along with ahouse for the use of scientists who came to

study. Scholarships were available to Harvard

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students interested in tropical biology. A newsection of several acres was added to thegarden in the spring of 1929, devoted to thecultivation and preservation of native hard-woods and timber trees. Unfortunately, thisproject was short-lived; most of the trees weredestroyed when the land was cleared for canecultivation and other agricultural pursuits.

In 1932, administration of the HarvardExperimental Station in Cuba was transferredto the Arnold Arboretum and renamed TheAtkins Institution of the Arnold Arboretum,as voted by the Harvard Corporation; interestthen shifted from commercial crops to theplanting of tropical tree species imported fromFlorida, Jamaica, the East Indies, Australia,tropical Africa, and Central America.

In the following years, the collections grew,more land was purchased, and numerousresearchers came to the Atkins Institution topursue botanical field work. The garden

reached its zenith of beauty and diversity atthis time. The travel restrictions imposed dur-ing World War II, however, made it difficultfor botanists to travel to Cuba, and the num-ber of foreign visitors declined.

In 1946, the garden was divorced from theArnold Arboretum, and the name, once again,was changed-to the Atkins Garden andResearch Laboratory, with Dr. Arthur G.Kevorkian as the first resident director. His jobwas to convert the garden to a tropical agricul-tural research facility, concentrating on cropsspecifically adapted to the environmental con-ditions prevailing in Cuba. Dr. Kevorkianresigned in 1949, and Dr. Duncan Clement(Ph.D. Harvard ’48) became the new director.Under his aegis, the garden assumed greatersignificance as a scientific institute.The garden flourished during the ensuing

years, benefiting tropical research and hor-ticulture, and advancing the welfare of Cuba.

Some of the damage caused by a severe storm at an unknown date.

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Professor j. G. Tack, of the Arnold Arboretum staff, at work pressing specimens in the Harvard house laboratoryat the Harvard tropical garden in Cienfuegos. Photographed in 1928 by Alfred Rehder.

By 1957, the garden’s influence extended wellbeyond the confines of the island.

In 1958, Cuban society was disturbed bypolitical unrest, and by 1959, the Communistrevolution was in full progress. Initially thishad little effect on the garden, and work therecontinued as before. By 1961, however,increased uncertainties and difficulties causeda breakdown in the operation. Dr. Clementleft Cuba in January 1961, financial supportwas terminated by Harvard in August of thatyear, and all plant records were transferred toCambridge. Satisfactory operation of thegarden had become a casualty of the deteri-orating political situation.When diplomatic and consular relations

between the United States and Cuba termi-

nated, traveling to Cuba from the UnitedStates became very difficult, requiring a visafrom a third country such as Mexico, Canada,

or Jamaica. Those botanists who recognizedthe growing importance of tropical botany andwho had made use of the garden’s facilities felta tremendous loss. Harvard University’s oper-ation of the Cuban garden was suspendedindefinitely on September 1, 1961.

The Garden TbdayWith improved political conditions, it was

hoped that the Atkins Garden and ResearchLaboratory would be reactivated and wouldresume its former position in the Institute ofPlant Sciences at Harvard. To date, this hasnot come to pass, but the monies set aside tosupport the garden are still used to supportresearch in tropical botany through the AtkinsFellowships administered by Harvard.According to Dr. Duncan Clement, who

wrote to the author on February 9, 1991, fromPembroke Pines, Florida, the garden survives

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Oakes Ames2014 A Harvard Botanist

Oakes Ames and his critical role in the history of the Cuban garden’sdevelopment and its absorption into the Harvard administration.

Oakes Ames was an instructor in botany atHarvard from 1899 to 1909, and almost con-currently (from 1900 to 1910) was directorof the Harvard Botanical Garden in Cam-

bridge. A practical botanist, Ames had anextensive knowledge of plant growth andform. Shortly after he became director ofthe Arnold Arboretum, he interested Presi-dent Lowell in transferring the administra-tion of the Cuban garden to the ArnoldArboretum, and with the financial supportof Edwin F. Atkins, the garden in 1927became known as the Atkins Institution ofthe Arnold Arboretum. It had been Ames’swish to endow a professorship at the gardenand thus give it worldwide academic stat-ure, but this never occurred.

