·arno ~aVolume 56 Number 3 1996

Arnoldia (ISBN 004-2633; USPS 866-100) ispublished quarterly by the Arnold Arboretum ofHarvard University. Second-class postage paid atBoston, Massachusetts.

Subscriptions are $20.00 per calendar year domestic,$25.00 foreign, payable m advance. Most smgle copiesare $5.00. All remittances must be made m U.S.dollars, by check drawn on a U.S. bank, or by mterna-tional money order. Send orders, remittances, change-of-address notices, and all other subscription-relatedcommumcations to: Circulation Manager, Arnoldia,The Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain,MA 02130-3519 Telephone 617/524-1718

Postmaster: Send address changes toArnoldia Circulation ManagerThe Arnold Arboretum125 ArborwayJamaica Plam, MA 02130-3519

Karen Madsen, Editor

Editorial Committee

Phyllis AndersenRobert E. CookPeter Del Tredici

Gary KollerStephen A. Spongberg

Arnoldia is set m Trump Mediaeval typeface.

Copyright © 1996 The President and Fellows ofHarvard College

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Page2 Bulldozers and Bacteria: The Ecology

of Sweet FernPeter Del Tredici -

12 A Park and Garden in Vermont: Olmstedand the Webbs at Shelburne FarmsAlan Emmet

21 Itea ’Beppu’: The Return of the NativePeter M. Mazzeo and Donald H. Voss

26 Lives of New England Gardens:Book Review

Phyllis Andersen

Front cover: After the flood, October 1996.Photograph by Peter Del Tredici.

Inside front cover: The centerpiece of theArboretum’s new exhibit is a striking 8-by-10-footscale model of the landscape that replicates morethan 4,000 trees m 40-to-1 scale. Photograph byJim Harnson.

Inside back cover: Observatory and swing on thegrounds of J S. Potter, Arhngton, Massachusetts,1866. From Alan Emmet’s So Fme a ProspectHistonc New England Gardens. Courtesy of theBoston Athenaeum.

Back cover: The five-millionth specimen ofthe Harvard University Herbaria. Photograph byDavid Boufford.

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Bulldozers and Bacteria: The Ecology of Sweet Fern

Peter Del Tredici

Comptonia peregrina, a common roadside plant in eastern North America,provides a case study both of how nature copes with disturbance to the landand of just how convoluted the study of this process can be.

Sweet fern, Comptonia peregrina, is a shrubbymember of the Myricaceae, or bayberry family.Its common name is derived from the pleasingfragrance that its tiny, resin-filled, glandularhairs give off when crushed or rubbed, and fromits coarsely lobed, somewhat fern-like leaves.Comptoma, a distinctly unprepossessing plant,has a natural range that covers a large portion ofeastern North America. Forming a rough tri-angle, the eastern flank of this range extendsfrom Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotiasouth into the mountains of north Georgia; thewestern edge reaches from the southern Appala-chians north through Tennessee and Minnesotaall the way to central Manitoba; and the north-ern edge runs from the Canadian plains throughcentral Ontario and Quebec to the Atlantic(Elias 1971 Sweet fern typically grows to threeor four feet in height and, over time, formsextensive colonies-up to twenty feet across-from suckers produced by its roots.As to habitat, sweet fern shows a strong pref-

erence for dry, sandy soils with full exposure tothe sun. These sites, which include dry, pineywoods, exposed mountain slopes, abandonedpastures, pine barrens, highway bankings, gravelpits, weathered mine tailings, and cut-overforested land, have typically experienced someform of disturbance in either the recent or dis-tant past (Schramm 1966; Schwintzer 1989).Two attributes equip Comptoma for the

pioneering role of a colonizer of disturbed

soils. The first is its use of nitrogen gas fromthe atmosphere to produce mtrates-a feat itaccomplishes by forming root nodules in symbi-otic association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.The second is an ability to propagate itself veg-etatively by means of long, thick roots that runan inch or so beneath the soil surface. Theseshallow roots form numerous buds in the fallthat grow into shoots the following spring.Under the right conditions, Comptonia behavesas a shrubby groundcover, spreading over largeareas by means of these root suckers.

Historical Considerations

Sweet fern’s distinctive form and pungent odormade a strong impression on the early Europeansettlers of North America. Nowhere is thismore apparent than in a passage from a bookwritten in 1654 by one Edward Johnson, Won-derworking Providence of Sion’s Saviour inNew England. Johnson was presenting a second-hand account of the arduous journey made in1636 by the first English settlers of Concord,Massachusetts, led by Captain Simon Willard.Starting from Boston, they traveled by boat asfar as Watertown and then made their way over-land, more or less followmg the meanderingCharles River. Johnson describes (and undoubt-edly embellishes) a scene in which the weariedpilgrims confront "a scorching plame, yet not soplaine, but that the ragged bushes scratch theirlegs fouly, even to wearing their stockings to

The charactemstics that mspmed the common name sweet fern-tmy, resm-fllled hams and fern-like leaves-can be seen m this plate from Franz Schmidt’s Osterreichs Allgememe Baumzucht (Vienna, 1792). The plantwe know as Comptoma peregnna is labelled under a hybrid of the two names given it by Carolus Lmnaeus mhis Species Plantarum. It was Charles L’Hemtier who demonstrated that the plant did not belong m either ofthe genera suggested by Linnaeus.

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their bare skin m two or three hours." Thosewithout "bootes or buskings ... have had thebloud trickle downe at every step." And injurywas compounded when "the sun casts such areflecting heate from the sweet ferne, whosescent is very strong, that some herewith havebeene very nere fainting, although very ablebodies to undergoe much travel." 1/

John Josselyn’s reference to sweet fern in hisclassic work New-Englands Rarities Discov-ered, written in 1672, is considerably morebenign: "Sweet Fern, the Roots run one withinanother like a Net, being very long and spread-ing abroad under the upper crust of the Earth,sweet in taste, but withal astringent, muchhunted after by our Swine: The Scotch-men thatare in New-England have told me that it growsin Scotland." Josselyn was an astute observer, ashis description of the spreading roots of theplant clearly indicates. His Scottish informants,however, were dead wrong; sweet fern is nativeonly to eastern North America.

It was Carolus Linnaeus who assigned thefirst modern scientific name to sweet fern,which he did in Species Plantarum, published in1753. Unfortunately, he confused the situationby accidentally giving the plant two names, Liq-uidambar peregnna on page 999 and Myricaasplenifolia on page 1024. Subsequent authorswere left to choose which name to use. The

currently accepted name of sweet fern’s

genus, Comptonia, was established in 1789 bythe French botanist Charles L’Heritier, whodemonstrated that the plant did not belong ineither of the genera suggested by Lmnaeus.L’Heritier’s name commemorates HenryCompton (1632-1713~, Bishop of London, alover of trees and an early supporter of botanicalresearch and exploration.Linnaeus’ student Peter Kalm, who may

well have collected the specimens on whichLinnaeus’ original description was based, pro-vided a particularly interesting reference tosweet fern in his book, Travels into NorthAmerica, written in 1770. In this work, a reportof his travels between 1747 and 1750, Kalmnoted the medicinal use of sweet fern by indig-enous people: "Among the Iroquois, or FiveNations, on the Mohawk River, I saw a youngIndian woman, who by frequent drinking of tea

had gotten a violent toothache. To cure it sheboiled the Myrica aspleniifolia, and tied it, ashot as she could bear it, on the whole cheek.She said that remedy had often cured the tooth-ache before." The medicinal use of sweet fernmust have been widespread, given that laterauthors and travelers make frequent referenceto its use not only by various tribes of NativeAmericans, but also by European settlers

(Erichsen-Brown 1979).William Bartram mentions sweet fern only

once in his Travels, but more sigmficantly, heoffered it for sale in his famous Catalogue ofAmerican Trees, Shrubs, and HerbaceousPlants, published in 1783 (Fry 1996). In thisbroadside, Bartram listed sweet fern under ahybrid of the two Lmnaean names, Liquidam-bar Aspleni Folia, noting that it grew on "Lightdry sandy Ridges." Two years later, HumphreyMarshall produced the first detailed descriptionof the sweet fern in his book, ArbustrumAmericanum, also using Bartram’s hybridname, Liquidambar asplenifolia. Marshall’spublication, which is considered the first bookby an American about American trees andshrubs, brings to a close the early history ofComptonia. Later botanical authors continuedtinkering with the name, but added little origi-nal information to the basic understanding ofthe plant itself.

Desperately Seeking Sweet Fern

My own involvement with sweet fern began in1971 when I started working for the late Dr.John Torrey at the Harvard Forest in Petersham,Massachusetts, just after he had shifted thefocus of his research from root physiology tonitrogen fixation. He selected Comptonia as hisexperimental subject and hired me to grow it inthe laboratory. At that time, the symbiosis oflegumes with the nitrogen-fixing Rhizobiumbacteria was well understood, but almost noth-ing was known about nitrogen fixation by theso-called nonlegumes that form a symbioticassociation with a totally different type of bac-terium in the genus Frankia. When Dr. Torrey’sproject started, no one, despite seventy years oftrying, had succeeded in isolating the causativebacterium from a nonleguminous root noduleor in culturing it independent of its host. This

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Sweet fern is seen with quaking aspen growing along Route 2 in Concord, Massachusetts

failure was the block that held up progress in

researching the subject.With an overabundance of enthusiasm and a

dearth of experience, I was hired to bring sweetfern into the greenhouse-domesticate it, if

you will-so that we could study the mtrogen-fixation process in a controlled environment. Tocultivate Comptonia under laboratory condi-tions, we couldn’t just dig up plants from thefield because the roots were always contami-nated with fungi and bacteria other than the onewe wanted to study. No, Dr. Torrey insisted, wehad to grow the plant from seed in sterile sand.In central Massachusetts, sweet fern’s seeds,technically considered to be frmts, ripen aroundthe fourth of July. They are light brown in color,four-to-five millimeters long, and, as theymature, they become enveloped in a burrlikestructure that is covered with long, green bracts.The burrs are soft to the touch and give off adelicious, almost spicy scent when one rubs

them between the thumb and the forefinger toextract the seeds.Once we had managed to collect enough seeds

to work with, the next hurdle was to get themto germinate. We tried all the standard tech-niques for stimulating seed germination inwoody plants and all of them failed. Subsequentresearch with excised embryos grown in asterile culture demonstrated that the failureresulted from the presence of chemical inhibi-tors located m the innermost seed coat. Theseinhibitors are not unique to Comptonia. In mosttemperate plants, however, chilling effectivelycounteracts the inhibitors-not the case withsweet fern seeds. It was only when Dr. Torreysuggested treating the seeds with gibberellicacid, a naturally occurring plant growth regula-tor, that we were able to get any of them tosprout. Eventually we learned that soakingscarified seeds m a dilute solution of gibberellicacid for twenty-four hours would produce up to

