Bulletin of the merican Rock Garden Societu

VOL. 41 WINTER 1983 NO. 1 THE BULLETIN

Editor ... Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Conn. 06031 Assistant Editor . . . Harry Dewey, 4605 Brandon Lane, Beltsville, Md. 20705 Contributing Editors . . . Roy Davidson, Anita Kistler, H. Lincoln Foster, Owen Pearce, H.N. Porter Layout Designer . . . Buffy Parker Advertising Manager . .. Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, Pa. 19380

CONTENTS VOL. 41 NO. 1 WINTER 1983 — H. Lincoln Foster 1 Sex and Size in — John J. Wurdack 9 Pioneer in a Dry Walden 11 Rock Gardening on a City Lot — Bozidar Berginc 18 The Worthy Sandworts — Geoffrey Charlesworth 21 1982 Annual Meeting - Colorado — Trevor Cole 24 Six Years Past the Interim Event — Roy Davidson 26 Amo, Amas, Amat Rock Gardening — Charles Gordon Post 30 Some Fall Blooming Bulbs — T. Paul Maslin 32 Cousins — Edith Dusek .. 36 In Search of Darling Tony — Lola Gardner and Veva Stansell 38 But Are Those in the Garden? — James L. Jones 41 Of Cabbages and Kings 42

Cover Picture — — Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Connecticut

Published quarterly by the AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCFETY, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey. You are invited to join. Annual dues (Bulletin included) are: Ordinary Membership, $9.00; Family Membership (two per family), $10.00; Overseas Membership, $8.00 each to be submitted in U.S. funds or International Postal Money Order; Patron's Membership, $25; Life Membership, $250. Membership inquiries and dues should be sent to Norman Singer, Secretary, Norfolk Rd., South Sandis- field, Mass. 01255. The office of publication is located at Norfolk Rd., S. Sandisfield, Mass. 01255. Address editorial matters pertaining to the Bulletin to the Editor, Laura Louise Foster, Falls Village, Conn. 06031. Address advertising matters to Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, Pa. 19380. Second class postage paid in S. Sandisfield, Mass. and additional offices. Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society (ISSN 0003-0864).

Printed by the Deer Spring Press, Norfolk, CT VOL. 41 WINTER 1983 NO. 1

Bulletin of the merican

Arisaemas

H. Lincoln Foster Falls Village Connecticut Drawings by Laura Louise Foster

The fossil record of herbaceous plants corolla of showy petals. Somehow they is meagre, primarily because their soft look more primitive, but that is only be• structures are not readily preserved. cause we are most accustomed to think Therefore we cannot say much about of in the familiar pattern of the the sequence of development in the ex• petunia, rose or lily. traordinary variation of form and Plants in the Family, the flowering design among the angios- , have their own kind of architec• perms, the modern plants with seeds in tural elegance, some of them such as an enclosed ovary. So far as we know calla and lysichitum are even considered comparatively rapid diversity was the beautiful. Though most of the arisaemas, story when land plants and insects prolif• the jack-in-the pulpit plants, are rather erated together during the Cretaceous. demurely plain, others are strikingly We cannot say, for instance, whether handsome. In fact some in my garden, plants like arisaemas and others in the when in , attract almost universal Arum Family, with their sex organs ar• attention and admiration. This is espe• ranged on a spadix enclosed in a leafy cially true of A. sikokianum and A. can- spathe are more primitive than plants didissimum, but even the less flam• with and pistil exposed within a boyant members of the genus attract

1 notice by intricacies of pattern and struc• One name for our American arisaemas is ture. Indian Turnip. It is unclear whether the I suspect that the general feeling about Indians actually ate the tubers or them is that they are rather quaint, in the whether they were given this pejorative sense that they are skillfully wrought. name by the white settlers because they Some are startling by virtue of intricate looked so edible but weren't and were patterns of color on the , spathe, or therefore assigned to a benighted stem; others are curiously decorated by people. It is reported that though they long appendages on the spadix, on the are not made edible even by boiling in a tip of the spathe, and occasionally on the succession of waters, they may be ren• tips of the leaflets. dered harmless by some months of dry• The purpose of these long frequently ing. threadlike appendages is obscure. We Since our interest is more horticultural are taught that all such features serve an than culinary, we turn from the root to adaptive role and as they have evolved the flower. The flower, as we have indi• help the plant survive. These filaments cated, is composed of a central fleshy may carry scents undetected by the column, the spadix, enclosed within a human nostril but alluring to insects use• spathe, the cylindric leafy tube that flares ful in . Since most are as• in various ways to make a hood over or a sociated with from areas of mon• flag above the spadix. soon rains these threads may act as Surrounding the spadix in discreet water spouts. I suspect, however, that zones develop the sex organs. Around they are merely expressions of a natural the lower portion are female ovaries with exuberance I seem to detect in many receptive stigmas, and in the ring above plants. They appear endlessly to diver• are the male stamens. This would appear sify and experiment until the exuberant to be an ideal arrangement for ready pol• modification becomes lethal in its ex• lination and assured seed development. tremity. But, as with other plants, there are However this may be, the genus strategies to assure a mixing of genetic Arisaema is a vast one. There are about material. Most arisaema species tend to 150 species, chiefly in tropical and temp• abort either the male or female organs erate Eastern with a few in on a particular plant to enhance cross and North America. Depending on the pollination. Hence most are designated taxonomist consulted there are up to as dioeceous, that is they have function• forty species in Japan alone. With their ing male and female parts on separate widespread distribution and variation of plants. form, they all share some common The arisaemas play interesting games generic characteristics. They all arise with this arrangement, however. Studies from a depressed-globose tuber, the made both in America and Japan have tuber tending to be more onion shaped demonstrated that at one stage in its life and pointed in youth, but shortening and history an individual tuber will produce a splaying at the hips with age. A few even flower that carries viable male organs become so spread out that they become only, at another stage carries functional rhizomatous. This underground storage female organs only, but may, indeed, organ is primarily starchy and might sometimes be hermaphroditic with both serve as a source for human food except sexes functional. So much for women's- for the heavy lacing of poisonous al- lib and male chauvinism! keloids and spicules of calcium oxalate. When, either with insect help from plant to plant or from rare self pollina• sikokianum in December under lights in tion, the ovaries are fertilized, there is de• the basement. They sprouted quickly veloped near the base of the spadix a and grew well until late April when the cone-shaped cluster of berry-like fruits small plants all withered. On inspection I containing one to five seeds. As the found that each had developed a small spathe withers away and these fruits onion-like tuber, quite viable looking. I swell they slowly change from a shining put these in moist peat in a sealed plastic green to a gleaming red. Where the fruit bag. This went into the butter-saver clusters are carried aloft on tall stems compartment in the door of the re• they frequently grow too heavy for the frigerator for two months. The tubers stalk and are swayed earthward even be• were then planted in humusy soil in a fore they fully ripen. Those species that small plastic flat, about one inch below carry their flowers near the ground on the surface and about one inch apart. stout stems present in autumn a marvel• They all soon sent up new vigorous ous display of a fiery red cone of ber• plants, completing by fall two years ries — an exciting ornament in the land• growth in one. They bloomed after scape of the dying year. another full year in the garden. Under These appetizing looking fruits are as normal conditions it takes from four to heavily laden with poisons and mouth six years from seed to flowering. tingling spicules as are the tubers. They I have since tried this procedure with a cling for a long time, avoided by birds couple of Chinese species without the and rodents, until various soil and air• same results, probably because I tried to borne agents of decomposition break hasten the process at one stage or down the outer coat. Thus the seed will another. frequently lie moist and cool for spring The tubers of some Arisaema species germination right where the fruit cone have not been easy for me to grow in has fallen and we find a tight cluster of pots. When potted up in the fall and car• single leaved seedlings in the spring ried over in the alpine house tubers of A. fighting for dominance. At other times sikokianum and A. candidissimum did late foraging will carry off the par• not appear in the spring. In fact they had tially fermented berries, or rodents and rotted. I suspect I watered them too con• birds are tempted to disperse the seeds, sistently, under the impression that be• or the heaving of moist soils with the help cause many grow naturally in really of gravity spread them about during the moist situations they could not stand a winter. dry soil in winter. Now, if I plan to carry If you would grow these seeds for your over in pots new tubers, either received own delight, collect and leave them in as gifts in a dormant state, or doubtfully their fleshy wrappings until ready to sow. hardy ones grown from seed, I keep I find that soaking the berries in water for them just barely moist through the a few days breaks down the pulp, which winter, and preferably in a situation just a can then be readily separated from the bit above freezing. seeds. If the seeds are sowed im• Though, as I have indicated, many mediately and given a warm tempera• species do grow in moist to swampy con• ture they will germinate in short order. If ditions in nature, they will thrive even seeds are stored dry for any length of better, I think, in rich woodland soil even time germination may be delayed up to on the dryish side under high shade. It is two years. possible that many are found in wet One year I sowed fresh seed of A. spots because that's the preferred situa-

3 tion for seed germination. above the spadix and may be solid green Here are some of the species of or deep reddish purple, variously arisaemas that I have grown with a few striped. The large , from one to comments about each, arranged al• three on each plant, are generally com• phabetically for convenience. posed of three leaflets, but in especially vigorous plants may carry up to five leaf• lets. The heavy cone of glistening, large, red berries is a prominent feature of the autumn garden. The tuber will multiply by offsets.

A. candidissimum This species from western China is one of the handsomest in the genus. Rather late coming up in the spring, it rapidly develops a single large, heavily veined, three-parted leaf, each segment rounded and overlapping its neighbors. Simultaneously, on a separate shoot, is unfurled a great shell-like erect spathe of a diaphanous white suffused with pink and frequently with deeper pink ribs run• ning from broad base to acutely pointed tip. Some forms tend to have the spathe tinted with pale green in combination with the pink, others are pure white. Against this showy backdrop stands the erect, blunt, reddish purple spadix. Be• cause the tuber is marginally hardy in se• vere climate areas, it is suggested that it be planted about four inches deep and mulched for the winter. As it grows on rocky banks in open sites in its native home, this species does not want a heavy wet soil or deep shade.

A. consanguineum This, I think, was the first arisaema I grew from seed, probably at least ten years ago. I can't remember how many seeds I got from one of the exchanges, Arisaema candidissimum but I have only a solitary plant. Coming from temperate eastern Asia and Yun• A. atrorubens nan, it is described in the Royal Horticul• This is our common jack-in-the-pulpit tural Society Dictionary as "nearly with a wide distribution in rich wood• hardy." Mine is planted near a rock and lands of eastern North America. The very close to a path in the upper woods broad spathe arches horizontally well garden under tall white pines in com-

4 pany with other arisaemas. Every year I fear that it is never going to show above ground or that it has been stepped on by someone plunging off the path to get a closer look at the blooming arisaemas behind it. But so far each year it has thrust up, about the last week in June, an asparagus-like spear that then shoots at an astonishing rate. Within a week it has erected a slender mottled stalk three to four feet high. At the tip it unfurls a start• ling umbrella-like, solitary leaf, deeply slit into long narrow segments elegantly pleated down the center. The literature describes the segments as ten to twenty- one in number. Last year mine displayed twenty-six leaflets. At the tip of each leaf• let is a long threadlike appendage. Just below this intricate leaf is a short side shoot bearing a rather small but typical flower, composed of a concealed spadix and a narrow mottled spathe, here dis• tinguished by a long thread-like appen• dage at the tip, which sweeps down al• most to the ground. So tall and slender is the whole plant that if it sets a crop of seed it becomes top heavy and flops to Arisaema consanguineum the ground. I have a friend who planted his right at the base of a dwarf rhododen• well beyond the spathe and shoots sky• dron and urges it to grow up through the ward. The spadix in this species is fre• branches for support. quently hermaphroditic. The Green Dra• For many years my plant produced gon has a generally Southeast distribu• only a leaf, like a pinwheel on a tall staff. tion and is found most commonly in For the past three it has flowered, and flood-plain areas. perhaps next year the tuber will split up and send up a clump of small, more A. flavum juvenile plants. So far as I can discover this is the runt of the litter. The plant, growing from a A. dracontium small tuber, is about eight to ten inches Here we return to eastern North tall with one or two leaves pedately di• America. This species, colloquially called vided into five or more divisions. As Green Dragon, is readily distinguished these leaves unfurl the curious blossom from other American species both in leaf looks like a small blinking owl atop the and flower. Here the solitary leaf is com• green . The bisexual spadix is posed of five to fifteen fan-like leaflets. totally concealed within the spathe, The flower is made up of a rather which is squat and ovoid without a tubu• pinched green spathe and a curious lar elongation before forming the hood• spadix that extends its green tapering tip like blade, which narrows to a prominent