Although Oakes Ames was involved inthe development of a variety of economi-cally important plants at the Cuban garden,his prime interest was in orchids, which hecollected from many sources, includingCuba, and cultivated in his greenhouses inNorth Easton, Massachusetts. His estate,called Borderland, consisted of some twelvehundred acres and included a stone house

(completely fireproof for the protection ofhis books) over which still hangs a hugebronze and gold bell he purchased from thesugar estate at Limones, once used to callthe slaves to and from work. This tractof land and the imposing stone housewere transferred to the Commonwealth of

Massachusetts in 1971. Now called Border-land State Park, it is open to the public.Oakes Ames was a sensitive man with

the mind of a scholar and the soul of a poet.He was deeply disturbed "by holding inbondage one’s fellow man and driving himto and from work by the note of the dole-ful bell, a kettle drum aided by the sting-ing of the lash." It was this bell that he

brought back with him to hang over hishouse in North Easton, as if it were a sym-bol for him of the liberation of the slavesof Cuba.Ames fervently hoped that the garden

would be a thing of beauty in additionto its practical and scientific value. Heintroduced showy palms and other treesfor the purpose of enhancing the appear-ance of the garden for visitors. A letter,dated December 17, 1930, from ModestoMartinez to Thomas Barbour, who suc-ceeded Ames as director of the garden in1922, demonstrates how ably Amessucceeded:

The Garden is a Garden of Dreams, is a Paradise.Even the oriental trees and palms remmd the visi-tor of the biblical legend; I found, bordering apond, the bullrushes where Moses was found bythe Pharaoh’s daughter. One detail will give youan idea of how I felt m that Garden: I was for tenhours there, seeing every tree, every plant, everybush, without any food because I was so happyand I was learning so many things.

32

today as a tourist attraction. He noted thattwo tourist events involving the garden hadbeen mentioned in an article in El NuevoHerald (the Spanish language edition of theMiami Herald), excerpted from the Cubannewspaper Granma. These were, first, CubanAviacion has inaugurated a new weekly routefrom Toronto, Canada, to Cienfuegos, whichthe paper called the "third most importanttourist destination in Cuba"; and, second, theGerman cruise ship Miss Berlin includedCienfuegos in its itinerary between Key Westand Grand Cayman. Granma emphasized thattourists could enjoy the three four-star hotelsin the city, as well as other attractions, suchas the "Jardin Botanico."The most recent information on the garden

comes from Professor Duane Kolterman of thedepartment of botany at the University ofPuerto Rico. Writing in Harvard Magazine(July-August 1991), he notes that the gardenis administered by the Academia de Cienciasde Cuba: "It has a director, a small scientificstaff, and maintenance personnel. While theplant collections are in fine shape, the staffexpressed considerable interest in exchanginginformation and library materials withbotanists and horticulturists outside of Cuba."

References

Atkins, E. F. 1926. Sixty Years in Cuba. Reminiscences

of Edwin F. Atkms. Cambridge, Mass.: River-side Press, privately printed.

Barbour, T. 1943. Natural at Large. Boston: Little,Brown.

Barbour, T., and H. M. Robinson. 1940. Forty years ofSoledad. Scientific Monthly 51: 140-146.

Grey, R. M. 1927. Soledad Estate, Cienfuegos, Cuba. InReport of the Harvard Botanical Gardens.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press.

Popenoe, W. 1929. The Harvard botanic garden at Soledad.Harvard Graduate Magazine 37 (3): 281-285.

Primary Sources from the Harvard University Archives:

Records of the Atkins Garden and Research Laboratory,1898-1946; four containers. Subjects: Sl Ames,Oakes: S2 Barbour, Thomas; S3 Kevorkian,Arthui; S4 Atkms Institution of the ArnoldArboretum; S5 Botany-Cuba. Location: Har-vard Archives: UAV231.xxx

Letters and writings of Ames, Oakes (botany); two boxes.Contents: Letters to his family and autobi-ographical writings (MS), 1902-1949 This col-lection formed the basis for Pauline AmesPlimpton’s book about her father, Oakes Ames:Jottings of a Harvard Botanist (1979).

Marion Davis Cahan is a graduate of Radcliffe College,an architect, and presently a volunteer at the ArnoldArboretum. She would be delighted to hear from anyreaders who have visited the garden since the revolution.

CORRECTION: Ginkgo bilobaIn the article that appeared in the last issue of Arnoldia (vol. 51, no. 2, 1991) entitled "Ginkgosand People: A Thousand Years of Interaction," a sentence on page 10 reads, "The Ginkgotree is apparently mentioned in the oldest Chinese herbal, Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, datingfrom 2800 B.C. (Michel and Hosford, 1988)." According to Dr. S.-Y. Hu, a former staff memberof the Arnold Arboretum, "I have turned the pages of the three volumes of Shen Nong BenCao Jing (1854 edition) page by page and checked the entries item by item. Ginkgo is definitelynot in this publication."

Since Michel and Hosford do not cite any sources for their statement that Ginkgo ismentioned in Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, their statement must be considered as unfounded,particularly in light of the fact that no Chinese-speaking authors mention this reference.