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80 percent germination (Del Tredici and Torrey1976). While these results were satisfying inthat they allowed the research program to moveforward, they were also frustrating because wecould not relate the gibberellic acid treatment tothe way the seeds behaved in nature.The problem stumped me for some time. In

four years of studying Comptonia I had exam-ined thousands of plants all across New Englandbut had never found a wild seedling. Invariably,every small plant I found was attached to a rootthat emanated from an established plant. Forwhatever reason, I never found Comptonia seed-lings under an existing clump of sweet fern. Infrustration, I stopped thinking about the prob-lem of seed germination in nature until one dayin the spring of 1976, on a walk in the woods innorthwest Connecticut, I came upon a sitewhere hundred-year-old white pines (Pinusstrobus) had been clearcut and then bulldozedthe autumn before. Among all the weeds andwhatnot that were emerging, I was amazed tosee seedlings of sweet fern growing, their coty-ledons still attached. There were no adult plantsto be found, just seedlings. In all, I counted194 of them in an area of less than an acre (DelTredici 1977).According to my reasoning, these seedlings

must have arisen either from dormant seedsburied in the soil (the so-called seedbank) orfrom seeds brought in by some dispersal agent.Given the relatively large size of the sweet fernseed and its lack of any specialized dispersalstructures, transport by rain or wind could beruled out; and its inconspicuous appearance andlack of fleshy coverings make dispersal by ani-mals extremely limited. Indeed, the only animalever reported to eat the sweet fern seeds is theyellow-shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus), aground-feeding member of the woodpecker fam-ily. One F. E. Beal examined 684 flicker stom-achs in 1911 and found an undisclosed numberof Comptonia seeds in one of them. However, inorder to explain by animal dispersal the 194seedlings that appeared just one year afterclearcutting, one would need to postulate a size-able flock of flickers roaming the countryside,eating sweet fern and defecating exclusively onthis one acre in the woods.

The lack of any obvious dispersal mechanismleft buried seeds as the only likely explanationfor the seedlings in the Connecticut clearcut.The question was, how did they get there? Innature, most Comptonia seeds come to restwithin a half meter of the parent that producedthem and are soon buried in the leaf litter thatcollects beneath the plant. As I see it, deepchemical inhibition prevents germination forseveral years, by which time the seeds are wellcovered. The litter contributes to delayed germi-nation either indirectly, by excluding light, ordirectly, by giving off specific chemicals thatsuppress germination. In either case, a buriedseed will not sprout unless brought to the sur-face after its own internal dormant state hasbeen neutralized. In the Connecticut woodswhere I found my sweet fern seedlings, this res-urrection was facilitated, albeit inadvertently,by the state forester who upon completion ofthe logging operation had the whole area bull-dozed to encourage the "natural" regenerationof white pine seedlings.

Clearly bulldozing was just what the sweetfern seeds needed. They had been deposited inthe soil before the pines grew up, while the landwas in pasture, and then germinated after thelogging operation brought them to the surface.On the basis of ring counts of the cut pine trees,I estimated that the canopy of pines had closedabout seventy years before I came on the scene,the point when sweet fern would have disap-peared from the site because of insufficientsunlight. Seventy years, then, is a minimumestimate of the time the seeds could survive inthe soil. I have no idea what the maximum is.

It is clear, however, that soil disturbance is anabsolute reqmrement for the germination ofComptonia seeds. Henry David Thoreau madeessentially the same observation m his journalon October 22, 1860: "I notice that the firstshrubs and trees to spring up in the sand on rail-road cuts in the woods are sweet-fern, birches,mllows, and aspens, and pines, white and pitch;but all but the last two chiefly disappear in thethick wood that follows." All of the above

species, save Comptoma, have wind-dispersedseeds that exhibit no capacity for long-term sur-vival in the soil. Clearly sweet fern’s buried seed

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Sweet fern in frmt at the height of summer.

fixation in Comptonia. Usinggibberellic acid to stimulategermination, we were ableto produce abundant nodulegrowth on vigorous seedlingsthat were grown with theirroots dangling in a nutrient

mist (aeroponics). This system,unlike water culture (hydro-ponics), allowed the plant rootsto develop the hairs throughwhich the bacteria penetratedthe root itself (Zobel et al.

1974). By repeatedly subcultur-ing the nodules from one mistbox to the next, we eventuallywere able to produce "clean" 1/

nodules that were relativelyfree of other microbial con-taminants (Callaham and

Torrey 1977; Bowes et al. 1977).These nodules were then

surface-sterilized, macerated

together with special digestiveenzymes, and incubated on an

elaborately formulated nutri-ent agar. After three weeksof culture, Dale Callaham,who did the isolation work,observed several small coloniesof bacteria with filamentous

growth. While the unusual

morphology of this organismclearly resembled that of anactinobacterium, it was unlikeany that had been previouslydescribed. It was not until we

strategy, which evolved in response to naturaldisturbance such as fire and erosion, hadadapted well to the human-induced changes ofthe twentieth century. Sweet fern, as a pioneerspecies, can play an important role in revitaliz-ing land that has been traumatically stripped ofits plant cover.

Nitrogen Fixation

Eventually, after seven years of work, Dr.Torrey’s research team succeeded in isolatingthe bacterium that is responsible for nitrogen

had obtained a second generation of functionalnodules by re-innoculating fresh Comptoniaseedlings with a culture of the isolated bacte-rium that we knew we had the real thmg.This conclusion was corroborated when we

isolated the filamentous bacteria from the sec-

ond-generation nodules and found them to beidentical to those of the first generation. It wasonly by following this elaborate procedure-referred to as fulfilling Koch’s postulates-thatwe could prove that we had the causative organ-ism in hand. These successful results, published

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in 1978, marked the conclusionof nearly seventy years of frus-trated attempts to isolate a

Frankia bacterium from itshost plant.This breakthrough opened

wide the floodgates of researchon actinorhizal plants, whoseimportant role in colonizingbare, nutrient-poor ground wasjust starting to be appreciated.Most of the nitrogen fixed bythese plants enters the nutrientcycle slowly through the de-composition of fallen leaves,twigs, branches, and fine roots,but over time the contributionof actinorhizal plants to thetotal ecosystem nitrogen bud-get can be substantial. Researchon red alder (Alnus rubra) inthe Pacific Northwest, for

example, has shown that pure

A micrograph of the Frankia bacteria showing its long, branchmg filamentsunder Nomarski phase mterference optics at a magmfication of ISOOx

stands of the tree can add up to 280 pounds ofnitrogen per acre per year to the forest

(Schwintzer and Tjepkema 1990). It is importantto keep in mind, however, that nitrogen-fixingplants can typically hold their own against com-petition only when soil conditions are poor. Onfertile ground they seem to lose some of theircompetitive advantage to other trees andshrubs. In a very real sense, nitrogen-fixingplants sow the seeds of their own replacementby elevating the nitrogen content of the soil.

Propagation and CultivationSweet fern’s ability to propagate itself from rootsuckers is another important component of itscolonization strategy. Once the plant gets a foot-hold in a location to its liking, it comes to domi-nate the area by sending up numerous rootsuckers. The ever-observant Henry Thoreaumade note of this on March 18, 1860: "Thesweet fern grows in large, dense, more or lessrounded or oval patches in dry land. You will seethree or four such patches in a single old field. Itis now quite perfect in my old bean-field." "William Bartram’s 1783 offering of sweet fern

notwithstanding, the plant has never mademuch of an impression in the nursery industry.

There are several reasons for this, not least theplant’s reputation for being difficult to propa-gate. Germination from seed, as shown above, isvirtually impossible, and digging the plant upfrom the wild is seldom successful, given theropy nature of its root system. It wasn’t until theearly 1970s that a research team at the Univer-sity of Massachusetts, Amherst, developed tech-niques that allowed for the plant’s commercialproduction (Hyde et al. 1972).The authors of that study were seeking to

identify plants that would rapidly cover high-way bankings, and sweet fern was one of theplants that interested them. They designed anexperiment to determine both the best time ofyear to take root cuttings as well as their opti-mal size. Two different-sized cuttings were col-lected twice a month for a period of one year:three inches long by one-quarter-inch diameterand three inches long by one-eighth-inch diam-eter. Forty-five days after the cuttings had beenstuck in individual pots, they were checked tosee whether they had produced leafy shoots.No significant difference was found in the

number of shoots produced by the two differentcutting sizes over the course of the year, but thetime of cutting was highly influential. At least

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80 percent of the root cuttings taken betweenFebruary 24 and May 1 produced shoots, whilethose taken between May 15 and August 1 pro-duced few or no shoots. Cuttings taken betweenAugust 15 and December 10 produced good-to-poor percentages of shoots, depending on thedate the cuttings were made. (No cuttings weretaken between December 10 and February 24because the ground was frozen.) Based on theseresults, the authors recommended that root cut-tings be taken before the parent plant started toleaf out, around May in the Boston area. Rootcuttings made after the stock plant’s leavesemerged produced shoots in very low percent-ages. Their observations clearly suggest theexistence of an inhibitory hormone produced bythe leaves that suppressed the development ofthe root buds into shoots.

Landscape Uses: A Community ApproachFrank Egler, working with researchers at theConnecticut College Arboretum m New Lon-don, was among the first to recognize the poten-tial role that sweet fern, as well as other

suckering shrubs, could play in the formation oflow-mamtenance, naturalistic plantings alonghighway bankings and power company rights-of-way (Kenfield 1966; Niering and Goodwin1974). In the course of their studies of old-fieldsuccession m the Northeast, the authors devel-oped techniques-specifically the use of herbi-cides to selectively kill trees-to "arrest" thesuccessional process at the shrub stage of devel-

opment. Their goal was to manage existingvegetation to form a distinctively beautiful,low-growing landscape that would not interferewith power lines or highway sightlines. In NewEngland, these low-maintenance associationscommonly include, along with sweet fern, thefollowing woody plants: pitch pine (Pinusrigida), red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), graybirch (Betula populifolia), meadowsweet (Spireasp.), bayberry (Myrica pensylvamca), sumacs(Rhus sp.), low and highbush blueberries

(Vaccinium angustifolium and corybosum), andquaking aspen (Populus tremuloides).The University of Massachusetts group took

the Connecticut College concept further byworking out specialized techmques for actuallyplanting-as opposed to simply managing-the

shrub cover on fresh roadcuts and bankmgs. Theauthors found that root pieces of sweet ferncould be stuck directly into a bare bank in earlyspring. According to recommended procedure,root cuttings of Comptonia, which can be any-where from one-sixteenth to one-quarter of aninch in diameter and four to six inches long,should be planted an inch deep and six inchesapart and mulched with two to three inches ofwood chips. If this "direct stick" procedure isfollowed, sweet fern will produce a closed,weed-resistant canopy within three to six years.