5 Arisaema flavum point and bends down against the base. A. ringens The hood is yellow while the ovoid base This species, from Japan and Korea,is is banded yellow and dark purple. The readily distinguished from others, owlish effect is produced by the globose primarily by the pair of tripartite green spathe forming a body; the pointed tip of leaves of a lustrous, thick, waxy texture, the hood forms the beak and the half- each leaflet with an abrupt, sharp point. shut eyes are formed by the two dark The cobra-like on a short hollows below the two ear-like flares stalk is also distinctive. The strongly where the spathe bends abruptly down• ridged spathe is greenish or purple with a ward. The color in the flowers, I gather short tube. Instead of ending in the more from reading, is variable from plant to usual point at its apex, the deeply curved plant, frequently with no yellow pigment hood carries a dark purple, rippled ex• apparent. tension that hangs down across the This species, found from opening like a curtain. This species also through the Himalaya to western China, tries one's patience by its tardy appear• is borderline hardy. I lost my earliest ance in the spring, sometimes as late as seedlings by premature and shallow the first of July. planting. Three year old tubers buried three to four inches deep under high A. robustum pine shade have survived our most se• Some years ago I received from a vere winter. friend in Japan a plump apple sized tuber

Arisaema ringens

1 of this species late in the winter. At that ance, though it becomes taller and more time I had no alpine house and it was im• robust as it puts on years. The spathe is a possible to plant the tuber outdoors. I deep eggplant purple, lightly striped with potted it up and kept it gently watered in green on the outside, its interior lined a cool end of the living room against a with white porcelain. The blade does not pair of north-facing French doors. Within bend over, but stands erect with a jaunty two weeks it began to grow, and once flare to reveal the knobbed white spadix begun it grew like a stalk of corn on a hot standing proudly within. As the inflores• July night. You could daily perceive its cence ages, the white lining of the spathe climb from mullion to mullion of the becomes suffused with pink as though door. It finally expanded a five-foliate tinted by the deep purple dye of the out• leaf and a rather undistinguished, typical side and the blade becomes limp and inflorescence, rather insignificant look• folds forward to conceal the berries ing aloft the three foot high, thick, shin• forming inside. Though these would un• ing, almost black main stem. It has had a doubtedly turn scarlet outdoors if al• checkered career since. Planted out its lowed to remain on the plant, they ripen first summer in a moistish spot under an so slowly that I have always picked off oak tree in the upper garden, it retired the cone of fruit, sometimes as late as underground in appropriate fashion. November, while they are still green and The next spring, perhaps triggered by its allow them to ripen indoors in a warm domestic treatment, it pushed its eager place. (See cover picture.) shoot with the first fake whisper of spring and was, of course, frozen to a pulp. I A. stewardsonii thought that was the end of A. robustum. This rarely encountered eastern North The following spring it reappeared only American species is tardy to spring into slightly later and was again frozen. The growth and resides in really wet, un• third spring was more favorable and it frequented swamps and bogs. It resem• sent up a majestic ebony stem, flowered bles our common species in growth habit and set fruit, which was nipped off by a and shape of flower and is distinguished, deer while still green. Since then it has not only by its lateness, but by the promi• split its bulb and produced a clump of nently corrugated conformation of its non-flowering, shorter plants. I should spathe with the highly raised ridges a get around to digging them up and giving sparkling white against the green to pur• them fresh soil. A small grove of A. ple background. I have found in the gar• robustum might be rather impressive. den that it will grow in sites far drier than those of its native home and it is prone to A. sikokianum rather rapid production of tuber offsets. This species, strictly Japanese in distri• It has not set seed in the garden. bution, is in my estimation the most glori• ous of the genus, A. candidissimum not• A. thunbergii var. urashima withstanding. In fact it is named by some Like others in the genus this Japanese Japanese botanists A. magnificum. In taxon suffers at the hands of the Nippon every respect it declares its beauty, from taxonomists. Messers. Hara and Makino the elegant silver markings on the leaves at one time assigned it varietal status and the flamboyant spathe to the ivory under A. thunbergii. At yet another time drumstick of the spadix. It is not very tall, Messers. Hara and Nakai created a sepa• only about twelve inches the first year of rate genus FlageUarisaema with species its bloom, and rather delicate in appear• urashima attached. Most recently, in my

8 available literature, Mr. Owhi accepts it he was doing his paper on "Sex in on Mr. Hara's authority as a separate " back in the species: A. urashima. Take your choice. 1920's, considered it the primary Whatever its status, this arisaema is species. The plants he dealt with would something unique. It is a squat plant as I now be assigned to A. atrorubens. This grow it, with a solitary leaf of many leaf• species, A. triphyllum (of three leaves) lets. The bronze to reddish purple spathe tends to be smaller, with distinction in the is handsome with a long tail-like point. leaflet shape and in the tube of the What makes it startling is the flagellate tip spathe. It is essentially coastal eastern of the spadix, which snakes out across North America in distribution. For gar• the ground for 40 to 60 centimeters. den effect hardly to be differentiated That's a thin worm one and a half to two from A. atrorubens. feet long. Quite something to see in any garden. There are many more species of this bewitching genus, which I am either A. triphyllum growing from seed or for which I long. We end with a technical difference. Subsequent reports may follow. Better For years the primary species of Amer• still grow them yourself and reach out for ican jack-in-the-pulpit was known as A. more and more of these grotesque but triphyllum and for years I supposed this beautiful denizens for the shady rock was the accepted name. Even such an garden. § estimated botanist as W.H. Camp, when

Sex and Size in Arisaema

John J. Wurdack Beltsville, Maryland

Sex changes in individual plants of flowers. Arisaema flauum Schott of two of our native Jack-in-the-Pulpits, A. northwestern India across Arabia is com• triphyllum and A. dracontium, have pletely monoecious. Arisaema tor- been well documented, the most recent tuosum is intermediate, all inflores• article being that of Ewing and Klein cences reported being either purely (Torreya, Jan. — Mar. 1982). Arisaema staminate or monoecious, never purely triphyllum is also functionally self-sterile, pistillate (Kew Bull. 349. 1933)." A with staminate flowers in monoecious Japanese botanist, Nakai, coined the plants maturing well before the pistillate term "paradioecious." Some notes of ones; young (staminate) plants usually Barnes included another twist in Indian have only one leaf. Arisaema; A. leschenaultii plants showed In the Flora of the Hassan District, Kar- slightly over one-half having the right nataka, India (1976), Nicolson had the edge of the spathe overlapping the left following note: "Most species of (not sex-linked) and the remainder with Arisaema are paradioecious, young the left edge over the right, while in A. plants producing only staminate flowers tortuosum twenty-two of twenty-eight and older plants producing pistillate plants had the right edge over the left.

9 Less abundant is the literature on in• and was used in pollination. The large crease of inflorescence size with plant (pistillate) plant finally produced a head age in Araceae. For about twelve years, of fertile seeds, then died. Our smaller Amorphophallus rivieri has been grown (and now pistillate in 1981 and 1982) in Beltsville; the species is hardy with plant the last two years again failed to set protection in the lower Potomac Valley seed. However, from a part of the de• region. range from two ceased plant's seeds, a small crop of feet to six feet in height, depending on seedlings was grown in 1981. In the size. spring of 1982, two of these juveniles (of Thanks to Harold Epstein, Arisaema six seedlings), both about eight inches sikokianum has been growing in tall from ground to spathe tip, have flo• Beltsville for about eight years, the origi• wered; both have two leaves. The older nal two plants being a seedling and one (pistillate) plant is now twenty-six inches of flowering size. The larger plant never tall. Now more notes are needed from set seed until two years ago when the other aroidophiles on the esoterica of smaller (staminate) plant first flowered sex, age, and spathe overlap. §

Note On Clematis Germination

Pam Harper, Seaford, Virginia, sends months. along a note from her friend Anne Har• Check the bag often because some vey of Kitchener, Ontario about her new species start to germinate right there in method of germinating the seed of the 'fridge. I have had tremendous suc• clematis, which Pam feels is worth pass• cess with this method this year with all ing on: sorts of clematis seeds I could never ger• minate before. Some seed bags I put in a I just re-read a letter of yours in which warm place (my dining room is a good you mentioned that you could never ger• spot) after the cold treatment. Some minate C\. macropetala. Well, you have don't need this. Cl. texensis does not plenty of company, but this year I tried a need the cold treatment. With this new method for germinating clematis method Cl. verticillaris germinated very seed and it works. well. I put the clematis seed in a small, clean When the sprouts appear in the seed plastic bag in which I have placed a small bags, I put them up in individual, usually amount of damp {not wet) peat moss or styrofoam, cups with holes punched in sifted sphagnum moss and a little sharp the bottom for drainage. One can write sand (more moss than sand.) Sphagnum the name of the plant and the date and moss works better as the other packs other information right on the cup. after a little while. It depends on how I don't think I will ever bother going much seed one has, but I use two to back to sowing clematis seeds in contain• three heaping tablespoons of the moss. ers again and have them sitting around Then I seal the top of the bag and put it in for months, even a year or sometimes the refrigerator {not the freezer) at about two years. It gets a bit crowded in the 40°F. for two to three months. Cl. mac• fridge at times if you have a lot of seeds in ropetala usually takes about three there. But it works! §

10 Pioneer in a Dry Walden

Picture a landscape of rolling, mustard soil is heavy clay — hard as rock when colored hills with only portions of a dusty dry and sticky "gumbo" when wet. In road visible under a cloudless blue sky. It this part of South Dakota no grains are is hot and you wonder if you are lost planted. The farmers learned long ago until, on a fence post, a weathered sign not to wear out plows and tractors trying proclaims "Prairie Gem Ranch." Off in to till the soil. Only cattle harvest the the distance is a smudge of dark green. It prairie grass. is only then that you realize that these are Claude lived much of his life here in a the first trees you have seen in miles. sod house that is now only a low spot The oasis disappears as you descend near a single pine tree. His father home- the rutted road. You carefully follow the steaded the land and for fifty years twists and turns and quite suddenly find Claude was a farmer too. Many men that yourself at a cluster of small buildings. age look toward retirement, but in the One side is bounded by a small orchard depths of the Depression what was there whose trees are heavy with fruit, and the to retire to? other by spacious gardens and nursery One hot day in the Thirties when he beds. As you step out of the car the si• had gone to town, he was so thirsty — lence is truly deafening. Only the wind yet didn't have a nickel for a glass of soda makes a soft sweeping sound that takes pop — he vowed that he would do away your words. something to earn cash money. Strangely incongruous, a picket fence Always he had loved the wildflowers gate with a high arched trellis leads into that were abundant on the virgin prairie the garden. Flowers are blooming and and had learned their names. So when hundreds of cacti of fantastic shapes are the lavender cups of the first Pasque arranged in gardens or neat rows. Yet Flowers emerged next spring, he got out just outside the fence the short, yellow his old camera, took a black and white grass waves in the wind as far as the eye picture, and sold it to a national can see. The contrast is striking and the magazine for twenty dollars. A reader in mystery compelling — how was all this Texas remembered the prairies purple accomplished? with Pasque Flowers in her home state of Claude Barr, a spare man of 93, has South Dakota and asked if Claude been collecting and growing the almost would send her a dozen plants. Soon unknown, but intriguingly beautiful, others asked for these beautiful prairie wildflowers of the Great Plains for fully natives and gradually Mr. Barr gave up half his long life. What is more, he has the cows and concentrated on growing been doing it in one of the most hostile prairie wildflowers. environments on earth. Searing heat in Only a small mail order business in summer is replaced by bitter cold in plants grew, but without electricity, tele• winter. There is always a wind that inten• phone, or a well he faced many obstacles sifies the harsh effects of both heat and those years. Without warning, his wife cold on plants and people as well. The became an invalid and he cared for her

