I hope through this article to share a glimpse of the work that went into the thesis research that has been my priority the last two years. The thesis title “An Assessment of the Hamamelidaceae in Global Living Collections” is a bit heavy, so let’s unpack that. The Hamamelidaceae, also known as the witchhazel family, is a group of temperate, subtropical, and tropical woody plants. In this region many of you are familiar with Hamamelis virginiana or Fothergilla major. There are other ornamentals in the family as well predominantly native to temperate Asia. Loropetalum chinense has been a staple in southern U.S. gardens for a few decades, and many plantsmen love the winter bark of Parrotia persica. In total there are 27 genera in the family! Within these genera there are over 117 species! My thesis work reviewed all of the genera and species within the family. This review included verifying the status of each species name, researching the interspecific and intergeneric relationships, writing a species description for each of the taxa, and reporting the conservation status of each species.

I anticipated that writing the species descriptions would be

UDBG FRIENDSUNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE BOTANIC GARDENS SUMMER / FALL 2019

the easiest part of my research. It was not the easiest part, but it sure was the most interesting. As most of the species are native to Asia, the Flora of China was a primary reference. Ornamental plants within the family were often listed in Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, and this was also a fantastic resource for cultivar names. For the two genera, Matudaea and Molinadendron native to Central and South America digitized herbarium vouchers were critical in creating species descriptions. There were very few written resources available in regards to these taxa, so the observations made from these vouchers and the notes that accompanied them were invaluable. The true value of herbaria was emphasized repeatedly throughout my

Cont’d on page 5

An Assessment of the Hamamelidaceae in Global Living Collections

Cat Meholic, 2017-2019 Curatorial Graduate student

Hamamelidaceae Assessment: ...............................

Interim Director's Corner .......

Summer 2019 Interns ...............

UDBG Gifts ...........................

top: Herbaceous hibiscus will be the Featured Perennial in UDBG’s 2020 Annual Benefit Plant Sale. Featured here is Hibiscus coccineus. Photo: Bob Lyons

IN THIS ISSUE

1,5,8

2,3

4

6,7

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Sewn into the back of the quilt (made by Donna Bailey) presented as gift to Dr. John Frett:“Thank you, John, for sharing your knowledge and passion for plants with countless students,

colleagues, industry professionals, and the public. The UDBG is your living legacy.”

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As I met with John this afternoon, I scanned his office and took note of the trashcans filled with unwanted notebooks and papers, slides divided into “save” and “toss” piles, and books designated for his home or the homes of others. It’s the office of a person who has spent 33 years accumulating “stuff ” to aid in educating thousands while growing the UD Botanic Gardens into its present state. By the time you read this, the cans of trash will be gone, the desk will cleared, and UDBG’s fearless leader, Dr. John Frett, will have officially crossed the threshold into a new adventure – retirement.

John taught numerous courses over the past three decades at UD. Courses such as botany, woody landscape plants, herbaceous plant material, taxonomy, and collection management. UDBG staff, interns and graduate students can consider themselves lucky to have had the privilege of working alongside and being mentored by him.

Of course, there’s US…. the many UDBG members and non-members that he’s taught via our talks, walks, and workshops. We can’t discount the tens of thousands of teaching moments he’s had via a simple inquiry from a customer at our sale, an email from the public, and the barrage of questions he’s often pelted with when he pops into a volunteer session. John Frett’s a walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge. Yes, he’s taught in the classroom. However, the garden is his outdoor laboratory, his canvas. It showcases his insatiable passion for plants. He’s quick to welcome all to visit and learn from it.

Today, the UD Botanic Garden’s collections are featured in the gardens and plantings on fifteen acres that surround our south campus buildings and greenhouse campus. Robin Morgan recognized the garden, John, and his passion when she appointed him the first director of the UDBG in 2006. As director of our “lean, mean, UDBG

team” he has brought the garden, and its activities to new heights. John supports and encourages us to think outside the box in all that we do. Many ideas, admittedly sometimes harebrained, have become reality thanks to his willingness to “give it a whirl.”

John’s presence will be sorely missed. But his passion for plants, this garden and his desire to share it with the everyone will continue. May one day we all enjoy the garden as it takes on the vision developed in our Master Plan.