A Pathological ProblemThe final chapter in the Comptonia story pitsone plant against another in a battle to thedeath. It concerns a disease that I became awareof only after publishing an article advocatingsweet fern for landscape use. To my surprise,several plant pathologists wrote to chide me formy recommendation. Sweet fern, it turns out,is the alternate host of a fungus, Cronartinmcomptoniae, that causes sweet fern blister ruston hard pines with needles in bundles of twoor three. In the Northeast, jack pine (Pinusbanksiana) and pitch pine (P. rigida) can beinfected, as well as other introduced hard pines.In the South, shortleaf pine (P. echinata) andloblolly pine (P. taeda) can be seriously infected.During the course of its life cycle the blister

rust has two hosts, the susceptible pine speciesand either sweet fern or its swamp-dwellingrelative, sweet gale (Myrica gale). The funguslives one stage of its life on the leaves of thesweet fern and the second inside the stem of the

pine tree. Although Comptonia is only slightlyaffected by the fungus, the susceptible pine canbe seriously damaged or even killed.

Control of the disease is difficult, given sweetfern’s wide natural range, but the forestry litera-ture makes a few simple recommendations,including taking care not to plant infected pinetrees and clearing out sweet fern colonieswithin a quarter mile of any commercial hardpine plantation. In a report on the susceptibilityof loblolly pine to sweet fern blister rust, J. D.Artman and T. N. Reeder (1977) observed thatsweet fern "may become a major ground coverwhen dry sites are intensively prepared forplanting." What the authors mean by intensive

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A few last leaves clmg to the stems of Comptonia peregrina even through the snows of winter.

site preparation is, of course, bulldozing beforeplanting trees. This observation, buried deepwithin a technical report, confirmed once againthe intimate relationship between Comptoniaand catastrophic disturbance.

Conclusion

No discussion of Comptoma would be completewithout saying something about its effecton the human senses. As the first settlers ofConcord learned all too well, the scent ofComptoma on a warm summer’s day can beoverwhelming-a thick, resinous pungency thatborders on the unpleasant. More spicy thansweet, the warm scent conjures up the fullnessof summer, which no doubt explains whyComptonia foliage is often dried for use insachets and potpourris. I suspect, too, that theuse of Comptonia as tea by Native Americansand Europeans may have had as much to do

with its pleasing fragrance as with its supposedmedicinal attributes.A second trait of sweet fern, one that catches

the eye rather than the nose, is its tendency tohold onto its leaves late into the growing sea-son. Even in the middle of winter one can find afew leaves clinging to the stems of the plant.Thoreau described this feature in his journalentry for January 14, 1860, along with hisresponse to it: "Those little groves of sweet-fernstill thickly leafed, whose tops now rise abovethe snow, are an interesting warm brown-rednow, like the reddest oak leaves. Even this is an

agreeable sight to the walker over snowy fieldsand hillsides. It had a wild and jagged leaf, alter-nately serrated. A warm reddish color revealedby the snow." And finally, in a passage thatmoves from mundane detail into emotionaldescription, Thoreau writes of the sweet fernstem, densely covered with fine hairs: "As

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nature generally, on the advent of frost, putson a russet and tawny dress, so is not manclad more in harmony with nature in the fall ina tawny suit or the different hues of Vermontgray? I would fain see him glitter like a sweet-fern twig between me and the sun" (October 16,1859).

References

Artman, J. D., and T. N Reeder, Jr 1977 Sweetfernblister rust found in young loblolly pineplantations m Maryland and Delaware. Journalof Forestry 75: 136-138.

Beal, F. E 1911. Food of woodpeckers of the UmtedStates USDA Biological Survey Bulletin 37.

Bowes, B., D. Callaham, and J. G. Torrey 1977. Time-

lapse photographic observations of mor-

phogenesis in root nodules of Comptoniaperegnna, the sweet fern. Botanical Gazette137:262-268.

Callaham, D , and J. G. Torrey 1977. Prenoduleformation and primary nodule development inroots of Comptonia (Myncaceae). CanadianJournal of Botany 55: 2306-2318.

Callaham, D., P. Del Tredici, and G. Torrey. 1978Isolation and cultivation in vitro of the

actmomycete causing root nodulation in

Comptonia Science 199: 899-902

Del Tredici, P. 1977. The buried seeds of Comptoniaperegnna, the sweet fern. Bulletin of theTorrey Botamcal Club 104: 270-275.

Del Tredici, P., and f G. Torrey. 1976. On the

germination of seeds of Comptonia peregnna,the sweet fern. Botamcal Gazette 137. 262-268

Elias, T. S. 1971. The genera of Myncaceae in thesoutheastern Umted States. Journal of theArnold Arboretum 52: 305-318.

Enchsen-Brown, C. 1979. Medicmal and other uses ofNorth Amencan plants Toronto: GeneralPubl. Co.

Fry, J. T 1996 Bartram’s garden catalogue of NorthAmencan plants. Journal of Garden History1 G~ 1 1-66

Goforth, P. L , and J. G. Torrey. 1977. The developmentof isolated roots of Comptonia peregnna

(Myncaceae) in culture. Amencan Journal ofBotany 64: 476-482.

Hyde, L C., J. Troll, and J M. Zak. 1972. Growingsweet fern in low-fertility soils AmencanNurseryman 136 (6): 12, 30-36.

Johnson, E. 1654. Wonderworkmg Promdence of Sion’sSavior in New England. London: Nath. Brooke

Josselyn, J. (1672) 1972. New-Englands RamtiesDiscovered. Boston: Massachusetts Historical

Society

Kalm, P. ( 1770~ 1987. Travels mto North America, ed. A.B. Benson. NY: Dover.

Kenfield, W. G. 1966. The Wild Gardener m the WildLandscape NY: Hafner.

Lmnaeus, C. /1753~ 1957. Species Plantarum. Facsimileed., 2 vols. London: Ray Society.

Marshall, H. 1785. Arbustrum Americanum, theAmencan Grove Philadelphia: Hafner.

Nrenng, W. A., and R. H. Goodwin 1974 Creation ofrelatively stable shrublands with herbicides:arresting "succession" on nghts-of-way andpastureland. Ecology 55: 784-795

Schramm, J. R. 1966. Plant colonization studies onblack wastes from anthracite mining in

Pennsylvania. Transactions of the AmencanPhilosophical Society 56/1/: 1-194.

Schwintzer, C. 1989. All field-collected actinorhizaeexammed on Comptoma peregnna and Myncapensylvamca m Mame are spore negativeCanadian /ournal of Botany 67: 1460-1464.

and J. D. Tjepkema. 1990 The Biology of Frankiaand Actmorhizal Plants San Diego: AcademicPress.

Thoreau, H. D. 1962. The fournal of Henry D Thoreau,1837-1861, ed. B. Torrey and F. H. Allen. N.Y.:Dover Publ., repnnt of the 1906 edition.

Zobel, R. W., P. Del Tredici, and J. G Torrey. 1976.Method for growmg plants aeroponically. PlantPhysiology 57: 344-346

Peter Del Tredici is Director of Living Collections at theArnold Arboretum.

A Park and Garden in Vermont:Olmsted and the Webbs at Shelburne Farms

Alan Emmet

With the Adirondacks as a backdrop across Lake Champlain, the W. S. Webbs,with guidance from Frederick Law Olmsted, entirely transformed their property

to accord with their own vision. Owing to a continuity of ownership andplanning, the landscape of the Webbs has lasted now for over a century.

Anyone who walks through the woods in NewEngland can hardly miss the stone fences.Lichen-covered, often half-buried in pineneedles, they thread their way up hill and down,now and then meeting each other at odd sharpangles. These fences are such an obvious sign ofa drastically altered land use that you begin towonder how the land once looked. And then youmarvel at the sheer strength and determinationof the region’s first farmers.The terrain at Shelburne Farms is different.

Here, beside Lake Champlain in northern Ver-mont, you could walk through a thousand acresof woods and pastureland without encounteringeven a remnant of the typical old stone fences.The landscape is idyllically pastoral, withBrown Swiss cows browsing in verdant rollingmeadows. This bucolic setting, unique now inthe rapidly developing periphery of Burlington,Vermont’s largest city, has long been ananomaly. The truth is that Shelburne Farms wasdeliberately made to look different from thesurrounding countryside. The boundary wallsof the old agricultural order were removed,stone by stone, in the 1880s, and the terrain wasreshaped on a new and grand scale.

William Seward Webb (1851-1926) had grownup in New York City, where his father was the"pugnacious" editor of a New York paper.’Seward Webb studied medicine in Europe and atColumbia. He practiced for only three or fouryears before turning to finance on Wall Street,where he established his own brokerage house.Before long he became involved in railroad busi-

ness with William Henry Vanderbilt, oldestson and chief heir of "Commodore" CorneliusVanderbrlt.2 2

Dr. Webb travelled to Vermont in 1880 tolook at the Rutland railroad with an eye to

annexing it to the Vanderbilt empire. Althoughhe did not favor acquisition of the railroad,he liked what he saw of Burlington andthe Champlain Valley. He also liked theVanderbilts. In 1881, Seward Webb married LilaVanderbilt, the next-youngest of William

Henry’s eight children. Not long after his mar-riage, Dr. Webb was named president of theWagner Palace Car Company, suppliers of sleep-ing cars to the Vanderbilt-controlled New YorkCentral Railroad.

For a wedding present, Lila’s father gave hera house on Fifth Avenue at 54th Street, just ablock from his own mansion and those of other

family members. Their Fifth Avenue house wasto be the Webbs’ primary residence for thirtyyears. As the location for their requisite countryhouse, they promptly settled upon the remoteand unfashionable part of Vermont that had

appealed to Dr. Webb.On the shores of Lake Champlain at

Burlington, the Webbs built a rustic summercottage called Oakledge.3 This was all very wellfor a young couple, but the Webbs had some-thing grander in mind. Scouting out the area,Seward Webb decided the most desirable land

lay along the lake in Shelburne. The farms theremay have been worn out, but the topographyand the scenery were special. The shoreline wasirregular, with rocky promontories and curving

13

Steamer off Shelburne Pomt, oil by Charles Lewis Hyde. This mldcentury painting illustrates the mew thatOlmsted admired m 1845. The typical agranan Vermont landscape m the foreground later became part ofWilliam S Webb’s Shelburne Farms and was subjected to a grand zeordenng.

bays. From any point along that stretch of shore,one had the extraordinary view of the blueAdirondack mountains, rising tier on tier, onthe far side of the lake. From Lone Tree Hill in

Shelburne, three hundred feet above the water,the view to the west was even more impressive.Webb began negotiating in 1885 to buy up

parcels of land in Shelburne. In December ofthat year, his father-in-law William HenryVanderbilt died, having doubled the fortune thathis father, Cornelius, had bequeathed to him amere eight years earlier.4 Lila’s inheritance wasonly a small fraction of her father’s $200-millionestate, but added to Seward Webb’s own rapidlygrowing fortune, the couple’s means seemedlimitless. The Webbs could have almost any-thing they wanted. Dr. Webb enlarged the scopeof his plans for Shelburne and accelerated thepace of his land purchases. Through an agent, henegotiated with local farmers, many of themimpoverished, but not all of whom were pleasedto learn that they had granted sales options tothe same mysterious buyer.’ By 1891, Webb hadpurchased all or portions of twenty-nine farms,covering 2,800 acres. The prices Webb paidvaried widely, but the average was less than$150 per acre over a six-year period. Existing

farm buildings added little if any value; Webbwas interested only in land.~ Still he continuedto buy. Eventually he owned almost 4,000 con-tiguous acres.