11 for thirty years, sometimes ill himself, be• life will be a book, soon to be published, fore she died. about these unusual plants and the Yet always he kept expanding his swiftly vanishing virgin prairies that nur• knowledge and love of plants. Botanists, ture them. Not only will it catalog where naturalists, and plantsmen and women each is found for the botanists among us, began corresponding with him, marvel• but tell gardeners how to grow these ling at his wisdom and education. He often strikingly beautiful plants. studied everything he could about accu• People come from all over the world rate identification of his "prairie gems." down these dusty roads to meet this Often he would hike or drive many miles unique pioneer who loves the prairie and a day, his keen eyes sweeping rocky out• its plants. crops all over the Great Plains for new, Betty Ann Mech more beautiful plants to learn about or to Minneapolis, Minnesota bring back and grow in his garden-nur• sery. In a climate where rainfall is so scant, it would seem imperative that a dependa• ble source of water be available. But since the heavy clay made digging a well an impossibility, Mr. Barr "made do" with only water collected in a cistern from the roof of his small home. Some• times only a teacupful could be spared for a choice plant. However, the plants cooperated and throve, their heritage of perseverance over adversity matching his own. Many prairie plants have thickened, fleshy roots. Thus, when blazing sun burns their tops and there is not water, they can safely rest beneath the soil and wait a year — or two — for moisture. Even the normally shade-loving violet has adapted to life on the Great Plains and has roots like long white thongs. For a few short weeks in spring, leaves and bright yellow flowers make a great show, seeds are set, then the top disappears for another year. Even the soil has at last given way to Claude's determined ministrations. Since as it dries, the cracks in the clay sometimes run two or three feet deep, he collects sand from the river bottom and fills the cracks with that. Gradually the gumbo has given way to a more porous soil and plants grow better. But the crowning achievement of his Claude A. Barr Betty Ann Mech

12 ern South Dakota for homesteading Claude Barr's eagerly awaited book, and, as his family was anxious to leave Jewels of the Plains is, at long last, to be St. Louis, he and his father went out to published in April, 1983 by The Univer• South Dakota and each filed a claim on sity of Minnesota Press. It has been 160 acres, this being the traditional ac• worth waiting for. reage allowed for a family or individual. Sadly, Claude himself was unable to On this dry upland of alkaline gumbo wait to see this culmination of his long life soil Claude's family, along with many of devoted love for the prairie gems. He another homesteader, started farming, died at the age of 95 on July 21, 1982. but the recurrent years of drought and But he has left behind a legacy that will the recalcitrant soil, unsuited to corn or be treasured over the years — this book wheat, discouraged them and one by we can all enjoy and learn from. It is his one the Barr's neighbors gave up, aban• best memorial. doned their farms in despair, and left. Claude Barr was born near Benton- Deserted by their friends, their funds get• ville, Arkansas and spent the first few ting low and having reached their sixties, years of his childhood on his family's Claude's parents did not know which farm there. His memories of these years way to turn. They became more and are not fond as his family was "starved more despondent, so Claude, giving up out of Arkansas" by high mortgage pay• a graduate scholarship at Harvard Uni• ments and the infinitesimal return on versity where he had hoped to study for their farm produce — selling eggs for as the ministry, returned to South Dakota low as three cents a dozen. However it with his new wife, Kate Dean, to help his was here he first discovered the enchant• parents. Once home, Claude decided to ing world of wild growing plants — ". . . raise cattle for which he judged the land the fragrance of many flowers and fruits best suited. But life was hard and Kate and the taste of wild grapes, persimmon, died. In time Claude remarried and with Mayapples, black and red haws, paw• his second wife, Jeanette, they made a paws — in fact, the taste of everything home for themselves and his aging par• which was tastable and many things ents on the homestead. which were not." — And it was here, at Though he continued to run cattle on the age of ten, that he made his first gar• his ranch until 1963, over the days and den, successfully transplanting some of years Claude became more and more the wildflowers he had come to love into enthralled by the wildflowers that be• the "spring yard." spangled the apparently bleak prairie Shortly thereafter the family moved to and slowly he learned how to bring them St. Louis and after graduation from high home and make them thrive in his yard school Claude was offered a very mod• and garden. In addition he bought a est scholarship at Drake University in camera, took a mail order course in writ• Des Moines, Iowa. Though times were ing and began to photograph the prairie hard and money to eke out his scholar• plants and compose articles about them. ship was difficult to come by, it never oc• These he sent to horticultural magazines. curred to Claude not to finish and in Some were accepted and brought in a 1914, at the age of 26, he received his few requests for prairie plants. Bit by bit A.B. degree with majors in English, he found he was in the plant business. Greek and public speaking. This new world of garden writing While still an undergraduate Claude brought him into contact with Mrs. C.I. had heard that land was available in east• DeBevois of Greens Farms, Connecticut

13 and they soon became correspondents. the terrain and the time of bloom and the She encouraged him to send her a list of habitat requirements of the plants about the plants he had available so she could which he was writing. In addition he include it in with the mailing of her own spent considerable time going to nursery catalog. She also sent him books Laramie, 230 miles from his ranch, to about plants and gave him invaluable study in the Aven Nelson Herbarium at hints about selecting, conditioning, the University of Wyoming. packaging and mailing his offerings, and He also took advantage of his new she urged him to join the newly fledged freedom from ranching to make annual American Rock Garden Society of which trips to meetings of the American Rock she was one of the founders. He did and Garden Society, of which he was now a in 1935 he sent out his own nursery director, and visit friends and gardens in catalog and started advertising Prairie the East. Gem Ranch in horticultural publications. In 1958 he had been awarded the His new business took up more and John Robertson Memorial Medal by the more of what time he could spare from South Dakota Horticultural Society for his ranch chores and cut into his writing his work in calling attention to and dis• time; however, when the ARGS Bulletin seminating the plants of the prairies. In was launched, he wrote many articles for 1965 he was presented with the ARGS its pages and he began to have a dream Award of Merit for his "study of the na• about writing a book about the little tive flora and [his] contributions to rock known plants of the prairie. and alpine gardening." This was fol• But the years slipped by, every mo• lowed in 1973 by the Edgar T. Wherry ment taken up with caring for his cattle, Award. getting in winter fodder, keeping up his Yet even when he was home, Claude fences, and finding, growing and prop• did not spend all his time working on his agating plants for his increasingly impor• book. In addition to his nursery business, tant and thriving nursery business. In ad• he had for many years kept up a vol• dition his wife became a chronic invalid uminous correspondence with garden• and he spent much of his time caring for ing friends and botanists interested in the her. prairie plants and this he continued to It was not until a year after his wife's do, and many of these letter-friends soon death at the age of 70 in 1962 that he fi• found their way to Prairie Gem Ranch nally decided to give up cattle ranching. where Claude delighted in taking them By then Claude himself was 75 and he out on long trips into the prairies to see realized that if he was going to write a for themselves the floral treasure to be book he'd better begin. Reluctantly he found there. sold his 144 head of cattle and most of Claude had many devoted friends; his his 1,485 acres of land to a friend whose warm letters, enthusiasm, natural old- holdings adjoined his and started the fashioned courtesy, slow wit, and quizzi• lonely business of writing, though for a cal pixie smile endeared him to everyone number of years he continued his nur• who had contact with him. All who met sery business in order to bring in some him loved him and respected his self-ef• cash income. He also traveled exten• facing, hardwon knowledge of prairie sively over the country he planned to plants. His was a truly gentle spirit. cover in his book: from Saskatchewan Though his voice now is stilled, those into Texas and from the Rocky Moun• who knew him and those who will meet tains to beyond the Missouri, exploring him for the first time in his book will, as

14 they browse through its pages, hear in down. This half-inch or shorter, delicate their minds Claude's unique intonation structure is the vital part of the plant; in as he talks of the Great Plains and the the dormant period, from seed ripening fabulous plants he loved and knew so until fall, all other parts including roots well. are absent. During lush spring growth, The following are a few samplings thick, short stolons are sent out horizon• found in Claude Barr's Jewels of the tally from the each to form a Plains while it was yet in typescript. new rhizome at its tip, thus slowly de• -L.L.F. veloping a colony. Leaves return with fall • • • moisture to remain all winter, and their Anemone caroliniana. Whence the welfare insures good flowering. A. name? I find no published record credit• caroliniana is surely one of the world's ing this flower to Carolina. On the con• prime treasures. trary, its range extends from central mid• • • • land states westward to the 3,000-foot Astragalus barrii, Barr orophaca, red contour in South Dakota and Nebraska orophaca. Twenty to thirty miles to the and Kansas. And in this higher, drier southeast from the Black Hills and as country, on its favorite rich loam un• many miles short of the Pine Ridge es• touched by the plow, A. caroliniana carpment, lie scattered limestone-cap• spreads its jewel-like blossoms over pas• ped buttes, remnants of badland forma• tures, golf courses, cemeteries, and re• tion, which stand above the gumbo clays serves. The unfenced, "unimproved" and shales of the lower ground. On a 320 acres, where I walked in May amid carefree, balmy sunlit morning in May, I untold thousands of these brave and was descending, by a well-worn cattle dainty flowers, were bordered on one trail, one of those happy hunting side by a hard-surfaced road, on the op• grounds where no discerning botanist posite by a thriving field of wheat. had ever trod at that season. As the In this chance refuge, the competitor- ground steepened, away from the turfy protectors of the anemone were low for• crest and among isolated tufts of grass age plants, mainly buffalo-grass, blue and tumbled blocks of limestone, tufts grama, and some small sedges. The land and buns and small cushions of the lay nearly level, held against serious ero• familiar Astragalus giluiflorus appeared. I sion by the sparse turf; but in the near stepped slowly, attempting to savor the distance a limestone-tipped tepee butte beauty of every assembled mass of glint• told the story that in an earlier age the ing white blossoms; then suddenly I general level here stood higher than at stopped. Just ahead, scattered among present. The flowers, by no means om• the white-flowered plants and with more nipresent, followed some sort of colony and more farther down the slope in pattern and were mostly white, but here harsher badland clay, until the white left and there appeared a smaller colony in off entirely, were seemingly the same lit• magnetic sapphire-blue. There were tle tufts and cushions smothered in soft none in any low place. From other areas, silvery rose. blues in various lighter tones, some with The small, triparted leaves of the two white eye, and some rarer pinks have plants were not at once distinguishable. come to my garden. Flowers of eight to But in the strange new plant, the blos• twenty in daisy pattern, four in• soms were borne, two or three to the tiny ches or so above ground, develop from a scape, or stem, just above the foliage, small tuber or rhizome an inch or two while the white blossoms of A. giluiflorus