UDBG's Fearless Leader Retires Valann Budischak, Interim Director

L-R Val, Laura, Matt. Past Annual Interns Laura Swain (2016-2017), Senior Gardener at Heritage Museum & Gardens in Sandwich Massachusetts and Matt McDermitt (2016-2017), Fine Gardener with Estates Gardeners in Wellesley, Massachusetts, stopped by UDBG to visit

their old stomping grounds, take a tour of the gardens, and learn about a new plant or two. Here they visit with Interim Director Valann Budischak. Photo: Melinda Zoehrer

UDBG's Fearless Leader Retires Valann Budischak, Interim Director

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Welcome 2019 Summer Interns Andrew Adams, Intern Supervisor/Horticultural Manager

This summer five students interned at the UDBG. Two of these interns are supported by family endowments: the Parvis family and the Lafferty family. The recipient of the Parvis Family Endowment internship is Christian Stoltz, a student in UD’s Entomology and Wildlife Ecology program. Mary McCausland, recipient of the Lafferty Endowment internship, is studying at Delaware State University.

Two major projects accomplished by the five interns this summer are installment of a new patio area in the Lepidoptera area complete with new plantings, and behind the scenes in the nursery area, the installation of a new irrigation system.

Connor Armstrong

I’m a UD senior majoring in Landscape Architecture. As a hands-on person, I love working outdoors doing garden maintenance and carpentry. After taking Dr. Frett’s Indigenous Woody Plants course in the spring, I knew I wanted to learn more. This internship helped me focus my interests and further my understanding of plants. I hope to pursue a career in designing sustainable public green spaces.

Christian Stoltz (Parvis Family Intern)

During my freshman year as an Insect Ecology and Conservation student, I participated in the Summer Scholars program and developed my own research project focusing on honey bee growth patterns. This sparked my interest and focus into pollinators such as native bees and butterflies. To fully understand and appreciate them, I knew studying the plants they visited was the next step. This led to my Plant Science double major. By working in the UD Botanic Gardens, I am

learning the basics of plant care, more advanced maintenance skills, and an increase in the overall knowledge of plants. I plan to integrate these horticultural skills in my future plans.

Mary McCausland (Lafferty Endowment)

I am a junior at Delaware State University, majoring in Agri-business. I grew up on a farm in Illinois, where through 4-H I learned how to show sheep, rabbits, goats and chickens. Now

I want to learn about plants, especially in a public garden setting. This internship is giving me invaluable experience, working hands-on in the field while enhancing my knowledge of plants in an established garden. Whatever I choose for career, I know this internship experience will play an essential part.

Daniel (Hunter) Fleming

As a summer intern at the UDBG, I hope to better my knowledge of

woody and herbaceous plants and common garden practices. I am majoring in Landscape Architecture at UD. Having a good understanding of different plants will help me to be successful with my career. For nine years I have worked for my family’s company, which makes topsoil as well as compost. Seeing first-hand how these materials are used in the garden helps further my knowledge as I study all aspects of landscape design.

Theo Kruppa

I am a senior in UD’s Lerner Business College majoring in Management Information Systems. While my main focus in school is data analytics and coding, I would like to broaden my knowledge base to encompass more diverse areas. During my freshman year, I worked for a bank during the summer doing landscaping on foreclosed houses. I want to delve deeper into this area by learning more advanced gardening techniques and gain a better grasp of regional plant material.

UDBG Summer Interns L-R, Mary McCausland (Lafferty Endowed Intern), Hunter Fleming, Christian Stoltz (Parvis Family Intern), Theo Kruppa, and Connor Armstrong.

Photo:Andrew Adams

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thesis work. From the species descriptions, to flowering times, to habitat descriptions, there would be huge gaps in this thesis without the digitized herbarium records.

When researching the intergeneric and interspecific relationships in the Hamamelidaceae, I found three main sources for information in the literature: Susana Magallón, Peter K. Endress, and Alfred Linn Bogle. Magallón provided fantastic information on the relationships at the genus level in one paper titled From Fossils to Molecules

Phylogeny and the Core Eudicot Floral Groundplan in Hamamelidoideae. Endress is a prolific author who has been researching the Hamamelidaceae for decades. He was very generous with sharing his publications directly, and I enjoyed engaging with him throughout this research. Finally, the researcher Lynn Bogle, appeared as an author in many of my references. After reading so much of his work, I was genuinely saddened at the discovery of his obituary. Bogle was a professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire. One additional researcher at the Missouri Botanical Garden, Aaron Floden, is currently working on unraveling the relationships at the genus level using Internal Transcribed Spacer, matK, rbcl, and trnH-pbsA sequencing. His data is due to be published and hopefully will solidify some of the unknowns in the intra-family relationships.