Dr. Webb intended all along to reshape the sepa-rate farms he was buying into one great unifiedwhole. His first move was to hire an architect to

design a suitable house and major farm build-ings. His choice of R. H. Robertson was a happyone for both men. Robertson was known toWebb as a designer of railroad stations and asarchitect of the Gothic Revival Church of Saint

James in Manhattan. He worked for Webb foryears. With Webb as his patron, Robertson’s

major work was done at Shelburne.One of Dr. Webb’s first directives to

Robertson was to ask Frederick Law Olmsted,then the nation’s preeminent landscape archi-tect, to come as soon as possible to Shelburne toconfer in regard to the "landscape department."’ 7In his June 1886 letter to Olmsted conveyingWebb’s mvitation, Robertson wrote that he hadbeen retained to design "a most importantCountry house, stock barns-stables etc." forthe 1,700 acres that Webb had by that timepurchased along the lake. To make sure that

14

Prelimmary Study for Part of Plan for Laymg Out the Shelburne FarmsEstate for Dr. W. S. Webb, by F. L. and J. C. Olmsted, 1887. The lakeshore is at the lower edge of this plan; the house, shown at the center,with its "home grounds" and "home stables" on top of Lone Tree Hill,was actually built close to the lake, contrary to Olmsted’s advice. Theplan mdlcates Olmsted’s division of the estate mto separate areas offarm, park, and forest.

tice had taken him all over the coun-

try. He continued to design publicparks for cities, including Boston,Detroit, and Washington, DC. Headvised on campus plans, ranging fromGroton School to Stanford University.He collaborated with prominent archi-tects such as H. H. Richardson on

designs for private estates. At aboutthe same time that he took on Dr.Webb as a client, he was workingfor other members of the extendedVanderbilt family in Newport, Lenox,and Bar Harbor. Biltmore, by far hislargest undertaking for a privateclient, was still ahead. Olmsted’sconnection with the Vanderbilts hadeven included laying out the groundsfor the family mausoleum on StatenIsland. 10

Staten Island, as it happened, hadbeen the site of Olmsted’s first contactwith the Vanderbilts. In 1848, agedtwenty-six and unsure of his life work,Olmsted had attempted to run a farmbought for him by his father. He lastedonly two years on Staten Island butdid get to know a neighboring farmer,

Olmsted realized the significance of the project,Robertson wrote that "if justice is done to thesituation and conditions it will without doubtbe one of the most important and beautifulcountry places in America and in view of thisfact I hope you can undertake the problem." "

Olmsted wrote to Dr. Webb immediately,arranging to make an inspection trip to

Shelburne the very next week, adding that hischarge for a preliminary visit would be $100 andtraveling expenses.8 Within a month after hisfirst visit, Olmsted had formulated the basis forhis proposal, which, as he outlined it to his col-league, Charles Eliot, was to be "a perfectlysimple park, or pasture-field, a mile long on thelake, half a mile deep, the house looking downover it."9Olmsted was at the peak of his career when

he agreed to advise Dr. Webb. Ten years earlier,having completed his work on the New YorkCity parks, he had moved his office to

Brookline, Massachusetts. Since then, his prac-

William Henry Vanderbilt (the father, muchlater, of Lila Webb)." Vanderbilt was exactlythe same age as Olmsted. He had been rusti-cated to farming by his father, Cornelius, whoat the time considered him "an improvidentdolt."’z Dolt or not, Vanderbilt’s farm, unlikeOlmsted’s, was quite prosperous.Throughout his career as a landscape archi-

tect, one of Olmsted’s primary goals was toimprove the environment of the burgeoningcities where more and more people spent theirlives. At the same time, he perceived the impor-tance of planning to preserve wilderness areasand places of particular natural beauty. Olmstedworked to protect Yosemite and Niagara Falls,places he deemed to be national treasures, thebirthright of all Americans. His work for richprivate clients was just as firmly grounded inhis belief in the necessity for conserving naturalresources.

Wherever he worked, Olmsted was keenlyaware of the character and scenery of the locale.

15 5

This, to him, was what the word "landscape"meant. He realized that this concern set himapart from others m his field. Most designers, heobserved, were unfortunately attuned only toelements, incidents, and features, rather thanthe landscape itself. This he held to be the directresult of their training as gardeners. "A trainingwhich is innocently assumed to be a training inlandscape gardening is a training in fact awayfrom it."" I

At a time when there were no academic

programs in landscape design and planning,Olmsted’s own education had depended on hisremarkable powers of observation. Even as a

young man, he had been keenly aware of scen-ery and well able to describe what he saw. Inan 1845 letter to his father, he had by chancedescribed the actual setting of what, forty yearslater, was to become Shelburne Farms. Explor-ing that part of Vermont on a horse, he hadobserved the marginal state of the region’s agri-culture. He rode past burnt stumps, patches ofmullein, and so little grass that "I should thmkthe poor sheep would find it hard work enoughto live, without troubling themselves withgrowing wool." South of Burlington, standingprobably on Lone Tree Hill, the highest point atShelburne Farms, Olmsted encountered one ofthe finest views he had ever seen. He admiredLake Champlam with its bays and islands, butthe "chief charm" was the mountain backdropacross the lake.

I never saw mountams rise more beautifully oneabove another the larger ones seemmg to clusterround and protect the smaller, nor did the sum-mer veil of haze ever sit on them more sweetly.Back of all rose some magnificent thunderheadsand they rose fast too, compellmg me at 5o’clock to take refuge and toast and eggs in alittle road-side inn.’4

The setting was certainly no less impressivein 1886, when Olmsted responded to Dr. Webb’ssummons.

Relations between Webb and Olmsted were

unfailingly polite, but not entirely harmonious.Both were men of strong character, with firmlyheld convictions. Despite disagreements, how-ever, their respect for each other never wavered.Dr. Webb, the client, always sought and de-

manded the best of everything. He employedOlmsted because Olmsted was unquestionablythe foremost landscape architect m the country.Olmsted, in turn, was impressed by the breadthof Webb’s vision, the grand scope of his scheme,and, doubtless, the apparently unlimited extentof Webb’s resources for carrying out an idea.When he first embarked on the project for Webb,Olmsted, like Robertson, was convinced that,when completed, the design of Shelburne Farms"would be the most interesting and publiclyvaluable private work of the time on the Ameri-can continent."lsOne of Olmsted’s proposals for Shelburne

farms, the one that he most ardently promoted,was that the estate include an arboretum of allthe trees and shrubs native to Vermont. Thearboretum was to accord with the guidelinesestablished by Harvard professor Charles

Sprague Sargent in planning the Arnold Arbore-tum. To stock this "Arboretum Vermontii,"Olmsted urged Webb to take advantage of thedistinguished nursery of Pringle and Horsford,located just six miles south of Shelburne.’6After discussing the idea with his superinten-dent, Arthur Taylor, who would be responsiblefor planting and care, Webb agreed to proceedwith the arboretum."As envisioned by Olmsted, the arboretum

was to follow the curving roadways he had laidout, being set back from the road on both sides.Such a scheme meant that the arboretum wouldbe an integral and very visible part of ShelburneFarms, which was exactly Olmsted’s intent. Heplaced orders with nurseries all across the coun-try for species that Pringle and Horsford wereunable to supply in sufficient quantity. Thou-sands of trees and shrubs were planted underTaylor’s supervision, beginning in 1887. For thesake of economy, a vast number were grown toplanting-out size in an extensive nursery estab-lished on the Shelburne property.As was his custom, Olmsted had recom-

mended native and hardy plants, based on hisanalysis of the site. His plant lists includedmost of the northeastern native trees: ashes,basswood, birches, elms, hickories, oaks, andwillows, as well as the American chestnut andthe American elm.’H Balsam fir, hemlock, andvarious native pines were ordered in quantity.

16 6

Olmsted expected Pringle and Horsford to col-lect many shrub species by the hundred fromthe wild: alders, swamp azalea, blueberry, but-tonbush, elderberry, pussy willows, black andred raspberries, wild roses, viburnums, witchhazel, and others. He also ordered native vines,including bittersweet, clematis, and wild grape.Olmsted asked for wildflowers, such as twin-flower (Linnea borealis) and trailing arbutus(Epigaea repens). The plants ordered forShelburne Farms were certainly far differentfrom the typical ornamentals with which gar-deners and estate managers were decoratingmost other country places at the time.

Olmsted’s ultimate aim seemed to be to repro-duce the plant diversity that the region mighthave supported a century or two earlier, beforethe land was cleared for farming. The only alienplants he ordered were western evergreensfrom P. Douglass & Sons: Colorado spruce(Picea pungens) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugamenziesii).Webb’s ideas for planting began to diverge

from Olmsted’s as soon as he fully undertoodwhat Olmsted was proposing. Webb wanted toinclude ornamental varieties; the greeneryindigenous to Vermont seemed too stark forthe Shelburne Farms he envisioned. He began torequest tender and exotic species, such as rhodo-dendrons, weeping willows, tea roses, and garde-nias. Olmsted pointed out that these would notsurvive at Shelburne and would be entirely outof character with the landscape.]9 He refused toinvolve himself with the growing of tropicalflowers under glass, if that were Webb’s desire.A great deal of planting was done according to

Olmsted’s recommendation, but the VermontArboretum was never completed. This mayhave been Olmsted’s greatest frustration atShelburne. He had believed strongly thatShelburne Farms, although privately owned,would have a public purpose. As he wrote whenhe submitted his preliminary plan to Webb inJuly, 1887,

I have satisfied myself by personal exammationof the feasibility of such an arrangement and thata beautiful, interesting, instructive and pubhclyimportant arboretum can be so obtamed, thepresent natural woods formmg an appropnateand harmonious background for it and addmgdirectly to its scientific value.z°

Olmsted lost his enthusiasm for ShelburneFarms when he realized that Webb did not sharehis belief in the educational and scientific

importance to the public of the work they mighthave accomplished there together. After thesummer of 1888, Olmsted’s sons and associatesattended to the work at Shelburne. The seniorOlmsted, meanwhile, was becoming deeplyinvolved with an even larger private project, anda much more sympathetic patron. At Biltmorein the North Carolina mountains, GeorgeW. Vanderbilt, Lila Webb’s brother, grantedOlmsted the trust and the latitude that he hadnot received from the Webbs.