15 were stemless, single in the leaf axils, and mens. Moments were spent in rapt atten• gained their place in the sun mainly by tion. Without seeking the vine's footing, virtue of lengthened banner petals. or identifying the supporting shrubbery, I At first the new plant was identified for remembered the call of the road and me as Astragalus tridacfylicus, a species turned from the rare clematis presence of southeastern Wyoming and northern with a sigh. Colorado. I had in my possession, how• ever, a pressed specimen sent from Mon• Delphinium virescens, frequent in the tana by a garden correspondent, Mrs. Plains and to the east, is a tall, spindling, Winnie Considine, and I later discovered white-flowered species which impresses the red orophaca on three other badland one as just recovering from a mud-spat• buttes in my own corner of South tering storm. Dakota. Then it was learned that speci• • • • mens of the unnamed or misnamed Dodecatheon pulchellus — (the Latin plant, from northern Wyoming and masculine ending "us" is here used in southeastern Montana, were available in simple agreement with the Greek mas• herbaria, and Ripley and Barneby found culine "on" of Dodecatheon.) . . . still another station in Montana. Rupert The year around, our shooting-stars Barneby distinguished the new species react to the vagaries of the weather, from A. tridacfylicus, and by his courtesy growing quickly and flowering by early it became Astragalus barrii, as recorded May in a headlong spring or later, if snow in his monograph of the genus As• and cold hold unseasonably. They tragalus (Atlas of North American As• wither and close shop for the year with• tragalus, Part I and II, 1964). out flowering if moisture fails. After the • • • year's fruitions they sidestep the heated Clematis columbiana is a low vine with hours of summer by going completely long-stalked, triparted leaves, clamber• underground. There they remain until ing over bushes, the base of the plant the warmth and probable abundant usually shaded. The light blue to laven• moisture of another spring invite a hope• der flowers are of Atragene type. The ful return. The shallow subsurface retreat principal stronghold of the species is in is a safe haven? Oh, yes! Though the last the Rockies, but it maintains colonial perceptible vestige of moisture may van• footing more than one hundred and fifty ish from the horizon of the roots in an miles out on the Canadian plains, in the exhausting drought, and the facile plant Cypress Hills. My seeing it there was one members react correspondingly until of those bits of luck which come to the in• only discolored and brittle traces of veterate plant hunter. Ascending a north crown and spreading roots remain, slope, from Battle Creek, I had stepped within 48 hours after rain the normal, out from the road to look closely at a fresh, white turgidity of good health is re• wide patch of Viola rugulosa, under light covered. This sleight-of-hand trick of conifer shade. Up the slope, hovering survival does not, indeed, distinguish D. just below eye-level, three lovely flowers pulchellus from other dodecatheons. of the clematis reached out, face up• What does set it apart is the ability of the ward, to invite admiration. Description Plains strains to spring back to full perfor• cannot convey their character, grace, mance and to sprinkle or wash shaded and refinement. The sepals, two and two slopes, open hillsides, and treeless ridge opposite, forming a simple cross, were tops with sparkling color — this with an centered by a brush of pale yellowish sta• average rainfall of under 15 inches.

16 ers will "have to sit content in the admira• Eritrichium. Forget-me-not. tion of marmots." For the beginner every plant needs • • • definition. To the well-versed, the name Haphpappus is an intriguing name — forget-me-not brings to mind the tiny used to be Aplopappus. A revision hark• and dainty, intensely blue flowers of ing back to the Greek a-aspirate brought Myosotis. Only the widely read, or those in the "haitch" sound and elevated the who have had the fortune to explore in backwoods pronunciation to Haplopap- high alpine flower fields, will recognize pus. "Haps," some delighted gardener the name Eritrichium. In far northwest• will be calling them. "Happy-pappies" ern Montana there is a little valley, miles might do for a pet name. away from the mountains; at an eleva• • • • tion of around 4,000 feet, where nature Lesquerella. Bladder-pod. has prepared an unbelievably wide gar• From the vast and weedy Mustard den spot in casual view, lying as smooth Family, a few species of Lesquerella and and level and suited for a fine farm as any Physaria are to be considered as appeal• land could, but so completely rock-filled ing rock garden prospects, because of as to rate unproductive even for pasture. their novel and distinctive form and fine Little grass or other forage grows there. color. The most compact and diminutive This river flood plain is entirely surfaced is Lesquerella alpina. In full flower it is a and filled to a depth, measurable in the startling solid gold tuft or bun, dropped road ditches, with coarse and fine gravel, by chance on solid, gray or brown rock. sand and silt, and small imbedded cob• At times it appears as the sole occupant bles and boulders. Apparently no one of the almost invisible fissures in which claims this ground; there are no fences. It the roots find anchorage. Around the continues as an unencroached, made- flower-mass a slight fringe of narrow, to-order habitat for the hardly known gray leaves may show. The crowded, dwarf forget-me-not, Eritrichium howar- cruciform florets seem to have pushed dii. There it has occupied acre upon acre and shoved in their exhuberant effort to in an unbroken sheet of blue, until the all upstage at the same moment. color dims in the distance. • • • This species is a close replica of that Phacelia. high alpine that Farrer, with unbounded As a rather rare plant, Phacelia enthusiasm, called "the Crowned King leucophylla haunts the badlands of of the Alps, the Herald of Heaven, North Dakota and other rough places... Woolly-hair the Dwarf." Something for It has a conspicuous silver-white rosette the fortunate to see, but not for the gen• of broad, elliptic, ribbed leaves; a stiff eral run of gardeners, nor even the stem with smaller leaves, to 15 inches or greenest of "green thumbs" to grow. so; and neat, uncoiling of nar• The plants themselves are so exacting row-tubed florets of a hue as indefinable that no gardener, so far, has been able to in its neutral lavender as the shadow of a put together a workable substitute for vanished hope. their natural environment. So, about • • • mid-June, see these matchless miles of Rydberg's Potentilla divisa, now re• one of the most wonderful blue flowers garded as a variety [of P. concinna], ap• the world affords — if you can; and pears in early spring in abundant silver leave them in their inviolate seclusion. fur and retains a conspicuous grayness Otherwise, as Farrer mourned, the flow• throughout the season. At flowering in

17 April or early May, the plant is a close Goldenrods naturally separate them• mat of leaves, which is studded with a selves into two classes, those which are double handful of pirate's gold. to be admired at a distance and those • • • which may safely, or with minimum care, Solidago. Goldenrod. be enjoyed in the garden. §

Rock Gardening on a City Lot

Bozidar Berginc West Allis, Wisconsin

Shortly after I settled in Wisconsin I avoid monotony. In my case the rocks missed the mountains and their flowers. were set in the ground vertically, tightly One day I received a packet of Leon- one behind the other with the greater topodium alpinum seeds from my portion of them set deeply in the soil. mother in Slovenia, from which I grew That type of construction created lots of one plant. This was the beginning of my crevices, little ledges, and miniature ter• rock gardening. A few years later I unex• races, which face southeast even though pectedly learned of the American Rock the real exposure of the bank is essen• Garden Society and became a member. tially to the south. Of course, you cannot Bulletins, books, seeds, and newly entirely prevent having some strictly grown plants followed. southern or southwestern exposures. Al• The space on a city lot is limited and though my bank did not possess an ideal soon I realized that I had room for only exposure, certain plants do thrive sur• the smallest plants. These are the most prisingly well. demanding, but will thrive if provided Some members of Campanulaceae with suitable conditions. Those condi• took possession of the southerly and tions are best met on a northern slope, southwestern exposures, but were dis• but our lot is almost flat. I had only a two- carded when they were too tall or inva• foot bank facing directly south above the sive. Some became permanent occup• driveway. My first attempt began here. ants. C. garganica, C. tridentata, C. por- After the preliminary work of remov• tenschlagiana, C. aucheri, and C. wald- ing clay, providing drainage, composing steiniana. C. allionii developed into a alpine soil, and bringing in rocks, con• nice clump, then flowered itself to death struction began. Great emphasis was put the next year. C. fragilis shows a few on creating micro-climates: a large rock blossoms every year, but is less than placed to the west would protect a plant happy in its surroundings, while C. ar- from the hot afternoon sun, then a lower uatica survives cold Wisconsin winters rock to the east, where the cushion plant only on the side of the house foundation would sprawl, and finally a rock to the and is a rather meager performer. Cam• south, an inch or so higher than the eas• panula raineri was given a choice south• terly rock, to keep the soil and root run easterly spot and was a delight for two cool. Such a pattern can be repeated, years, then perished in the hot, humid but the sizes of rocks have to vary to summer. A few species of Edraianthus

18 were also introduced. E. pumilio is one delight in the garden. S. caespitosa is a of my favorites, but is as susceptible to permanent resident, but Saponaria hot summer days as C. raineri.. I will try pumilio is more susceptible to August both again in scree-like conditions. rains, and would probably appreciate The Cruciferae are well represented, scree conditions. grandiflora, with drabas occupying narrow ledges with its spreading mat and large white and wedge-shaped spaces between flowers, makes a nice contrast to S. rocks where they remain in tight cush• ocymoides 'Rubra Compacta', while ions; Thlaspi rotundifolium also does Arenaria tetraquetra fits in the tightest well here. Aubrieta carpets a ledge. A sunny crevices. large rock with a southerly or southwest• Geranium dalmaticum must be men• ern exposure provides a background tioned as a very permanent perennial for and an ideal setting for Aethionema hot environments. G. cinerium ssp. sub- grandiflorum and Schiuereckiapodohca. caulescens is also one of the best. G. san- Hutchinsia alpina was happier with a guineum 'Lancastriense' spread too southeasterly exposure on a wide ledge quickly, encroaching on its neighbors, where it grew into a dense rug. Recently and therefore was discarded. introduced Alyssum cuneifolium, seed All of the garden was now planted ex• for which was provided by our friends cept the choicest spots or micro-climates, from Czechoslovakia, is very promising which were saved for my favorites. A and is making dwarf mats of silver. spot facing southeast seems to be ideal Members of the Rosaceae are well for Gentiana acauiis. The rocks are set suited to a sunny part of the garden. tightly together. When planting such Here Dryas octopetala, D.drummondii, plants among rocks I find it best to make and the lately introduced Dryas oc• a hole with a narrow spatula or dibble topetala var. hookeriana, are always deep enough so the roots can be inserted happy even on the hottest summer days. without crimping them; if the hole is not Potentilla megalantha (distributed as big enough, shake off the soil, insert the Potentilla fragiformis), P. nevadensis, roots into the hole and then pour soil that and P. yema are also suitable for a hot is only slightly damp alongside them. sunny spot. I must mention that Firm the soil well with your fingers — al• Cotoneaster apiculata, which was plan• pine plants dislike loose planting. It is of ted against the side of a concrete stoop, great importance that the plants are set has, with a little help from anchors, cov• deep enough. After planting, gently lift ered the bare ugliness and with its red the rosettes or cushion, if necessary with fruit decorates the stoop, sometimes till a pencil-like tool, and mulch beneath the holidays. with good sized pebbles. Water Most members of thoroughly. If water disappears quickly, are at home in full sun. I am not sure my it's a sign of good drainage, which is very dianthus grown from seed are true to important. their names, so I will omit listing them. Such a garden can be watered daily The mat-forming varieties, with silvery on hot summer days without clogging grey foliage, cover the ledges nicely and the soil. The soil remains airy and the tiny spill downward, presentable even when roots quickly penetrate deeply alongside not in bloom. Saponaria ocymoides was the rocks. Similar spots were found for soon discarded because of its robust Gentiana clusii, G. dinarica, G. uerna, G. growth, but S. ocymoides 'Rubra Com- vema angulosa, Campanula raineri, pacta', by some regarded as a hybrid, is a Dianthus alpinus, D. glacialis, D. neglec-