NEWSFROM THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM

Plant Sale 1991

People listening to National Public Radio’s "All Things Consid-ered" on Friday morning, September 14, heard one of New England’sbest-kept secrets revealed when the Arnold Arboretum’s annual horti-cultural extravaganza was the featured weekend event selection.

The result? A larger than ever crowd (over 2,500 people),undeterred by cool weather and overcast skies, lined up for theirchance to acquire some of the unusual plants on sale in the CaseEstates barn. Meanwhile, the Arnold Arboretum Associates’ "straightsales" table recorded its first purchase at 7:30 a.m., a prelude to thefrenzied bidding in the later silent and rare plant auctions.

Members of the various participating plant groups-the Herb,Hosta, Iris, Rhododendron, and Bromeliad societies-joined togetherwith old and new Friends of the Arboretum to make this a special dayfor the New England "plant community." Almost $46,000 was raisedto support the work of the Arnold Arboretum, and our thanks go to

everyone who helped to make the event another memorable occasion.

Historic LandscapeMaintenance

Workshop

Despite the fury of HurricaneBob on the previous day,Tuesday, August 20 saw eighty-five managers and horticulturists

from historic sites across the

country-from California,Louisiana, Georgia, and theMidwest to Washington, NewYork, and New England-travelto the Arnold Arboretum for a

three day national workshop. Asthe first tangible result of thenew cooperative agreementbetween the Arnold Arboretum

and the National Park Service,the program included talks

covering, "Plants as visual cuesin the historic landscape,""Developing a systematicapproach to preservationmaintenance," and "The evolu-tion of turf management." Theprogram, which included

lectures, problem solvingdiscussions, and field work-

shops, was developed and co-sponsored by the Arboretum, theNorth Atlantic Region of the Na-tional Park Service, and theFrederick Law Olmsted NationalHistoric Site.

The roster of speakersincluded Nation Park Service

personnel from Washington, D.C., the North Atlantic RegionOffice, and the Olmsted and

Longfellow Historic Sites.Continued on page 3

2

The Deland AwardRobert Cook, Director

Why, for many yearsnow, have individuals continued

to give major bequests to theArnold Arboretum?

Perhaps they have sharedthe same belief as the originaltrustees of the James Arnoldestate. In 1872 these three men

chose to establish an arboretumat Harvard University, the mostpre-eminent institution forscholarship in the country. Theybelieved that by choosingHarvard, their investment inresearch and teaching would beof the highest quality, all for thebenefit of humankind. Theyhoped too, that others would seetheir example and so be simi-larly encouraged to invest inwork of exceptional quality.And, indeed, others have.

In 1987 we received a

generous bequest from the estateof F. Stanton Deland, HarvardClass of 1936, and long-timefriend of the Arnold Arboretum.

After discussions with Mrs. SueDeland and her family lastspring, the Arboretum estab-lished an endowment in

memory of Stan Deland.Each year the income from

this endowment shall be used tomake one or more awards, calledthe Deland Award, to supportthe research of a graduatestudent or advanced under-

graduate working on the com-parative biology of woodyplants. Such studies may includeecology, reproductive biology,genetics, physiology, or develop-ment. While preference will begiven to students enrolled atHarvard, graduate students at

F. Stanton Deland

other institutions may apply aswell.

Preference will also be givento projects that utilize the 5,500different kinds of woody plantsin the living collections of theArnold Arboretum. We antici-

pate making the first awards in1992.

The Deland Fund joins theother endowments which

support research here. For manyyears, Mercer Fellows have

joined the permanent staff of theArboretum to engage in researchand study using the library andherbarium collections largelyhoused in Cambridge. Inaddition, through generous giftsfrom the Putnam family, we now

award fellowships and researchsupport from the Katherine H.Putnam Fund. Putnam Fellowsare chosen for projects thatspecifically use the LivingCollections of the Arboretum.The most recent Putnam Fellow

was Professor Michael Dirr fromthe University of Georgia whospent a sabbatical semester at thearboretum in the spring of 1991,

We deeply appreciate thegenerosity of these individualsand the far-sighted vision thatinspired these gifts to our en-dowment. More than any other

area, critical support for researchat the Arboretum will benefit us

all for many generations to come.

’ SYMPOSIUM

American Landscape Design as a response to the nation’s variedtopography and rich cultural heritage, as well as present-dayissues in conservation and restoration will be explored bylandscape designers and architects on Saturday, November 16, ina day-long symposium co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretumand New York Botanical Garden. Speakers include John Fitzpa-trick (Monticello, Virginia), Isabelle C. Greene (Santa Barbara,California), Dan Kiley (Charlotte, Vermont), and Darrell Morri-son (University of Georgia). To request a brochure on theprogram, call (212) 220-8720.

3

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Foretaste of the FutureWhich of the plant introductionsnow being tested in Americannurseries will be voted "most

likely to succeed?" What are thesources of these new plants, andhow do leading nurseries locateand decide among them?