Much of Olmsted’s preliminary plan was imple-mented, as were his carefully articulated prin-ciples of design and the separation of conflictinguses. Olmsted divided the property into threeareas: "Ist Tillage and pasture lands in rotation;2nd Park or permanent pasture lands; 3rd ForestArboretum Vermontii."2’ He insisted that cattleshould be kept from the home grounds, themain roads, and the forest, but without the con-tinual nuisance of gates. To this end, Olmstedproposed the use of sunk fences with retainingwalls, like the unobtrusive ha-has of the Englishlandscape school, to confine the livestock.Fences, particularly near the house, were to beas inconspicuous as possible. Even the mainentrance gates to the estate could generally beleft open, under Olmsted’s plan. The existing"straight and graceless" roads were to be

changed in course and character to suit theterrain and the lush farmland through whichthey would run.The new trees and shrubs were to be set back

from the roads, with here and there a groupingbrought forward in an apparently random way."Fine specimen trees of the old spontaneousgrowth are to be preserved," Olmsted wrote.22Groups of trees and the undergrowth were tolook as natural as possible.Olmsted emphasized to Webb the importance

of having a definite plan before proceeding.Ongoing land purchases made this difficult, ifnot impossible. In 1889 after purchasing fivepasture farms to the south of his original tract,Webb finally agreed to plant the hilly northernpart of the estate in trees, as Olmsted had rec-ommended all along.23

17 7

A stretch of one of the new roads, here passmg between old-growth forest trees mterspersed with recent

plantmg. Photo by T. E. Marr, ca. 1900.

18 8

The Webbs’ house at Shelburne Farms, designed by R. H. Robertson, photo by T. E. Marr, Boston, ca 1900.The rooms on this western side face Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountams.

The English parks that Olmsted had soadmired on his first trip abroad as a young manin 1850 were the chief source of his inspirationthroughout his long career. The design prin-ciples on which he based his public and privatework came from his interpretation of Englishlandscape styles. The idyllic pastoral landscapeof Shelburne Farms is typically Olmstedian.The mam road rolls through broad meadowland,then up a gentle rise into a stretch of deepwoods. Upon emerging again into the open, oneglimpses at a distance the lake, or, at anotherpoint, the great house. Then the road bendsaway, and the distant vision is hidden onceagain. The views that seem so accidental werearranged with care. Transitions from forest topasture to lawn and flower garden are smoothand gradual. There is a sense of fitness andinevitability about this landscape.

Webb devoted much attention to agricultureat Shelburne Farms, using the latest scientifictechniques, which he hoped would set an ex-ample for Vermont farmers. Close to the manorhouse, the Webbs had an ornamental flower gar-den. There is no indication that the Olmstedoffice was involved in its design. The earliest

garden was laid out in geometrically patternedbeds, reportedly modelled after the garden atHampton Court.z4 The beds were planted eachyear with massed annuals that had been raisedm the estate’s greenhouses. By 1911, Lila Webbwas taking more interest in the garden. She wasdissatisfied with what she had. Apparently, sheherself planned the Italianate garden on whichwork began in 1912.25 The new garden ran theentire length of the house, between it and thelake. Long, low brick walls divided the gentledeclivity into shallow terraces. At one end ofthe upper level, a pergola curved around an ovalbasin. On the lowest terrace, between the armsof a balustraded double stairway, was a lily pool.The garden ended at a parapet, bowed out abovethe cliff at the lake’s edge. Each season, tubbedbay trees were put out along the balustrade. Thescene looked for all the world like Isola Bella atLake Maggiore or like the Italian-inspiredgarden of 1850 at Bantry House in Ireland thatoverlooked a bay of the sea, with mountains allaround. In northern Vermont such a garden wasdefinitely unusual.A garden of this style and magnitude was not

uncommon, however, on the estates of the richin pre-World War I America, when formality

19

was fashionable and Europeanprototypes were valued. TheWebbs, on their frequent tripsabroad, had statuary and a sun-dial shipped home. StanfordWhite allegedly brought theman antique fountain sculpturefrom Italy.26 The Webbs had amason who worked full-time tomaintain the walls and stone-work while a troop of gardenersmanaged the flower beds. Therewere peony beds, a rose garden,and deep perennial bordersbacked by majestic spires ofdelphiniums that echoed theshades of blue in the mountainsacross the lake.

Lila Webb amassed a compre-hensive garden library as herinterest grew. Her 1847 copy of

(Samuel B.) / Parsons on the Roseis inscribed "Lila from Seward,1912." She had English books,already classics, by JohnSedding and Gertrude Jekyll, aswell as the recent works ofHelena Rutherfurd Ely, LouiseBeebe Wilder, and Mrs. FrancisKing, among others. Her booksincluded at least three on Ital-ian gardens, those by CharlesPlatt, Edith Wharton, and

George S. Elgood. A tiny 1914diary by Lila Webb reads as if itwere intended to be a calendarof practical hints to other gar-deners. If she had filled it withauthoritative "dos and don’ts"for each month or week of the

year, her book could have fol-lowed a time-honored tradi-tion : "Plant Sweet Peas as soonas the frost is out of the

From the flower garden, steps descended to a lily pool and a curved parapetoverlookmg Lake Champlam Bay trees in Italian pots were set out eachsummer along the balustrade Photo by A. A. McAllister, 1916,

SFF~

The Webb family m the flower garden, ca. 1916. Dr. and Mrs. Webb flank theirgrandchildren m the front row. The delphinium display was a feature of theperennial borders. In the background is a long, curved pergola Photo by A AMcAlhster.

ground." Unfortunately, Lila Webb’s literary cator of the insidious onset of neglect, all theefforts petered out not long after the frost would potted bay trees along the parapet were killedhave been out of the Shelburne ground that year. by an early frost.z’ The glory days were over.

Shelburne Farms had been built up very quickly.Seward Webb died at Shelburne Farms in 1926. In typically American fashion, it flourished asThe following year, by act of God or as an indi- long as did its creator. Its decline was precipi-

20

tous-to a point. The survival and rebirth ofShelburne Farms could be a case study in pres-ervation. Dr. Webb’s descendants have shown asmuch determination, and as much devotion toShelburne Farms, as their progenitor.

Endnotes

1 Seward Webb Dead m Vermont," New York Times, 30Oct. 1926.

2 Wayne Andrews, The Vanderbilt Legend (NY:Harcourt Brace, 1941 147.

3 Joe Sherman, The House at Shelburne Farms

(Middlebury, VT: Paul S. Enksson, 1986), 9-11.

4 John Tebbel, The Inhentors: A Study of Amenca’s ’s

Great Fortunes and What Happened to Them (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962), 30.

S Sherman, The House at Shelburne Farms, 16.

6 Land records of the Town of Shelburne; William C.Lrpke, ed., Shelburne Farms. The History of anAgncultural Estate (Burlington, VT: Robert HullFleming Museum, University of Vermont, 1974/, 16.

7 R. H. Robertson to Frederick Law Olmsted, 17 June1886, Job File 1031, Box B-74, Frederick Law OlmstedPapers, Manuscript Drvrsron, Library of Congress.

8 Frederick Law Olmsted to William Seward Webb, 18 8June 1886, Olmsted Papers.

9 Frederick Law Olmsted to Charles Eliot, 20 July 1886,quoted by Joan Wiecek, "Shelburne Farms," Master’sDegree Project, Dept. of Landscape Architecture,Umversity of Massachusetts, 1984, 21.

1o Albert Fein, Fredenck Law Olmsted and theAmemcan Envmonmental TradW on (NY: Braziller,1972), 166-69.

11 Laura Wood Roper, FLO’ A Biography of FredenckLaw Olmsted (Baltimore: Johns Hopkms UniversityPress, 1973), 55-66.

12 Andrews, Vanderbilt Legend, 25.

13 Quoted m Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., & Theodora

Kimball, Fredenck Law Olmsted, LandscapeArchitect, 1822-1903 (NY: G P. Putnam’s Sons,1922), 128.

14 Ibid., 64-65.

15 Frederick Law Olmsted to William Seward Webb, 11 1April 1888, Olmsted Papers.

16 Frederick Law Olmsted to William Seward Webb, 17 7March 1887, Reel Al:68, Olmsted Papers.

17 William Seward Webb to Frederick Law Olmsted, 26March 1887, Olmsted Papers.

18 The Olmsted firm placed orders with Pnngle &

Horsford and nine other nurseries in the spring of1887. See Olmsted Papers and "List of Trees andShrubs Proposed to be ordered for Dr. W. S. Webb," 22April 1887, Frederick Law Olmsted National HistoricSite, Brookline, MA.

19 F. L. Olmsted & J. C. Olmsted to William SewardWebb, 24 Jan. 1889, Reel A3:140; Frederick LawOlmsted to William Seward Webb, 7 March 1888,Reel A2:249, Olmsted Papers.

2o Frederick Law Olmsted to William Seward Webb, 12 2July 1887, Reel Al:887, Olmsted Papers.

zi Fredenck Law Olmsted to William Seward Webb, 12 2July 1887, Olmsted Papers.

22 Ibid.

23 William Seward Webb to Frederick Law Olmsted, 20Feb. 1889, Olmsted Papers.

24 Wiecek, "Shelburne Farms," 44

25 Susan Cady Hayward, "Gardens of a Gilded Age,"Vermont Life 42 (Summer 1988/: 6.

zb Isabell H. Hardie, "The Garden of Mrs. W. SewardWebb," Country Life m Amenca 32 (Oct. 1917):62-63 ; "The Garden at Shelburne Farms," Arts andDecoration 11 (June 1919):66-67.

z~ Sherman, The House at Shelburne Farms, 76.

This article is excerpted from the chapter on ShelburneFarms m Alan Emmet’s So Fme a Prospect. Historic NewEngland Gardens, newly published by the UniversityPress of New England. Her article on the Boott family’sgarden m Boston, a subject she returned to in her newbook, appeared in Arnoldia 47(4). The author is a

consultant m garden history as well as a writer. Her bookis reviewed on page 26.

Itea ’Beppu’: The Return of the Native

Peter M. Mazzeo and Donald H. Voss .

A "garden variety" observation suggests a taxonomic puzzle.The authors sort it out.