19 tus, and others. toothpick, a single rosette seedling of Planting is done early in spring when Saxifraga paniculata baldensis was in• the frost is gone and the soil warms up a serted into one of these cracks along with little. The plants prosper nicely till mid- a few fibers of sphagnum moss. The gen• June when the temperature and humid• tians and inserted saxifrage prospered ity rise. Then, even happy plants sud• for four years; the saxifrage grew into a denly appear tired and the ever-so-care- six-inch cushion, and the gentians fully selected site does not give them bloomed every spring. For accompani• what they have in their natural habitat; ment I planted Festuca ovina glauca they will miss thin, cool mountain air, close by. cold heavy dews, and intensive sunlight. Gentiana acaulis bloomed sparingly; The weather from mid-June through Au• the best display had about one dozen gust is nearly intolerable for alpines, blossoms. A division of the plant did not therefore they need our help. Soil must take, probably because of hot weather never become parched. Even though I shortly after the division. Gentiana clusii have an underground pipe for watering, has been in the same location for five or I prefer to use a garden hose with a soft six years and performed like G. acaulis, watering-can-like spray attachment. In except in 1980, when it covered itself our climate it is best to water late in the with forty-eight blossoms. The following evening (9 - 10 p.m.) The plants are wa• year it had three blossoms. Gentiana di- tered sparingly every evening to simulate narica, supposedly the best bloomer, dew, and if there is no rain I water does not perform that well for me, a few thoroughly once a week. When sprink• flowers at a time is the most it has pro• ling for a dew effect I move several times duced. It seems that long Indian Sum• quickly from one end of the garden to mers entice the gentians to bud and usu• the other to ensure that each rock ab• ally these buds, if developed to a certain sorbs as much water as possible. When degree, do not produce flowers the next this water evaporates the following day spring. All you can count in the spring are in the hot sun, it will keep the environ• the calyces. ment cool for at least part of the day. This was my first attempt at rock gar• In my experimenting with Gentiana dening. Great anticipation followed by verna and G. uema angulosa, I also tried some disappointments, but also by a continuous watering system. The many happy moments of success gave plants were planted in a ledge-like setting me the enthusiasm to build another gar• with a background rock rising several in• den at the rear of our home. Here I took ches above the rock set in front of them. advantage of a large oak, which is Copper tubing was connected to our situated southeast of the garden and water system and fitted on the other end shades it for part of the day. This new with a tiny needle-valve adjusted to a few garden offered me further possibilities: drops per minute. This dripped water on saxifragas, douglasias, papavers, ramon- the large rock behind the gentians. The das, primulas, soldanellas, androsaces, rock was limestone of low density with all of which are my new interests. § some tiny cracks. With the help of a

20 The Worthy Sandworts

Geoffrey Charlesworth South Sandisfield, Massachusetts Drawings by Carol Ann Kearns Princeton, New Jersey

Every year the seed list contains a dozen or so arenarias and many of these are well worth growing, forming very at• tractive buns, tufts, or mats. A few have longer foliage or flower stalks and con• trive to look like compact grassy clumps. All except one of them are white and even A. purpurascens, the one excep• tion, is only faintly pinkish — at least the flowers on the plant I grew were not a robust pink. But white, of course, is a very good foil for the exuberance of the early June display, which is when arenarias are at their best and they are a sound group of whites to take over as the arabis and early iberis fade out.

Arenaria kingii

Perhaps the showiest of them all is A. montana with A. grandiflora running it a close second. These are both beautiful mats of glowing white with the theatrical impact of Phlox subulata. A. montana is a little unreliable, one of those plants you think you have forever and then, sud• denly it leaves you, but A. grandiflora is reliable enough and not aggressive. It needs, however, a good foot of space to perform at its best.

I cm Taller than these two are A. graminifolia, A. longifolia, and A. kingii. Arenaria montana These are the grassy ones; every year I

21 Arenaria tetraquetra rr pull out A. graminifolia before the flow• easy to grow in a sunny spot and is easy ers form under the illusion that it is an to divide. You can also propagate it by overlooked weed, so labels are essential inserting quite small cuttings in perlite. and any other warning signal you can September would be a good time for tolerate which might enable you to resist this. A much tighter form of this species is the urge to pull. As a mature plant it A. tetraquetra granatensis. This plant has forms a large clump (a foot across) of the same austere look as Gypsophila small grassy tufts. A. kingii has a grassy aretioides or Draba imbricata. It has even look by virtue of the tall clump of flower fewer flowers than the type plant, but the stalks, the leaves being about two or leaf shape becomes a pattern written on three inches long and the stalks a foot; I the dome and it is a very choice plant for never feel inclined to attack it. Arenaria the raised bed. longifolia is somewhere between the two Arenaria is sometimes split into a in appearance. number of genera with Minuartia, Alsina, Then there are several sandworts and Cherleria as alternative names. which form quite elegant buns. A. au- Arenaria caespitosa (more correctly striaca is a good one and so is A. nor- known as A. vema caespitosa) may fre• vegica. The latter forms tight rounded quently be found listed as Minuartia. mounds, only three inches across, of This is a plant that verges on the aggres• leathery shiny leaves and may be an an• sive, but is attractive in the way it forms nual but will deposit its babies very close lumpy mounds like the rolling green hills by in August and has excellent manners. of Vermont. There is a yellow form, Even showier is A. tetraquetra, with hard aurea, which has some garden value interesting "square" leaves arranged like though not really better than the normal an upside-down pagoda though it pro• fresh green type. Both are studded with duces very few flowers. People take it to typical five petalled white stars in June. plant shows now and then, but it is quite Arenarias with needlelike leaves in-

22 elude A. obtusiloba, which forms a tight mat; A. sedoides, which has slightly longer needles and comes from the outer Hebrides; and A. laricifolia with leaves between the two. This latter sandwort looks well falling down a hot bank or snuggling between two stones on a wall. A. groenlandica should also be grown for its association with the mountain tops of New York and New England. You can find seed, as I did, by driving to the sum• mit of Whiteface mountain near Lake Placid, N.Y. A. purpurascens prefers a moist loca• tion, which may explain why I lose mine after one season. So does A. balearica, which has tiny emerald leaves and forms exquisite mats of brilliant green. Unfortu• nately it is not thoroughly hardy for me Arenaria groenlandica and I shall keep it protected in winter, leaving only a few experimental plants to If next year's seed list contains A. brave the rigors of a Massachusetts erinacia, A. capillaris formosa, A. cepha- winter. Unfortunately, for those who can lotes or a whole host of others, I'll be re• grow it outside,it has the reputation of questing two or three new species of this being a beautiful but uncontrollable very varied genus and I advise you to do weed. the same. §

• • •

Most rock gardeners, if they had any choice in the matter, would prefer to have a gently undulating landscape of several acres with a nice, rugged, natural ledge facing north (preferably two with a small streamlet running between them), backed by a few tallish evergreen trees of interesting shapes silhouetted against a distant view of snow• capped mountains. Alas, most of us have to settle for far less: a small plot as flat as a billiard table, frequently occupied for the most part by a largish maple, hemlock or spruce, and with a rather too intimate view of the back of the neighbor's garage, perhaps embellished by their offsprings' partially dismantled car or cars. Yet how often, it is the gar• dener with just such problems who grows perfect alpines in an en• chanting miniature landscape.

23 1982 Annual Meeting — Colorado

Photographs by Trevor Cole, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Lunch break at Summit Lake, Mt. Evans

Typical Pose — Bob Way of Kennett Square, Pa. examining Claytonia megarrhiza on top of Pikes Peak (14,114 ft.)

24 25 Six Years Past the Interim Event

Roy Davidson Seattle, Washington

Although it is now far past the proper where they appeared as preparatory ma• time for any "addenda" to the Report of terial to the Mt. Rainier trek. The Report the 1976 Interim International Rock then, in itself, is not a total reflection of Garden Plant Conference, certain perti• the conference, and should be used nent information may still be of interest along with the Program Booklet (which to those who were or were not in atten• also contained thumbnail biographies of dance, and to plantsmen in general. The participants) and the geographic plants formal program as it was presented came lists publication prepared by the co- off almost precisely as outlined in ARGS sponsoring AGCBC to elucidate their Bulletin 34:26, half a year ahead of the splendid trough displays; this last is avail• event, and the Report, as published, able from that organization. concisely reflected what were termed the The program committee had accumu• "sessions," from I through XII (the clos• lated much other material (in various ing salmon barbecue luncheon, courtesy states of preparation) much of it destined of the government of British Columbia), never to reach an audience because of as well as certain pre-sessions, inter-ses• limitations of time and space. Certain of sions and post-sessions, as the electives the subjects could only be treated visu• were termed. Such of these as Mt. ally: some of the displays were accorded Rainier and gardens visited were in• coverage in the Report while others got cluded when material was submitted. no mention; all were acknowledged in Tours before and after were not part of the Program Booklet, which also in• the conference per se and were not cluded brief biographical notes of par• therefore included. ticipants. One suggestion destined to re• More on gardens has been published. main unused was a list of American Mrs. Free wrote of how her charming plants recognized with awards in Britain, scree and woodland developed (ARGS and another similar list that documented 37:133), complementing very nicely the promising newly described taxa of the photo of it in the Report. "Lakewold," decade. While the first of these is of cer• the Wagner garden was featured in tain very definite value, the second was Pacific Horticulture, Spring 1979 and on frankly only a wish-list, for who can pos• the cover, and again in Town & Country, sibly guess the garden worth of a plant June 1980. Thomas Church, its de• from a dry remnant? As an example, signer, felt it to be one of his most satisfy• Geranium toquimense (1974) (said to ing commissions. be nearest to G. marginale of SE Utah) is Only for lack of space were the papers of a meritorious genus and sounds at• of Dr. Barksdale and Mrs. Witt not re• tractive enough in its own right: silvered printed from the Program Booklet, cut leaves and magenta-red flowers; a

26 published line-drawing depicted a sub• are the milestones and then there are the ject of charming scale, but all that has millstones, stemming of course from two been seen of it high in central Nevada quite different motivations. The first are falls way short of expectation, and so far those that correct old errors and we as is known it has not been brought into should rejoice over them, but the second cultivation. Surely up there somewhere are not so welcome, since they deal with is that exceptional one, a good "crim• matters subject to both interpretation son," or a pink or even a white? and judgment. There is no way to re• Quite on the other hand the newly de• solve many of this sort and they hang scribed Douglasia idahoense (1981) can around our necks until time decides their only be top-flight, but is it growable? This acceptance or rejection; if not found had been known for some forty years in workable and useful, they are forgotten. herbaria and is only now verified as A prime example here has to do with being one of a small number of relict Douglasias: we Americans still call them species of the granitic Idaho batholith Douglasias; we've always been aware that includes Synthyris platycarpa, they are precariously close to being An- Waldsteinia idahoensis, Dasynotus drosaces (p. 78). Another of these daubenmirei and the recently described millstones has to do with Eritrichium. We Saxifraga bryophora var. tobiasiae. are of course aware that the one and There may be still others yet unfound in only true "King of the Alps" is the Euro• this wildest part ot the West. pean E. nanum, but there are Americans Two excellent papers that did not find which duplicate that. We might follow audience in the actual proceedings en• Hitchcock [Vase. PI. Pac. NW) who says hanced the Report considerably, those those of the Rocky Mountains "may con• of John Watson and Fritz Kummert, stitute the weak variety elonqatum" neither of whom was able to be in atten• while those of Alaska may be referred to dance. To correct one very slight error, var. aretioides. Therefore all those the paper prepared by Don Humphrey indexed in the report (except as under E. and John Wurdach was given by Dr. howardii) belong within the E. nanum Wurdach, these gentlemen acting on be• complex. Incidentally, one of the items half of the Potomac Chapter as acknow• on the Awards List was E. howardii: PC ledged in the Program Booklet; both 1973. One of the welcome name were present. Two proposals that never changes has to do with the little five- got to the presentation stage were men• finger maidenhair that traces back to the tioned in the proceedings; Eriogonum introduction of the late Carl English (pp. became a Bulletin subject (ARGS 204 and 209) now to be known as 34:168) and in declining the commit• Adiantum pedatum ssp subpumilum tee's invitation to present Astragalus, (1978). Other fern name changes in• Rupert Barneby (without peer as their clude Polystichum lemmonii for P. world authority) wrote he felt it unrealis• mohrioides (pp. 206 and 213) and tic and unfair to taunt the aspiring gar• Dryopteris expansa for D. austriaca (p. dener with such "sumptuous visions of 211). spun-sugar confections shimmering on Following are other miscellaneous no• the high western deserts" on the grounds tations which for reference purposes they are ungrowable (once said too of might be penned into the index or ap• Dionysias and certain others equally propriate margins of the Report, from exacting). Phlox to Finale. Should Phlox 'Chat- Name changes are of two sorts; there tahoochee' prove to be hybrid, then its