Join Steven Frowine,Director of Horticultural Re-search and Information at White

Flower Farm in Litchfield, Con-necticut, for a thought-provokingslide-lecture titled, "DistinctivePlants for the Year 2000" to find

out how new plants are found,tested, and evaluated. This is arare opportunity to previewplant treasures from Britain,Europe, and the Far East thathave yet to enter the commercial

pipeline.

The lecture is open to the

public and will be held at theHunnewell Visitor Center from 7

p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday,November 7. The fee is $12 formembers and $15 for non-members.

Architecture and the Garden

Beginning on January 8 for threeWednesday evenings a speciallecture series discusses relation-

ships between the developmentof architecture (house) and the

site (garden).

Gary R. Hildebrand, Landscapearchitect, Graduate School of

Design will help us to develop an

understanding for some of theways in which we presentlyenvision the connection

between building and land-scape in Understanding Types.

Architectural Historian JudithB. Tankard traces the develop-ment of the Arts and CraftsStyle of small enclosed Gardenexemplified in the work of Lor-rimer in Scotland and Lutyensand Jekyll in England.Diane Kostial McGuire examines

the work of Beatrix Farrand

and her distillation of the best

of European style for use in theAmerican landscape.Call (617) 524-1718 for registra-tion information.

Landscape MaintenanceWorkshopContinued from page 1

Arnold Arboretum staff pre-sented several lectures, using theJamaica Plain site as an exampleof an historic landscape. Guest

speakers included Dr. MichaelDirr, Scott G. Kunst, Rudi

Favretti, Dr. Martin Petrovic,and Paul Rogers.

As a result of this popularworkshop (many would-be

registrants had to be turnedaway due to space limitations),the Arnold Arboretum will begindevelopment of a bibliographyfor historic landscape preserva-tion and will work with the

National Park Service to design acurriculum that will permitworking professionals to increasetheir expertise in landscapepreservation practices.

Ornamental garden gate at Wodenethe, the residence ofH.W. Sargent, Esq. (circa 1856)

4

George Pride

George H. Pride, the Associ-ate Horticulturist at the

Arnold Arboretum from 1967

to 1978, died of a heart attackon Sunday 21, July at the ageof 79 years. Many of ourmembers will remember

George not only for theclasses he taught and thehorticultural information he

dispensed so freely, but alsofor initiating the Arboretum’s sFriends organization in theearly seventies and forhosting the "Meet the Staff"and "Meet the Friends"

presentations at the CaseEstates.

Born in Westbrook,Maine, George graduatedfrom North High School inWorcester in 1930 and from

Clark University in 1936, alsoreceiving a Master’s Degreefrom that institution in 1941.

From 1937 to 1967 he taughtbiology at Senior High School inWorcester. George travelledwidely and brought back seedsfrom many other gardens to theArboretum. He had an excellent

talent in photography anddeveloped an outstanding seriesof botanical travelogues. He wasalways in demand as a lecturer.

George’s interests in termsof plants was wide ranging, buthe showed a distinct favoritism

towards bulbs and perennials,doing extensive hybridizationwith iris, hemerocallis, lilies,gladiolus, amaryllis, and orchids.Many of the daylilies he hybrid-ized while living at the CaseEstates are still growing alongthe Wellesley Street stone wall.George also did extensiveplanting of the rock gardenadjacent to the Red SchoolHouse.

In 1976 George was instru-mental in bringing the then

young Roy Lancaster to theUnited States to address a

meeting of the American RockGarden Society. In his "thankyou" letter to George, Roynoted: "You are a mine of

information and I cannot

think that you have an

equivalent in Great Britainnor a peer in your own

country."

George Pride

NEW ARRIVALS in the Bookstore for Todays Gardens

A Natural History of Trees byDonald Culross Peattie, 2volumes. Reprint of aneloquent and informativeclassic of natural history.

Eastern and Central North

America $18.95; member’s

price, $17.06. Western NorthAmerica, $16.95, member’s

price, $15.20.

Indian Herbalogy of NorthAmerica by Alma R. Hutchens.The definitive illustrated guideto more than two hundred

native medicinal plants andtheir uses. $17.00; member’s

price, $15.30.Northeast Gardening by ElvinMcDonald. A practical guidethat speaks directly to the con-siderations of New England-ers. $35.00; member’s price,$31.50.

American Wildflowers 1992Engagement Calendar. Abbev-

ille Press in association with

the National Wildflower

Research Center. Striking pho-tography from across thecountry of wildflowers in theirnatural habitats. $11.95;member’s price, $10.76.

The Bookstore is open daily, 10a.m. to 4 p.m. Stop by or call(617) 524-1718 for mail order in-formation.