In a 1980 article in Arnoldia, Arnold Arboretumhorticulturist Gary Koller gave a cultivar

name-’Beppu’-to a deciduous Itea growing ontop of a stone wall below the Dana Greenhousesin dry, acid soil and full sun. Having grown inthat location for six years, the Arboretum’sthree plants were then about 0.7 to 0.9 meters(two-and-a-half to three feet) tall. In addition totheir compact habit, Koller noted their vigor,graceful summer flowers, and the wine-red toreddish purple color of their autumn foliage.These features, he thought, added up to an Iteabetter for gardens in the Northeast than anyother then available.The plants, accessioned as AA 144-74, came

to the Arnold Arboretum from the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture’s Regional Plant Introduc-tion Station at Experiment, Georgia, identifiedas Itea japonica Oliv. and "Kyushu 226131." In1955 USDA plant explorer John Creech, laterdirector of the National Arboretum, had col-lected six specimens of a compact form of Iteajaponica growing outdoors at Hot Springs Utili-zation Station, Beppu, Kyushu, Japan. Thesewere subsequently designated as USDA PlantIntroduction 226131 and given the notation"dwarf." Eventually they were propagated anddistributed to a number of testing locations,including the Arnold Arboretum. Thus, thecomplete name of the cultivar designated byKoller was 1. japonica ’Beppu’.However, observation of the habit and flowers

of two plants of Itea, each nearly 1.8 meters (six

feet) tall, growing side by side in a private gardenin northern Virginia led us to question thespecies identification of I. ’Beppu’. One isI. ’Beppu’, the other an unnamed selection ofI. virginica that was received in a 1980 ArnoldArboretum distribution of plants propagatedfrom a specimen found near Sharpsburg, Geor-gia. These plants are so similar in foliage,flower, fruit, and autumn color as to supportthe hypothesis that they are members of thesame species, namely the North AmericanI. virginica, not I. japonica.

The generic name, Itea (the Greek word for wil-low) derives from a resemblance of the leaves ofI. virginica to those of willows. A member of thesaxifrage family, its common name is sweet-spire, or Virginia willow. Itea includes about tenspecies of evergreen or deciduous shrubs andtrees ranging in the wild from the Himalayathrough China to Japan, the Philippines, andwestern Malesia, plus one species in the easternUnited States (Mabberley 1989; Ohwi 1965).Valued for their evergreen, holly-like leaves, aswell as for long, pendulous flowers in summer,the Chinese 1. ilicifolia and 1. yunnanensis arecultivated in warm temperate climates. Theonly deciduous Itea widely cultivated in NorthAmerica is I. virginica, which includes the cul-tivars ’Beppu’ and ’Henry’s Garnet’.The native ranges of Itea species are warm-

temperate to tropical; hence cold-hardinesslimits their use as ornamental plants in the

Overleaf~ This illustration of Itea virgmica from Curtis’s Botamcal Magazme (50(1823): t.2409) mcludes anatypical tnlobed leaf and, on opened flowers, the "starry" petal omentation sometimes found m the southernUmted States. More generally, petal omentation is nearly erect, gmmg the inflorescences a "bottlebrush"appearance. The branches beanng mflorescences are usually archmg, not upmght, as depicted m this plate.

22

23

northern United States. In the wild, 1. virginicathrives in moist soils on the coastal plam fromsouthern New Jersey to Flomda, along the GulfCoast to east Texas, and up the Mississippi val-ley to southern Illinois. The plant will survivein the Boston area but not without winterkillof branches. The native habitats of 1. japonicareach from the southern part of Japan’s Kinki

district (including Mie, Nara, and Wakayamaprefectures) on Honshu southwestward to

Shikoku and Kyushu (Ohwi 1965). ThomasEverett (1981) comments that 1. ~apomca is

"probably hardy in sheltered locations in thevicinity of New York City" but that the ever-green I. ihcifoha is not hardy north of the Wash-ington, DC, area.

To test our hypothesis regarding the identification of ’Beppu’, we compared herbarium specimens ofit with specimens of Itea japomca and I. virginica collected in the wild. The typical herbarium speci-men consisted of the terminal 20 to 30 centimeters (eight to twelve inches) of a flowering branch.Because leaf size varies greatly on individual plants of Itea, we averaged the petiole (leaf stalk) lengthand the length and width of the lamina (leaf blade) from the four or five largest leaves on each her-barium sheet. Measurements of floral parts were also averaged. The tabulation below summarizesthe typical sizes and shapes of the structures measured; the lower and upper ranges of measurementshave been placed in parentheses.

Note: 25.4 millimeters equals 1 inch.

24

When English botanist Daniel Oliverdescribed Itea japonica in 1867, he indi-cated that smaller flower size distin-

guishes the species 1. japonica: "Thepetals, stamens, and styles are muchshorter than in I. virginica. " Germanbotanist Camillo Schneider later notedthat the flowers of 1. japonica are

scarcely half as large as those of 1.

virgmica. Also distinguishing the spe-cies is the amount of leaf serration: theleaves of 1. japonica average five toseven per centimeter while those of 1.

virginica average eight to ten near thewidest part of the lamina.

Koller especially admired the compact-ness of ’Beppu’. The plant’s siting-indry, acid soil in full sun-may havehad something to do with its stature.Moreover, this dryish moisture regimeoccurs in an area well north of theclimatic range native to either Itea

japonica or 1. virginica. Dr. StephenSpongberg, horticultural taxonomist atthe Arnold Arboretum, tells us that 1.japomca ’Beppu’ "is only marginallyhardy here at the Arboretum, and conse-quently it dies to the ground each win-ter. However, each growing season ourplants put on new growth to about threefeet in height, and they have formed aclump about four feet in diameter." "

In contrast, plants of this cloneobserved growing in the Washington,DC, area approach a height of 1.8

meters, indicating that Itea ’Beppu’ ishardly "dwarf." Nor do they die back tothe ground in winter, and unlike theplant in Jamaica Plain they receive atleast some artificial watering. Thesefactors undoubtedly contribute to theirgreater height.On the matter of autumn color, we

suggest that it undoubtedly developsmore reliably in the Boston area than inWashington, DC, where warm weathersometimes results in persistence ofgreen color and leaf retention mto earlywinter. And that leaves us with one last

(1 Itea vmgmca’Beppu’ ~labelled I. ~aponica’Beppu’~ (S. Elsik c~JL Makepeace, 1260, 20 June 1984, at map location 42A-b,Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plam, MA (A~J

(2J Itea virginica (R. W Tyndall c’~7 K. McCarthy, MarylandNatural Hentage Program, 87261, 7 June 1987, Carolma Baywithin 5 km of Goldsboro, MD (NAJJ

(3) Itea japonica (Y Tateishi eJ J. Murata, 4217, 4 June 1978,Japan : Honshu, Nara Prefecture (NAJ)

25

piece of the puzzle: was 1. mrgimcagrowing m Japan m 1955? Had it beenintroduced prior to Dr. Creech’s collect-ing trip? The answer is yes. One of theherbarium specimens we examined wasdated 1929, attesting to the presence ofI. virginica in Japan well before theintroduction into the United States ofUSDA P.I. 226131. Judging by theprinted heading ("Flora Japonica") onthe label of yet another herbarium

specimen, this one dated 1910, it toowas presumably collected in Japan.Indeed, Dr. Yotaro Tsukamoto, Profes-sor Emeritus of Kyoto University,believes that 1. virgmica may have beenm Japan as early as 1887.That said, we feel confident m con-

cludmg that USDA Plant Introduction226131 from Beppu, Japan, is indeedItea virgmica, not 1. japonica, and thatthe Arnold Arboretum’s ’Beppu’ is, intruth, a clone of 1. virginica. But wenote that, independent of species asso-ciation, this returned native remainsthe same attractive landscape plantwith mteresting flowers, good foliage,and fall color that caught the attentionof both Dr. Creech and Gary Koller.

References The pendent racemes of Itea vmgmca appear m midsummer.

Everett, Thomas H. 1981. The New York BotamcalGarden Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horti-culture, vol. 6 NY. Garland Publishmg.

Koller, Gary. 1980 Itea Summer Flowers and AutumnColor Arnoldia 40/1): 23-29.

Mabberley, D. J. 1989 The plant book, reprinted withcorrections NY: Cambndge University Press.

Ohwi, Jisaburo. 1965 Flora of Japan (m English~ Eds F.

G. Meyer and E. H. Walker. Washmgton, DC:Smithsoman Institution

Oliver, Daniel 1867. [Protologue for Itea ~apomca Oliv.,sp. nov.] Journal of the Lmnean Society IX:164.

Schneider, C. 1905. lllustriertes Handbuch derLaubholzkunde, vol. I. Jena. Gustav Fischer,396-397.

U.S Department of Agriculture. 1964. Plant inventoryno. 163: Plant material introduced January 1 toDecember 31, 1955 (Nos. 222846 to 230876)Washington, DC.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. FredenckG. Meyer’s suggestions for emendation of the ongmaldraft. They also thank Dr. S. A. Spongberg, who read thedraft and checked acquisition records at the ArnoldArboretum. They are also grateful to the curatorsof herbana at the Arnold Arboretum, Missoun Botan-ical Garden, and Smithsoman Institution for theircooperation in supplymg specimens used in this

mvestigation.

Peter Mazzeo is a botamst, now retired from the U SNational Arboretum and residmg in Wmter Haven,Florida. Donald Voss is a horticulturist and a volunteerm the herbanum of the National Arboretum.

Lives of New England Gardens: Book Review

"The Kingdom of England don’t afford so Fine a Prospect as I have."-Thomas Hancock (1702-1764)

Phyllis Andersen

So Fine a Prospect: Historic New England Gar-dens. Alan Emmet. University Press of NewEngland, 1996. Hardcover, 238 pages, $45.00

Regionalism, as defined by Marc Treib in arecent Dumbarton Oaks publication, is basedon the interaction of geographical, biological,environmental, and cultural factors. Regional-ism in Treib’s definition is a dynamic entityconstantly evolving and modifying garden form.Building a case for regional identity on toosweeping or static a construct can lead to peril-ous scholarship. Alan Emmet avoids this pitfallin her admirable new book on historic New