27 correct name would be P. x glutinosa rens ought to study Harshberger's re• 'Chattahoochee' (p. 5). It was given the port, available through the ARGS-PHS R.H.S. AM 1976. The Maslin's rediscov• Library Service. The shale barrens was ery of Phlox lutea and other color forms written of in some detail by Humphrey in within the "nana complex" in northern the Bulletin (ARGS 28:47) while the Mexico probably represents the most im• Wurdachs wrote of the granitic flat-rocks portant plant introduction of the decade. flora of the Southeast (ARGS 36:53). (ARGS 37:62 with color illustrations.) These further references give a little have been getting considera• more detail of plants and environment, ble attention as reflected in our own Bul• elucidating the edaphic series, (pp. 126- letin (35:3; 38:4; 39:2 & 3) and most of 163) Since pumice-ash has been re• the taxonomic change is fairly evident cently spewed out by Mt. St. Helens, it with some revision and several new taxa may be of timely interest to read of newly described. We can hope these are all described taxa that have been evolved milestones. Credit for conceiving and on the ancient ash deposits of Mt. mounting the Castilleja display should Mazama as they have lain on the arid be accorded to Jeanne Gardiner and Owyhee Basin of southeastern Oregon Frances Roberson (p. 27) and it may {Madrono 24:224 and Brittonia 33:3). comfort those interested in the penste- As we thumb through the Report we mon cultivars to know they are note how frequently hybrids are referred documented in the publications of the to in wild populations as well as among American Penstemon Society, which cultivated bed-fellows, in addition to may also be a source for seed and/or those of mankind's making. Dr. Kruc- plants, the now historic 'Evory White' keberg modestly did not speak of his from Mt. St. Helens included. Clarence own work with Silene (ARGS 19:1). Elliott thought his 'Six Hills Hybrid' had Mention oixPhylliopsxs, an ail-American arisen from rupicola x scouleri (p. 38). coming back to us from its origin in Eng• Sallie Allen would credit Barry N. land (the "Kalmi-oddity") brings to mind Starling for the artwork (p. 46) and she a couple of other similar bi-generic hap- informs us that the "kalmi-oddity" (p. penstances, both arising in France: x 47) has now been named x Phylliopsis Heucherella [Heuchera x Tiarella) and x hillieri (the "x" ahead of the binomial in• Solidaster {Solidagox Aster). Plants very dicating a bigeneric hybrid). It got an AM similar to x Solidaster lutea have been re• 1976. Townsendia montana (p. 62) ported in the central-eastern prairies of we're advised is now to be known as T. Canada where Aster ptarmicoides oc• alpigena Piper, (see Madrono 22:401) curs with several species of Solidago (see The good form of the little annual even• Canadian Naturalist, 1969). The ing primrose (p. 80) is Oenothera andina Rigidella-Tigridia cross (p. 103) was not var. hilgardii; flower of the type form is made originally in England, but rather at of no consequence (ARGS 31:63). We Berkeley by the late Dr. Elwood Molseed are still vexed with the millstone Sisyrin- in the course of his monographic study of chium "macounii alba" (p. 86) for what Tigridia. is in reality a most exceptional albino Other hybrid inferences include a form of S. bellum; pity it was never statement that Delphinium hybrids are named for the exceptional lady who not common in nature (p. 178). They are found it, Lester Rowntree (ARGS difficult for man as well. We do have the 35:67). half-American one called 'Pink Sensa• Anybody interested in the Pine Bar• tion' which arose in Holland between the

28 Eurasian D. elatum and the American D. 192 & 214); however the name 'Cantab' nudicaule, given an Award of Merit in is now accepted as correct for the back- 1941 as D. x ruysii. It is exported in large sport form, when the "dwarf" has pro• numbers to fill the demand for a pink del• duced a strong erect bole, as it has done phinium, propagated vegetatively as it is on several occasions. As a further com• sterile. It is not well known, however, plication, the plant in its dwarf form was that an amateur breeder in eastern given an AM in 1953 when shown as S. Washington, Axel Samuelson offered semperuirens 'Nana Pendula' (see Jour• delphinium hybrids in "rock garden nal RHS, Jan. 1979). sizes" of several seed strains during the Further delays would have resulted 40s and 50s. Called "West o' the Roc• from any effort to index the colored kies" strains, these are documented in photographs into the general reference, Delphinium Society publications. He and it is a small matter of time to prepare used only native Americans and was such a one for quick referral. The pink caught up in the stumbling block of steril• Mimulus (following pp. 70 & 310 in the ity, which hindered reaching the ideal: Andes trough) is the one John Watson large flowered, fertile and red. Those mentions (p. 114) and insofar as is lovely ones he did have could only be in• known it is an unidentified hybrid, easily creased vegetatively and they were all grown and increased vegetatively. lost with his death some years ago. It Somehow the Pyrola of the Wenatchees might be worthwhile for someone to (p. 310) came to be identified as study his methods and remake the cross• Chimaphila; it is most likely P. dentata es, at least those which did give fertile which grows profusely there in a dry con• seed. ifer association with Douglasia, strange We had hoped for the conference to as it seems. have a display of the summer-flowering There is not a single reference in the half-American hybrids of bred entire proceedings to two of the more by the late Dr. Marion Ownbey using characteristic western American genera, Asian D. peregrina with our own sorts. Yucca and Zaushneria. To round out the Due to his untimely death the prior au• alphabet, Richard Kleinboehl has only tumn, this display did not materialize. recently contributed on the former The one in best distribution (from D. (ARGS 39:177) while the latter was sub• neuadensis x D. peregrina) has been ject to a recently published monograph given a PC award in England (1973) as recognizing seven taxa, quite a contrast Dicentra x 'Tsuneschige Rokujo' (p. to the prior study which submerged 248). them all within a single species of There is some confusion in the refer• Epilobium! The Bulletin plans to treat ences to a couple of conifers: Picea this autumn flowering genus soon, as glauca 'Albertiana Conica' (according to presently grown in the Denver rock gar• one authority) is correct for the Alberta den collection. Spruce, (P. glauca 'Conica' on p. 190), Of course by this time everybody will which in transcription from tape came have well read their Report of the Interim out "P. alba geana conica'1'1 elsewhere. Conference. The universal consensus is No two authorities agree on many con• that what we have here goes far beyond ifer names, and all these refer to the being any mere "report," that it surely same plant. The second consternation stands as a major reference on the sub• has to do with the Cambridge redwood, ject of American plants for rock gardens, Sequoia semperuirens 'Prostrata' (pp. due in large part to the editorial care and

29 expertise which brought it to us, to say The Report of the First Interim Inter• nothing of the patience and persistance. national Rock Garden Plant Confer• Perhaps these few explanations and re• ence, Alpines of the Americas, is availa• ferences to further reading will be an in• ble from the ARGS Bookstore. If you centive to those who do not have it on don't already have it, you'd better get a their shelves to do something about that. copy; it's a book you will treasure. — Ed. §

Amo, Amas, Amat Rock Gardening

Charles Gordon Post Aurora, New York

When one responds late to the siren probably made at least once in his life by call of the rock garden and memory be• every teacher of Latin, past and present). gins to play its tell-tale tricks, it is neces• But I have great respect for Latin as sary to gird one's loins and stand man• the universal language of horticulturists fully in the presence of the experienced and I know the importance of terminol• and erudite gardener — especially. an ogy. Thus, sadly, as I drove away from a erudite one — and learn, aware that pleasant hour with Mr. Foster, pondering there is no royal road to anything worth upon what I had seen and heard, I found knowing including terminology. that I could recall vividly the flowers; as As that good soul, the bearded Foster, for some of the genera and the species, patiently guided me on a tour of his gar• alas, wrack my brain as I would, I could den he pointed out plants of great beauty not remember them. and interest, indicating them by their One becomes plagued with doubts as Latin names with such ease one won• to one's capacity to remember the pre• dered if he did not read Terence and cise terms and keep straight in one's Plautus for pleasure and Cicero for in• mind the distinctions between Gentiana struction — and in the original tongue. acaulis and Gentiana uema, between The two Bills, Hamilton and Dilger of Ranunculus anemenoides (now Callian- Ithaca, not to speak of Virginia Briggs of themum anemenoides - Ed) and Ra• Meconopsis fame, also spout Latin as nunculus adoneus. though it had come to them with their Of course, there are reasons why ter• mother's milk. minology is important. As L.H. Bailey Fortunate is he who can do so. writes: "if the plant-lover wishes to have Now Latin was not my best subject in accurate stabilized names for his plants prep school. My career from Fabulae he must be sure that his plants are the Faciles to the Commentaries started well ones to which the names apply." Several enough but ended with the teacher re• years ago I bought what the seller told marking that my translations, though me was Sedum spathulifolium; the plant adequate, would never have been rec• turned out to be a species of Chrysan• ognized by Caesar (a hackneyed remark themum. It is a matter of identification.

30 The common names may be good of those inner resources which are so im• enough but the common names do not portant to those of us who have passed lend themselves to "method," to organi• the traditional threescore and ten years. zation, or to science. With a command of "Men who have no inner resources for a the proper names attached to the proper good and happy life find every age bur• plants there comes an added dimension densome." Thus spake that noble to the enjoyment of the rock garden. So Roman, Cicero. And Cicero knew the one keeps plugging away at the ter• pleasures of agriculture, of getting one's minology, wanting to learn, forgetting hands in the soil, of watching things and relearning, and finally realizing the grow, and returning to the earth what we satisfaction of noting and identifying have borrowed to produce, not only our• such plants as Pulsatilla alpina var. sul• selves, but the miracles of form and color phured and Draba bryoides imbricata. with which the earth abounds. When one masters the terminology one The above quotation is from a magni• begins to be a sophisticated rock gar• ficent essay entitled On Old Age. Cicero dener. had this to say, too (as best I remember This effort is wholly worthwhile; but it): "I come now to the pleasures of rock the reader does not have to be reminded gardening in which I find incredible de• that it is the flower that counts. As light. To these old age is no impediment Shakespeare had it: a rose "by any other and in them I think a man makes the name would smell as sweet." nearest approach to the life of the sage." Like a love of music or art or literature, Think of that! A sage!§ gardening (for me rock gardening) is one

Old Newspapers Though as far as I know no one has discovered a use for the junk mail that pours into the house daily, there are a number of uses for old newsprint other than as a starter for fires. It is an excellent way of clear• ing a patch of ground of weeds. First mow down the weeds and grass and then cover the site to be cleared with ten to twelve layers of old newsprint, overlapping each group about halfway over the one next to it. Soak thoroughly and cover with a layer of woodchips or other heavy mulch to weight down the paper and conceal it. Leave it in situ for at least two months so it can smother and kill the weeds beneath, after which holes can be punched through it for planting purposes. After a few years the newspaper will decompose and add organic mat• ter to the soil. When making an artificial bog or pool by lining a hollow with plastic sheeting, first lay down a thick layer of newsprint and soak it with water. This forms a protective layer under the plastic to prevent its being punctured by sharp stones, root tips or sticks when filled with wet peat or water. A really heavy layer of old newspapers makes an excellent base under woodchips for a path across soggy ground. It will have to be re• newed periodically as it decomposes. §

31 Some Fall Blooming Bulbs

T. Paul Maslin Boulder, Colorado Photograph by the author

My concept of a good garden is to grow here with spectacular ease; and have something interesting in it every some which do well in Denver or Col• day of the year. Such elements as flow• orado Springs hardly survive in Boulder ers, berries, pods, foliage, bark, shrubs, at all. One facet of my trial and error ap• snow catchments come to mind easily proach to gardening has been to find and these can be supplemented with bulbous plants, other than the wonderful walks and walls, good rock arrange• array of spring bloomers, which do well ments, constructions of various sorts in the fall. such as ponds and streams, arbors and I have always enjoyed the flowering fences and garden sculpture. I am not onions and recklessly try any I can lay my sure I would go so far as to have a parade hands on. So far the fifty odd species I of plaster ducks on the lawn or a bevy of am growing are doing well although colorful gnomes peering out of a cove or many of them have little merit, and some a giant cement toadstool or two, but I are vicious weeds, propagating them• might. The strongest urge is to have selves with abandon by seeds, bulblets in some color, preferably seasonal so that the that replace the flowers, or un• the garden will change as the months go derground flake-like offsets that separate by. In temperate zones this is easy far too easily from the mother bulb. And enough in the spring and summer but a few of them are very good late summer becomes increasingly difficult as autumn bulbs, interesting and showy. Allium pul- passes and winter comes. Nevertheless a chellum while a bit tall for the rock gar• good show can be arranged. I find that in den, 18 to 24 inches, is one of the best. It the dead of winter a single unexpected is not as late as some of the others, but its flower can be more dramatic than a bright reddish violet color and copious spectacular flower lost in the blaze of blooms make it very choice. Further• summer glory. more the curious manner of blooming Here in Colorado we are still on a hor• adds to its charms. The umbel is sur• ticultural frontier. We read of a plant with rounded by a sheath that is drawn out a description accompanied by the de• into an upright filament four or five times ceptive word "hardy" but have no idea the height of the umbel. This sheath how it will do for us. So gardening is a splits and the developing buds emerge continuous process of experimentation from one side, reaching up as they grow. made more difficult because there are so As the buds open, the pedicels bend few of us to carry on a sort of cooperative down, lowering the bright purple flow• learning process. But some of the things ers. As the flowers die, the developing we are learning seem incredible. Some pods are raised among the buds making plants considered difficult elsewhere room for a succession of flowers below.