Finally, reviewing the conservation status of each species entailed researching the local conservation status, the global conservation status and sometimes even population statistics. One species, Loropetalum cordatum, is listed only as “Vulnerable” by the IUCN Red List (see image IUCN Red List), but there are only 48 individuals in the wild. Other species not listed as being of conservation concern also had low population counts. So, the conservation status alone was not enough to gauge the need for protection or inclusion in collections.

After completing all of the above research, I was ready to actually “assess” what members of the Hamamelidaceae are presently in global living collections. To do that I utilized two data sets provided by the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). BGCI connects botanic gardens, living collections, arboreta, and research institutions in the hopes of creating meaning conservation networks. The first data set, BGCI Institution Report, listed what institutions house what taxa. An example of this data would be that the University of Delaware Botanic Garden (UDBG) currently has the taxa Distylium myricoides in its collection. This data set did not include how many accessions of each taxa there were, the number of plants, or the provenance of the material. To get that level of data, I relied on the second data set, the BGCI Collections Survey. This dataset reported all of these additional details. An example of the depth of this data set would be that the UDBG houses one accession of Distylium myricoides, there is only one plant in this accession, and this accession is of nursery origin.

Between these two data sets some trends were observed. First, we grow way too much Hamamelis! Hamamelis accessions accounted for 50% of the overall accessions in the BGCI Collections Survey. The next most reported genus was Fothergilla, accounting for 17% of accessions in that same data set. Therefore, two of the 27 genera in the family account for 67% of the accessions worldwide.

Cont'd on pg 8

An Assessment of the Hamamelidaceae in Global Living Collections

Cont'd from page 1

IUCN Red List Conservation Status. Provided by Cat Meholic

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Program, which includes garden

projects and educational trips

and events)

$10,000 and above

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*Deceased

Endowment

UDBG’s endowment ensures

long-term support of the

gardens and plant collection.

$3,000+

John Frett

Unrestricted and Restricted Gifts

UD Botanic Gardens gratefully

acknowledges gifts that support

maintenance of specific gardens

and our plant collections.

$1,000+

Caroline Golt

Steve and Peg Castorani

UDBG Gifts July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019 We gratefully acknowledge the following people who support UDBG throughout the year.

$500-$999

David and Lydia Boyer

Delaware Nursery & Landscape Association

Mark and Barbara Rieger

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Nancy Balogh

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Gardens)

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Garden Club of Wilmington

Anne Marie and John Fletcher

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Up to $99

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Other Gifts

Gifts of books, plants, ornamental pots,

services, and supplies were received from

the following:

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Valann and Michael Budischak

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Melinda Zoehrer and Rick Darke

Delaware Hardscape Supply

Martha M. (Marty) duPont

Leslie and Per Lundgaard

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The featured woody plant for the 2020 UDBG Annual Benefit Plant Sale will be Illicium (Anise Tree). Pictured here is Illicium mexicanum ‘Aztec Fire’. Photo: Meldina Zoehrer

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to read our anti-discrimination policy in its entirety.

Contact Informationhttp://canr.udel.edu/udbg

Newsletter editor: Susan Baldwin

Visit the UD Botanic GardenUDBG is open to visitors everyday from sunrise to sunset; admission is free

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or use the metered parking near the UDairy Creamery

Support UD Botanic Gardens

Your support helps the advancement, improvement, and success of the UD Botanic Gardens. Your gift enables the gardens to

expand as an outdoor classroom, an experiential laboratory, and a research center.

Cont'd from pg 5

We need to grow some more Hamamelidaceae. Finally, after reviewing both the data sets and the species descriptions another trend was observed. A plant is most likely to appear in a living collection if it has high ornamental value, is of low conservation concern, and is hardy in temperate zones. The inverse of this trend is also true. Although this final observation seems obvious without the data to support it the correlation would be pure conjecture. It is hoped that through this research institutions can assess their collections and add taxa to their collections that are not presently represented within global living collections.

Through this comprehensive review of the family I feel equipped to tackle future research in the horticulture field, and appreciate all of the resources UDBG and Dr. Frett provided me to accomplish this.

Summer interns Theo Kruppa and Connor Armstrong put the finishing touches on the newly-enlarged patio in UDBG’s Lepidoptera Trail. Many thanks to Delaware Hardscape Supply for their generous donation of the

flagstone for the summer intern project.Photo: Andrew Adams

Precision is the name of the game. Volunteers plant the Trial Garden plugs on spray-painted dots to ensure equal spacing. Photo: Andrew Adams