England gardens by her very careful rendering ofthe physical character of site and the personalvisions of the garden creators. Certamly thereare themes in New England gardenmakmg:Anglophilic models, the need for a country seatto balance lives based in commerce, the valuingof horticultural pursuits in a region with arich nursery tradition. In her elegant styleEmmet renders the life of over fourteen gar-dens-some our grand masterworks: Wellesley,the Hunnewell estate; Shelburne Farms, theWebb family country home, Edith Wharton’sThe Mount. Others, small, eccentric: Potter’sGrove in Arlington, Massachusetts; Roselandin Woodstock, Connecticut; Celia Thaxter’sgarden on Appledore Island. Of the gardens cov-ered, four are lost and recreated through docu-mentation, most are extant and open to thepublic in some form of preserved condition, stillothers remain in private use.Emmet reflects on the definition of "garden"

and establishes her own: "The best gardensconvey this sense of their own separateness, afeeling of seclusion and sanctuary from theworkaday world.... their appearance owes asmuch to what they exclude as to what they con-

tain." Like Olmsted, Emmet values the gardenas prospect as well as refuge, albeit a prospectthat is controlled and exclusive. She is precise inher selection criteria: the garden must typify aparticular period or exemplify an innovationand must have a sufficient written record. She

begins with the gardens of the early republic inBoston and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire,and ends with Eoha, the Harkness estate inConnecticut, completed just before World War I.One of the most interesting early gardens is

that of the Boott family in Boston. In a chapteraptly titled "Radishes and Orchids," Emmetdescribes the fascinating and sometimes sadsaga of a family of amateur horticulturists withties to England. The Boott garden was located inBowdoin Square on the site of what is now thetwenty-two story state office building on Cam-bridge Street in downtown Boston. Kirk Boott,the founding father, marked his success as animporter of English goods with a substantialmansion and attached greenhouse. With anamateur’s zeal he grew tender flowers and fruit.His sons added orchids to the family collection.Emmet captures the spirit of horticultural com-petition that affected the Boott family and thatwas supported by such role models as TheodoreLyman and his estate, the Vale, in Waltham andGardiner Greene and his exquisite terrace gar-den at the foot of Beacon Hill.Emmet’s rendering of the "lost gardens" is

poignant because their loss had as much to dowith the fickleness of the second generation asit had with failing fortunes and the impositionof the personal income tax. The ghostly gardentraces of Vaucluse, the classically inspired land-scape built by the Elam family near Newport,Rhode Island, owes much to Rousseau’s roman-tic, melancholy retreat at Ermenonville. Severalfamilies were associated with Vaucluse, none

Geometnc topiary m the Hunnewells’ Italian garden, Wellesley, Massachusetts, ca 1870

capable of sustaining its beauty. Sadder yet isthe story of the spectacular "Bellmont," the117-acre Cushing estate garden in Watertown,Massachusetts. Downing described it as a "resi-dence of more note than any other near Boston"on account of its extensive range of glasshousesand the "high culture of the gardens." The man-sion and glasshouses were designed by AsherBenjamin, but the garden was designed for themost part by its owner, John Cushing, whosefortune was made in the opium trade in China.

Using a vaguely Reptonian model, Cushingfocused on display: fruit trees, rose and flowergardens, fountains. His interest in technicalmnovation was as strong as his desire for plantsof rare and exotic origin. Cushmg’s fortune andsocial and business connections made his gar-den the setting for extravagant entertainmentsfor prestigious visitors. Four years after

Cushing’s death his sons sold the property for$100,000, not because they needed the moneybut because their interests were elsewhere.

28

Emmet notes that even today enormous treesloom up in unexpected places in this corner ofWatertown, evidence of Cushing’s lost garden.

In addition to high-style gardens, Emmetincludes several that could only be called per-sonal, highly individual to their owners/cre-ators. Roseland, the Gothic Revival cottage andgarden of Henry Bowen in Woodstock, Con-necticut, is pictured with its resplendent flowerparterres that were planted to be at peak bloomwhen Bowen hosted a Fourth-of-July party ofhuge proportions. Roseland, now owned by theSociety for the Preservation of New EnglandAntiquities, was evidence of personal patrio-tism and love of small town civic life. Potter’sGrove in Arlington, Massachusetts, was a three-acre parcel just off the main street. Joseph Pot-ter, an individual whose career in commerceand politics was as eclectic as his garden tastes,developed this parcel of land as a private indul-gence in a personal rendition of the picturesque.The quirky assemblage of viewing tower, classi-cal urns, mini-cascade, and a pair of dozing lionsquickly attracted the public’s interest. Potterencouraged public visitation, especially photog-raphers ; hence Potter’s Grove, now long gone, ismemorialized through stereopticon views.

Emphatically in this category of personalcreation is the garden of Celia Thaxter onAppledore Island in the Isles of Shoals off thecoast of Maine. This garden, well known in itsday to a coterie of writers and artists who gath-ered in cultish form around Thaxter, is equallypopular today through the reissue of her book,An Island Garden, and its Childe Hassamwatercolor illustrations.Leon Edel, the noted biographer of Henry

James, has noted that "no lives are led outsidehistory or society." Emmet has produced aseries of garden biographies that are as enlight-ening in their rendering of ideas about gardendesign and social history as they are in theirrevelations about personal character. Gardencreation is a messy business. Books are read,friends give advice, travel inspires new ideas,plants die. Emmet has breathed life into archi-val documentation to produce a work of schol-arship that will inform our garden visits as wellas broaden our knowledge of this important seg-ment of New England culture.

Phyllis Andersen is Landscape Historian at the ArnoldArboretum.

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION(Required by 39 U.S.C. 3685)

1 Publication Title Arnoldia 2 Publication No 0004-2633 3 Filing Date~ 21 November 1996 4 Issue Frequency Quarterly 5 No of IssuesPubhshed Annually 4 6 Annual Subscription Price $20 00 domestic, $25 00 foreign 7 Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publi-cation Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, Suffolk County, MA 02130-3519 8 Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters ofGeneral Business Office of Pubhsher Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, Suffolk County, MA 02130-3519 9 Full Names and

Complete Mailing Address of Publrsher, Editor, and Managing Editor Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plam, Suffolk County, MA02130-3519, publisher, Karen Madsen, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-3519, editor 10 Owner The Arnold Arbo-retum of Harvard University, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plam, Suffolk County, MA 02130-3519 11 Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and OtherSecurity Holders Owmng or Holdmg I Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities none 12 The purpose, func-

tion, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed dunng the preceding 12months 13 Publicauon Name Arnoldia 14 Issue Date for Circulation Data Below Summer 1996 15 Extent and Nature of Circulation a

Total No Copies Average No Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months 4,313 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest toFiling Date 4,500 b Paid and/or Requested Circulation ~1/ Sales Through Dealers and Carners, Street Vendors, and Counter Sales AverageNo Copies Each Issue Dunng Preceding 12 Months none Actual No Copies of Single Issue Pubhshed Nearest to Filing Date none ~2/ Paidand/or Requested Mail Subscriptions Average No Copies Each Issue Dunng Preceding 12 Months 3,087 Actual No. Copies of Single IssuePublished Nearest to Filing Date 3,301 c Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation Average No Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months3,087 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date 3,301 d Free Distribution by Mail Average No. Copies Each IssueDuring Precedmg 12 Months 219 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date 174 e Free Distribution Outside theMail Average No Copies Each Issue Dunng Preceding 12 Months 145 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date220 f Total Free Distribution Average No Copies Each Issue Dunng Preceding 12 Months 364 Actual No Copies of Single Issue PublishedNearest to Filing Date 394 g Total Distribution Average No Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months 3,451 Actual No Copies ofSingle Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date 3,695 h Copies Not Distnbuted (1~ Offrce Use, Leftovers, Spoiled Average No Copies EachIssue Dunng Preceding 12 Months 862 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date 805 ~2~ Return from news agentsAverage No Copies Each Issue Dunng Precedmg 12 Months none Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date none r

Total Average No Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months 4,313 Actual No Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date4,500 Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation Average No Copies Each Issue Dunng Preceding 12 Months 89% Actual No Copies of SingleIssue Published Nearest to Filing Date. 89% I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete Karen Madsen, Editor

The Arnold ArboretumF , - ~ - 1 .. , 6

New Exhibit Opens: Science in the Pleasure GroundFor 125 years, the Arnold Arbore-

tum, the country’s oldest arbore-tum, has been a source of

enjoyment and education in and

beyond its 265 acres in JamaicaPlain. In October, as the firstevent in a milestone anniversarycelebration, the Arboretumunveiled a new, permanent exhibit

in the Hunnewell Visitor’s Center.

Titled "Science in the Pleasure

Ground," the exhibit looks backat the Arboretum’s history andreflects on the value of its land-

scape as a resource for exploringboth cultural and natural history.It illustrates a range of topics thatinclude the Arboretum’s role in

plant conservation, exploration,and research as well as in the evo-

lution of landscapes, both privateand public.

An 8-by-16-foot model of theArboretum takes center stage in

the exhibit. In 40-to-1 scale, morethan 4,000 miniature trees repli-cate the living collections. Themodel also features historical

vignettes of various periods,forming a "mosaic of time." Forinstance, one vignette portrays themansion and landscape plantingsof the mid-19th-century merchantand gentleman farmer BenjaminBussey, whose estate later becamethe Arnold Arboretum. Another

vignette depicts the archeologicaldig that confirmed the existenceof prehistoric habitation on thegrounds many thousands of yearsago. A rail around the perimeterof the model accomodates further

In the Arboretum’s new 8-by-16-foot model, a vignette of the devastation wreaked by the hurricane of 1938can be seen on the slopes of Hemlock Hill. High winds knocked down 1,500 trees. Across the road is a replicaof the sawmill known to have stood on Bussey (then Sawmill) Brook in 1654.

interpretation of the landscape’s evolution.Surrounding the model, five exhibits illustrate

other aspects of the Arboretum’s history: the designof the landscape; plant-collecting explorations; forestconservation here and abroad; American horticulture;and the various uses of wood. The exhibit’s combina-

tion of historic photographs, plans, and drawings aswell as physical artifacts, video clips, and interactivefeatures is designed to appeal to viewers of varyinginterest levels. In the plant explorauon exhibit, visi-tors can test their knowledge of the origin of trees inthe "plant-matching game," which provides cluesabout some of America’s most popular plants.Another exhibit tells the story of the design collabo-ration between Charles Sprague Sargent, theArboretum’s first director, and Frederick LawOlmsted, America’s preeminent landscape architectand designer of Boston’s Emerald Necklace parksystem. Features in this part of the exhibit include a

replica of Olmsted’s drafung table, original land-scape drawings dating to 1872, and then-and-nowphotos of the landscape.

Funded by the National Endowment for theHumanities and by private donations, the exhibitgrew out of an earlier NEH-funded book trilogyabout the Arboretum published between 1991 and1995 : A Reunion of Trees by Stephen A. Spongberg,New England Natzver by Sheila Connor, and Sczence znthe Pleasure Ground by Ida Hay. It is from the wealth

of information generated by this trilogy that the"Science in the Pleasure Ground" exhibit, in additionto a program of tours, signage, and children’s field

study, developed.

The participation of Living Collections staff ensuredthat all 4,000-plus miniature trees were planted intheir proper places on the new model. Just beforecompletion, Stephen Spongberg organized a tree-planting opportunity for all staff members. Seen herefrom left are Sheila Baskin, Perry Rivera, StephenSpongberg, Kyle Port, and John Del Rosso.

Surrounding the new model are fiveexhibits that illustrate the history ofthe Arboretum in images, artifacts,video clips, and interactive features.

Above is Gilbert Stuart’s 1809 likenessof Benjamin Bussey, a Boston

businessman who pursued scientificfarming and experiments in

reforestation at "Woodland Hill," oneof Boston’s grand country estates.