32 This process continues for several weeks the flowers smaller and unscented. Aside but even after the flowering is over the from being showy and very late in flow• seed heads retain a lot of color, and if ering it is a menace because it self-sows picked at the peak of flowering they re• so readily. tain their color when dried and make fine Another delicate onion which blooms material for winter bouquets. There is an in September has thread-like leaves and albino form of this which seems a little scapes and is only eight inches tall. It is less vigorous and also a semi-dwarf that Allium jeneum. This is another species has been given the varietal name of ual- for which I can find no listing. I was per• densium. mitted to collect seed of this in the Mos• Another species, Allium senescens, cow Botanical Garden in 1976. The pale while not so showy is very attractive and lavender flowers are few in number and more suitable for the rock garden. The make up a loose umbel about an inch form I am growing is supposedly A. s. and a half in diameter. glaucum but may be the dwarf variety One of the longest continually flower• petraeum. In any event its sickle-shaped ing onions is A. schoenoprasumjar bet• leaves, some five inches long, tend to ter known as chives. Its tubular leaves spiral clockwise around the clump giving and fourteen-inch scapes form a dense it an additional twist of interest. The flow• clump with attractive deep purple flow• ers form hemispherical on six ers. These are produced continuously inch scapes and are a pale lavender pink. until frost if they are dead-headed. The nominal species is said to bloom in The jewel of the autumn-flowering June but the form I am growing flowers species is unquestionably A. thunbergii. I in late August or early September. have never seen it offered in catalogs nor I am also growing three species from mentioned in bulb books, encyclopedias western China. They are not very vigor• or dictionaries. But it is listed in Hortus ous but are especially nice because they Third as a Japanese species. Anita Kis- are blue. A. beesianum is the tallest of tler, that great disseminator of alpine these with spherical umbels of bright goodies, gave me my starting seed. Like blue flowers on sixteen inch scapes in chives it has rhizomatous roots rather August. A. kansuensis and cyaneum are than bulbs, which in time form large much shorter. The hemispherical um• clumps. The scapes are about ten inches bels of kansuensis tend to droop. A. tall, each bearing a one and a half inch cyaneum is more delicate and has fewer umbel of rich purple flowers with the flowers but they are a much more bril• orange stamens greatly exserted to give liant blue. It also is from Kansu and was the head a lacy, fuzzy look. The umbels one of Fairer's good finds. Both species develop very slowly so that the attractive bloom late in the fall. buds are in evidence for well over a Several years ago I got another Sep• month before they flower late in Sep• tember blooming species from Dr. tember. In fact they bloom so late here Lionel J. Bacon and later once again that the seed never matures although from Panayoti Callas. The scapes are they certainly try. Year after year I find about fifteen inches tall topped by a them crushed to the ground under a spherical, loose umbel of about thirty heavy burden of snow still fresh but white flowers. So far I have not been able pathetically eager to perform. to identify this vigorous form. It resem• The word colchicum to many garden• bles A. neapolitanum, one of the few re• ers is practically synonymous with au• portedly tender species, but it is taller, tumn. There are at least fifty species in

33 the genus, a good proportion of which 'Violet Queen' but they are no longer are fall blooming. A great many species with me. Surprisingly colchicums pick closely resemble each other and often very well considering that what is picked are so variable that it can be difficult to is only the perianth tube. separate one from another. Most of them The autumn flowering crocuses do not grow in the Near East and around the do well here and never form the large eastern end of the Mediterranean. Very masses so many of the spring flowering few of them are commercially available. I forms do. The large flowered C. have been growing the lilac-rose and the speciosus is my best performer. I am white form of Colchicum autumnale for growing what I believe is the beautiful years. This rather small-flowered species blue variety 'Oxonion' and the white produces about three flowers in succes• 'Albus'. These flower erratically for sion per bulb, then waits until spring to nearly two months. Sometimes a week produce a cluster of strapped-shaped or more will pass before a bulb will pro• leaves about a foot long. The bulbs in• duce its next flower. The result is rather crease with time but produce fewer and pleasing because sometimes after a light fewer flowers as they become crowded. snow a final flower will appear to cheer Frequent dividing is the answer. The me on for the grim winter so near at leaves of this form are a minor nuisance, hand. I have also tried the following occupying too much space and insidi• species, none of which have flowered: C. ously crowding out more virtuous plants, goulemyi, salzmannii, satiuus, stellaris leaving a bare spot when the leaves die and zonatus. The latter produces a great out in mid-summer. This behaviour is bluster of leaves and multiplies prodigi• typical of the autumn flowering species ously, but nary a flower. and is at its worst in the magnificent and The only hardy fall-blooming cycla• very showy C. speciosum. This and C. men I have grown is Cyclamen giganteum have the largest flowers in the hederaefolium. It is nowhere near as vig• genus. C. speciosum is a highly variable orous as plants I have seen in England, form, producing bunches of flowers but it is so lovely that I cherish it in spite of which stand as high as ten inches or its grudging behaviour. As I teasingly tell more. A number of clones, ranging in my farming friends (those who grow veg• color from white through pinks to an in• etables) a beet the size of a button is a tense purple-red, have been named. It is failure, but a petunia that produces a a difficult plant to use because the dense single flower is a success. My mass of large leaves it produces in the hederaefolium have only a few pink spring and summer completely swamp flowers late in September. But then they out lesser fry around it. produce an array of startling ivy-shaped One of the loveliest of the large-flo• leaves beautifully patterned with various wered forms is the hybrid 'Water Lily', a shades of green. These persist through double. It produces more bright mauve the harshest weather deep into spring. flowers than speciosum and the flowers There are two autumn flowering are smaller, but the numerous narrow snowflakes, the white Leucojum autum• segments give a stunning effect. I have nale, about nine inches tall, and L. another hybrid, one of those that keep roseum from Corsica with pink flowers appearing and disappearing from culti• and about four inches tall. I have tried L. vation. I think it is 'Disraeli' but its label autumnale from seed which duly flo• has been lost for years. I have grown wered but do not know yet whether it will other hybrids such as 'Lilac Wonder' and survive our winters. They are not showy

34 but perhaps a cluster of them would be a nice addition to the garden. L. roseum is on order. While Lycoris squamigera is rather large for a rock garden it is so spectacular that it is worth finding a sunny remote spot, preferably on the lee side of a large rock or a wall where autumn blown leaves can accumulate and form a deep mulch. The foliage of Lycoris, like Col- chicum, is overwhelming. They finally die down in mid-summer leaving an empty spot. Then late in the summer the thick naked scapes spring from the ground to carry umbels of large, sweetly scented, pink, lily-like trumpets. This Oxalis lobata brief magnificent show makes the whole tedious procedure worthwhile. These tender to survive here. But several sum• 'Pink Naked Ladies' are reportedly not mers ago I rashly tried it, and sure hardy here but I have grown them off enough it did not flower. But the follow• and on for years. My original stock came ing spring I found shoots of it emerging from a large unattended clump in a Fort from a tangle of aster roots and that fall it Collins backyard which is in zone four. I flowered. The fleshy roots form an un• am also growing Lycoris sprengeri which derground mat from which grass-like is very similar to squamigera but the sep• leaves shoot up to about fourteen in• als are tipped with blue. ches. From among these, somewhat A most unusual early autumn bloomer gladiolus-like scapes arise and produce a is Oxalis lobata. It begins the year with a succession of coppery pink flowers. It modest production of trifoliate leaves, has flowered every year since. each leaflet being cleft to the . One final species should be men• Two of these leaflets are creased so that tioned, Stembergia lutea. Its crocus-like half the leaflet is horizontally disposed to flowers appear in September and are a lie in the same plane as the third un- brilliant yellow. The species is a little dis• creased leaflet. The other half of the appointing though because the flower creased leaflets are held as blades per• production is very undependable here; pendicular to the plane of the four half- out of a clump of a dozen bulbs perhaps leaflets below, thus making a most un- only one will produce a flower. In con• oxalic leaf. By the end of June this foliage trast to this the slopes of the rock garden disappears only to reappear in Sep• at the Longwood Gardens are spangled tember, now accompanied by brilliant with great quantities of bloom in Sep• yellow flowers about a half inch in tember. diameter on two-inch scapes. There is a I am sure there are numerous other continuous succession of these, some• species waiting to be "discovered". times halted for a few days by a sharp Some I already know about, but have frost only to continue deep into our In• not yet tried, are Galanthis reginae olgae dian Summer. and Zephyranthes Candida. As I learn Schizostylis coccinia is also too large about these and others, they shall have for a rock garden, and presumably too their turn. §

35 Trillium Cousins

Edith Dusek Graham, Washington Photographs by the author

Some plants, such as roses and com• not particularly guaranteed to bring its posites, are blessed with cousins by the relations as a whole to the average gar• dozens; not so with the trilliums. They dener's attention. Other species spread have but one related genus in Europe into Asia as far afield as Taiwan. In the and Asia and two in the United States. they are said to be rep• Paris, the sole relative in Europe, resented by species more closely allied to seems to be best known in its species, the trilliums. Whether the Taiwanese P. quadrifolia, a rather self-effacing plant arisanensis might be considered the pick

Scoliopus bigelovii

36 hallii of the litter, I am unprepared to say for I tered occasionally in the literature, while have yet to meet all of the species in this the latter is rarely mentioned at all, even genus. Suffice it so say, that if the general by botanists. Neither can match the flam• run of plants match the photo of the boyance of some of our western tril- plant, which I have seen, this species will liums, nor do they resemble trilliums at amply repay any gardener's efforts to first glance. The most obvious difference obtain it and make it feel at home. is, that unlike Trillium, Paris, and In this country we have two related Medeola, which all produce a whirl of genera. The monotypic Medeola uir- leaves or atop the stem, Scoliopus ginica, commonly known as Cucumber leaves are produced at ground level. Root, is found in the East. It too might be They resemble each other in being classed among the demure plants whose early risers and retiring quickly to bed charms are discovered only upon close once their above ground tour of duty is inspection. Close-up photography dis• finished. Of the two, S. bigelovii is the closes an intricacy of form not obvious to larger. It forms masses of closely ranked the casual stroller along the garden path. leaves held more or less erect by close The Far West can claim to a genus of proximity to each other. The leaves are its own, Scoliopus. It is represented by S. conspicuously marked with irregular bigelovii in and S. hallii in dark spots so that they have a nice im• southern Oregon. The former is encoun• pact as foliage plants. In contrast the