"Bussey’s Woods," seen at right in an 1892 etching, was a popular destination for Bostonians seekingfresh air and natural scenery. When Bussey died in 1842, he bequeathed his Jamaica Plain farm to Harvard

University for purposes of agricultural research.

Above is E. H. Wilson, one of the Arboretum’s mostfamous plant explorers, seen in 1907 on one of hiscollecting expeditions to China. On trips to Japan, Korea,and Formosa (Taiwan) as well as China, he collected morethan two thousand plants that were new to Western

gardens. Above at right is a travel permit issued toWilson in western China.

Over the years the Arboretum has sponsoredmany expeditions to Asia and continues to do so. Theherbarium specimen at right documents a plant collectedin Sarawak, Borneo, by John Burley, Arboretum ResearchDirector, in 1987. National Cancer Institute researchers,in a test designed to identify properties that inhibit theAIDS virus, discovered that under laboratory conditionsan extract of the plant, Calophyllum lanigerum var.austrocoriaceum, "essentially halted HIV-1 replication."

Friends of the Arboretum explored the newexhibit at an October gathering to celebratethe opening of "Science in the PleasureGround."

Professor Xue Ji-ru Visits Arboretum

Stephen A. Spongberg, Horticultural Taxonomist

Stephen Spongberg, Professor Xue, and Peter DelTredici in the shadows of the Arboretum’s originalMetasequoia glyptostroboides.

On the afternoon of October 11, the staff of theArnold Arboretum was honored by a visit from Pro-fessor Xue Ji-ru from Kunmmg m Yunnan Province,China. Professor Xue (who has published manybotamcal studies under the name Hsueh Chi Ju) wasthe Chinese forester who m 1946 visited the remotehamlet of Modaoqi in Hubei Province and collectedthe type specimens on which the Chinese botanists

H. H. Hu and W. C. Cheng based their 1948description of Metatequoza glyptostroboides. In Januaryof that year E. D. Mernll, then director of the Arnold

Arboretum, received the first shipment of Metasequoiaseeds from China. Merrill was largely responsiblefor distributing the seeds of this "living fossil," fre-quently known as the dawn redwood, to sister insti-tutions and interested individuals around the world.

While Professor Xue has devoted his long andfruitful career to the study of Chinese bamboos, hewas particularly interested to examine the manydawn redwoods growing in various locations in theArboretum. Earlier in the day he visited theArboretum’s collections in the Harvard UmversityHerbaria in Cambndge where he saw one of thespecimens of Meta.requoza he had collected fifty yearsearlier. At a small reception held in his honor in the

late afternoon, Professor Xue met many Arboretumstaff members and reminisced about his plantdiscoveries in China.

Open HouseThe highlight of the1996 Fall Open Housewas the opening of thenew Arboretum exhibit,but the event also featuredtours of grounds andgreenhouses, a buckettruck and backhoe

demonstration, andrefreshments. Once againthis year, children’s

program staff and

volunteers guided a maple-tree treasure hunt for

families. Despite briskwinds and threateningskies, it was very wellattended.

Harvard University Herbaria Incorporate S,OOO,OOOth SpecimenThe Harvard University Herbariacelebrated a major milestone in

October-the addition of the

5,000,000th specimen to theircollections of dried plant andfungal material. The Herbaria-which include those of the Arnold

Arboretum, the Gray Herbarium,the Farlow Herbarium, theBotanical Museum, and the New

England Botanical Club-nowform the eighth largest such plantcollection worldwide, with the

largest collection of Asian plantsin the United States, the second

largest orchid collection in theworld, and more than 150,000type specimens. In each of the pastfive years, the Harvard Herbaria

have acquired approximately20,000 specimens and have sentout an additional 7,500 specimensin exchanges with other herbana.The Herbaria also make over 300loans (25,000 to 30,000 speci-mens) annually to researchers atother institutions throughoutthe world.

Harvard’s rich and varied

botanical collections can be traced

back to Asa Gray who, after com-ing to Harvard in 1842, described and cataloguedthe wealth of plant samples that were being col-lected in the American West and in the Old

World. Many of these plants were new to science,and Gray’s activities led to the founding of theherbarium that bears his name.

Charles Sprague Sargent, first director of theArnold Arboretum, was one of several of Gray’sstudents and associates who also developed sepa-rate botanical institutions at Harvard. A system-atic collection was founded at the Arboretum

soon after its establishment in 1872. This her-

barium now contains approximately 1,307,000specimens; those of cultivated origin are housed

in the Hunnewell Building in Jamaica Plain,those of wild-collected origin are in Cambndge.The Arboretum collections are especially strong

in material from Indo-Malesia (India to the

Philippines and Papuasia), China, and eastern andsoutheastern Asia in general. The Chinese andPhilippme collections are probably as comprehen-sive as any in the world. The collections are rich

in type specimens largely due to the work of staffmembers such as Richard A. Howard, E. D.Mernll, E. J. Palmer, A. Rehder, C. S. Sargent,and E. H. Wilson. Several special collectionsreflect the interests of former staff members.

Among them are the Susan McKelvey Agave andYucca spirit collection and the Shaw collection ofthe genus Pinus. The herbarium of culuvated

plants in Jamaica Plain contains approximately160,000 specimens and, as might be guessed, isespecially strong in woody plants cultivated intemperate regions.

New Plant Inventory Available

Arnold Arboretum Tot TrotChris Strand,Outreach Horticulturist

More than a hundred runners with

strollers lined up m front of the

Hunnewell Building on Sunday,September 8, for the start of theTot Trot, a race to benefit theItalian Home for Children and the

New England Home for LittleWanderers. When Boston mayorThomas Menino punched thestarter’s horn, the runners surgedforward like a scene out of Charzotr

of Fzre crossed with Mr. Mom.Fathers, mothers, and grandpar-ents pushed their tiny passengersover a 3-mile course that woundits way through the Arboretum.

Prizes were awarded for fastest

single, double, and triple strolleras well as to runners in different

age categories. No one walked

away emptyhanded: raffle prizesand chrysanthemums were givento those who didn’t finish at the

top of their class. All were happyto be supporting two worthwhile

charities.

The race was organized by LizaDraper with the help of dozens ofvolunteers. They plus several

sponsors, including the City ofBoston and the Baby Jogger Com-pany, were responsible for the

race’s success. More than $3,000was raised for the two chanties for

their work with at-nsk children.

Field Study ExperiencesTried-and-True Arboretum Visits for Elementary SchoolchildrenDiane Syverson, Manager of School Programs

Describing the Arboretum’s fieldstudy program for schoolchildrenhas never been simple. To callthem field trips mimmizes the

rich contribution these visits can

make to a classroom’s science cur-

riculum. Consider, for example,the experience of Ann Glick, ateacher at Dorchester’s Ellis

Mendell School. Last year, Ms.

Glick brought her fourth- andfifth-graders for three field studyexperiences, outdoor investiga-tions used in tandem with her

classroom science units. In the fall

her students concluded several

weeks of seed study with theArboretum’s "Plants in Autumn"

program. Back at school, they de-veloped a seed-dispersal classifica-tion system using ideas and seeds

gathered dunng the Arboretumvisit. Ms. Glick is especiallypleased that the field study activi-ties build on the children’s knowl-

edge, validating their opinionsand experience.

The program schedule fills

early each year, and many teachersreturn annually. The approxi-mately 3,000 participants are ac-companied by more than 300teachers, teacher aides, and par-ents. Field study programs are

"Plants in Autumn," "Seeds and

Leaves," "Hemlock Hill,""Around the World with Trees,"and "Flowers." New this year are

"Native Plants, Native People"and "Landscape Explorers."

"

Lauren Mofford, Field Study Coordinator, joined the staff this spring toreplace California-bound Annette Huddle. Lauren’s work experienceincludes both classroom teaching and volunteer coordination. Thus shecomes well prepared both to teach elementary school groups and to workwith a staff of forty-two volunteers. Lauren holds degrees from Simon’sRock of Bard College and Lesley College, the latter a B.S. inenvironmental studies.

New Staff in Living CollectionsKyle Port, a recent graduate in environmental horticulture fromWashington State University in Pullman, Washington, joined the staffin July of this year as Curatorial Assistant for Plant Records. He replacesTodd Forrest, who began graduate studies this fall at the Yale Umver-sity Forestry School.

In his new position, Kyle is responsible for the computerized data-base, BG-BASE, that records and monitors each accession (and indi-vidual plant) throughout its hfe at the Arboretum. Kyle also assistsSusan Kelley with the computerized mapping of the collections andStephen Spongberg and Peter Del Tredici with the day-to-day curationand development of the collections. He is also expected to play a majorrole in implementing the Institute of Museum Services grant recentlyawarded for a yearlong, in-depth survey of the Arboretum’s currentholdings of shrubs and woody climbers that will begin in 1997. Kylewas a horticultural intern in grounds maintenance this past summer.

1996 Fall Plant Sale A Great SuccessLisa Hastings, Senior Development Officer

Take one beautiful fall day, addthousands of choice plants, andthe result is a festme, busy, andvery successful Fall Plant Sale.

The line of members wamng to

enter the barn wound behind the

schoolhouse, up the hill, and

through the auction tents; by endof day, not a plant remained.

Over 1,300 plants were givento the 800 members who came to

collect their plant dividend(s).They also took the opportunity to

purchase Arboretum plants atmember discounts. The plant salepreview permitted early entranceto the barn to 150 upper-levelmembers. Overall attendance was

up 45% over our rainy day lastyear and 20% over 1994.

The sale raised $30,000 tobenefit the Living Collections atthe Arboretum, a 16% increaseover last year. A variety of factors

account for the increase, not least

the return of the silent auction

Metasequoia glyptostroboides and, from left, Diana Parker, Henry Meyer,Jr., Sheila Magullion at the 1996 Fall Plant Sale.

and a larger straight sales area.Over 100 nurseries, plant orgam-zations, and individuals supportedthe event with donations of plants.

The Annual Fall Plant Sale

remains the Arboretum’s largest

member event, and our primaryvehicle for providing memberswith access to unusual plants.Mark your calendar for the

1997 sale scheduled for Sunday,September 21, 1997.

Grow with us ... ’ ’ <

When you give cash, stock, or other property to a "

life income plan supporting the Arnold Arboretum,you will:

. receive income for life

. realize an income tax deduction

. avoid capital gains tax· save on gift and estate taxes -

. benefit from Harvard’s professionalinvestment management at no cost to you

. invest in the future of the Arboretum

There are several plans in which you can participate.For more information, please contact:

Lisa M. Hastings, Development OfficerArnold Arboretum .

617/524-1718 ext. 145

Anne D. McClintock, Director - . -"

or Planned Giving Office, Harvard University800/446-1277 or 617/495-4647