37 plain green leaves of S. hallii are placed under glass. At one time I had occasion nearly flat on the ground. Though this to confine a number of plants of Cam• makes the plant less showy, it does help panula rotundifolia for a brief period. It is to bring the flowers, on their couple of in• stoutly maintained that this species is ches of stem, to one's attention. The completely devoid of scent, yet as my flowers of S. bigelovii do not overtop the captives warmed in the sunny confines leaves by much. of the propagating house, they filled the In both species the flowers are subtly air with a most delicious aroma. It is en• marked in greens, yellows, and browns. tirely possible that scoliopus might re• The most obvious difference between spond in a similar, if not so delightful, them is that while S. bigelovii merely re• manner. flexes the petals, S. hallii gets carried For some years S. hallii has grown in a away in this direction and each petal as• dryish spot in my deciduous woods. It sumes a complete downward curl. did not increase appreciably but re• It has been said that scoliopus are turned faithfully each spring with little cursed with bad breath. This may be help on my part, thus suggesting that it true, but as one cursed with a sensitivity should not be rated among the more dif• to irritating odors, I must confess that ficult plants. This prompted me to plant a thus far I have been totally unaware of more recently acquired S. bigelovii in a the genus's failing in this respect. It is similar situation. Soon thereafter a visit• quite possible that these are another of ing authority on all these related genera those plants which release scent only gazed at the site with tactfully raised under certain conditions and only eyebrows and commented that he had people who make a practice of poking seen these plants massed in a seeping their noses into places best reserved for wet area in California. He suggested that insects will become aware of this aspect the edge of my bog might be more suita• of the genus. It is also possible that those ble. Both species were removed to this who have noticed this aspect of site. It remains to be seen how the plants scoliopus are those that grow them will respond to these new conditions. §

In Search of Darling Tony

Lola Gardener, Pistol River and Veva Stansell, Gold Beach, Oregon Photographs by Marguerite Metzgus

In September of 1978 my friend Veva existence. I pled to go and she said I Stansell was given the assignment by the could help. We spent so much time in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of survey• hills that year we were accused of meet• ing Darlingtonia califomica for locatons, ing someone named Tony — darling ecological needs, average population Tony — out in the woods somewhere. size, extent of trade and threats to their Darlingtonia califomica goes by a

38 number of common names: Cobra Or• dages and also on the main portion of chid or Cobra Lily, California Pitcher the leaf. When an insect enters the open• Plant, and -catcher. The latter seems ing, it tends to fly upward into the hood, to fit the plant best, but it is by no means which is checkered with a pattern of limited to catching . In one bog we opaque green (or red in sunny places) discovered moths about two inches long and translucent flecks, sometimes refer• solidly packed inside the tubular leaves. red to as fenestrations or little windows. It is said that even a mouse may enter a Inside the hood the insect will waste leaning leaf. Ben, my husband, ob• energy trying to escape toward the light, served Yellow-jackets flying in and out; until exhausted it lands on the slippery the only insect we know that accepts interior of the tube. Here it is prevented "Tony's" dinner invitation without end• from climbing out by downward slanting ing up in the soup. hairs and eventually it slips down into a The hollow tube-like leaf of the Fly• reservoir of secreted liquid pooled in the catcher enlarges upward, with one side base of the tube where it joins the carcas• curving over to form a hood. The open• ses of other creatures which are being ing into this tube is up under the hood broken down by bacterial action. where two appendages, sometimes de• The leaves can be as tall as three feet scribed as a forked tongue, are attached. or as short as one inch. Even seedlings Insects are attracted to the leaf by the show the beginning of a hood, at first flat• nectar glands present on the appen• tened, but soon expanding to form the

Darlingtonia califomica

39 egg-shaped cowl. The plants grow in Veva called out, "Lola, I'm sinking!" I crowns or rosettes with the hoods twist• continued to count, "... 23, 24, 25," ing to face away from the center. The until I realized she actually was sink• numerous, clustered crowns seem to ing — quite fast and deep. Indeed, we come mainly from stolons rather than had trouble extricating her and her rub• being individually seeded plants, though ber boots from the clutches of the bog. seed germination is not difficult. Another long remembered trip was The nodding flowers have five guided by my husband, Ben. He used to greenish-yellow sepals, each about one hunt in an area we call the "Big Pines." It and a quarter to three inches long. These had been twenty-five years since he had shade the five shorter petals, maroon or been there and Knobcone Pine and purple in color, which touch their tips to• manzanitas have a way of growing in gether. Near the tips the edges of the pet• very thickly in that many years. We took als are inrolled, so as to form five symetri- our nine year old nephew, Troy, with us. cal slots giving entrance between the ad• We left the car about 11 a.m. with no joining petals to the stamens and pistil lunch and arrived back at 4 p.m. The within. In seed the bracteate scape brush was so thick that Ben had to tramp straightens and the obovoid capsule, it down to make a trail for us. At one one to two inches long, stands erect. point Troy asked in a wistful voice what Darlingtonias are often associated we had to eat when we were able to get with sphagnum in the coastal bogs. In back to the car. Fortunately Veva had the Siskiyou Mountains they seem to fruit leather in her packsack and there prefer a seepage or small stream. Most were still huckleberries hanging on the bogs visited were on a serpentine or bushes. Coming back was a chore for peridotite soil base. Serpentine soils Troy as his short legs made it impossible have a low nutrient value and the car• for him to climb over the brush; he nivorous nature of the Fly-catcher is ad• traveled in jumps, a sort of swimming vantageous in such an environment. motion, but with never a word of com• Darlingtonia bogs have been reported plaint. Eventually we arrived at the from sea level to 7,200 feet elevation, bogs — acres of them. It was well worth where they are covered with snow in the effort. Besides the masses of Dar• winter. The most northerly location on lingtonia, there were hundreds of orchid record is in Tillamook County not far plants, Cypnpedium californicum, in south of the Columbia River. They can seed and lovely gentians in flower. This be found as far south as the Sierras, bog was probably about twenty acres in across a wide gap in distribution. extent and we would love to make the One particular Darlingtonia bog in trip again. But with LUNCH! southern Coos County is memorable. Approximately thirty bogs were visited One objective of the survey was to during our survey and population esti• count the average number of plants in mates made in each. Total sites reported each bog visited. Veva had contrived a from reliable sources and plotted on three foot diameter contraption of black Quad maps came close to 180. In the plastic pipe to count the number of Siskiyous, common associated plants in• crowns in a given space. This particular cluded Ledum glandulosum ssp. colum- bog is a sphagnum bog, very deep and bianum, Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, very wet. I threw the hoop and we slog• and Rhododendron occidental, espe• ged out to the encircled spot and pro• cially at the steeper streamhead sites. ceeded to count the crowns. Suddenly The highest upslope Chamaecyparis

40 lawsoniana, indicating a moist site, also need considerable space. marks the upper limits of the Dar- For the future, Darlingtonia sites lingtonia stands. Sensitive species as• should be watched for mining and col• sociated with Darlingtonia californica in• lecting activities. Logging seems not to clude Cypripedium californicum, Gen- be too serious a threat, as many of the tiana bisetaea, Lilium uoUmeri, Rudbec- mountain sites are in areas that do not kia californica var. glauca, and Viola lan- produce good timber. Darlingtonia ceolata ssp. occidentalis. Drosera rotun- populations seem able to recover from difolia and Piguicula vulgaris, both car• disturbances as long as water supplies nivorous plants, also occur with Dar• are not changed or silted badly. Logging lingtonia in some locations. or road building that alters drainage will Darlingtonia may be raised from seed surely be detrimental. placed in a pot filled with chopped Maybe by increasing our knowledge sphagnum and kept constantly moist. I about the Fly-catchers and their soggy was also successful with germinating the hideaways we can prevent these cleverly seeds in a pot of sand kept constantly adapted plants from becoming En• moist. A small artificial bog with con• dangered, Threatened, or Rare. If you stantly running water and partial shade are fortunate enough to visit one of these seems to give the best results for growing bogs be sure to give our handsome, the plants. Pot culture may be difficult as bald-headed, handlebar-mustached the old crown dies and new plants come "Darling Tony" a salute for us. § from underground stolons and thus

But Are Those Plants in the Garden?

James L. Jones Lexington, Mass.

The ritual is a familiar one: each year, all remains in the realm of a mythic rite. in January, on the arrival of a seed list, Having noticed that my own garden names of long-coveted plants are was not without bare spots despite many exhumed, checked against the offerings years of the seed list ritual, I screwed up in the list and entered with nervous care my courage to look at the statistics, cal• on the proper form. Before that day has culating the percentage of germination gone by, the dedicated practitioner will by year and by source and, the real have dropped his or her response in the kicker, the percentage of these seed- mail. grown plants that were actually doing In a narrow sense this ritual is certainly something useful in my garden or alpine not an empty one, yielding up in due house as of this writing. The varieties course a harvest of seeds. But that's only considered are all perennials, though the first step along the way, and until that some allowance was made for those consignment of seeds is translated into widely acknowledged to be short-lived. enduring garden plants, somehow The compilation showed that I had brought to increase one-hundredfold, it sown 407 varieties of seed in the course

41 of four years, received from nine differ• able (and reportable) by the upturn in ent sources — societies such as ARGS survival seen in the last two years. That is and various commercial seed com• a meaningful improvement by the way, panies. Germination percentages for the not an artifact caused by an ignominious seeds from the different sources ranged retreat to easier species. from 60% to 82%, averaged over the Results aside I enjoy doing this kind of four years, and were fairly consistent for analysis, and I also expect it to be of spe• each source year by year. cific use. It shows me that in my best year The overall percentage for each year I only got fifty percent of those varieties also remained fairly constant: 73% in that germinated successfully past the 1977, 58% in 1978, 61% in 1979 and seedling stage. That then is my major 67% in 1980 for an average germination problem, of more concern than sharpen• rate of 65%. ing up my germination techniques. And then I came to the bottom line, To see the problem is a good boot the percentage of plants out of all those along the way toward seeing a solution. sown that had come to serve some gar• In my case I will have to face up to the den function. Here are the tallies: 1977 — need for taking greater care between the 20%; 1978-21%; 1979-25%; seed-flat stage and the planting-out in 1980 - 32%. This painful analysis has the nursery: i.e., transplanting into care• told me that a quite dismal one-fifth to fully controlled seedling flats. The corol• one-third of all the varieties of seed that I lary to this must be a ruthless limitation have sown are all that have won through on the numbers of each species pricked to grace my garden. That is not a pleas• out for growing on. § ing realization, though made more palat•

• • of Cabbages and Kings

In the last issue of the Bulletin the brought up, and some of the members reasons for having chapter plant shows who first objected to such shows do not were discussed. It might be of some bring in plants for exhibit even now, value here to present some of the prob• though they do attend the shows and ap• lems of implementing such shows. pear to enjoy them. In the first place some chapter mem• Another reason given for not having bers are against having competitive plant shows was a feeling among many shows. The main reason they give for members that they didn't have good this is that they are afraid these may enough plants for such shows and that cause dissention within the chapter. they did not wish to be judged by so- They feel that introducing competition called experts who might scoff at their into the friendly atmosphere of discus• meager offerings. It was not until it was sing and exchanging alpine plants may suggested that prizes be awarded by vote somehow detract from the pleasure of of the members present that it was finally rock gardening. This was certainly true in agreed to try such a show. the Connecticut Chapter when the sug• The first show was meager indeed, gestion to have plant shows was first with only a few rather general classes

42 and only a bare handful of exhibitors, themselves in a position in which they but enthusiasm has grown and now our may be criticized for choosing the shows are quite presentable and there "wrong" plants and no one likes to be are a substantial number of regular the target of hard feelings and backbit• exhibitors though many members bring ing. in only a few occasional plants. How• Another possibility is to import judges. ever, once these occasional exhibitors Unfortunately asking the local garden have gotten their feet wet and won some club to supply these is usually very un• recognition for their offerings, they tend satisfactory. Such people, though to show in more classes more regularly. perhaps well versed in judging, simply As far as can be discerned the exhibitors do not know the material they are being show in a spirit of friendly rivalry and dis- asked to consider; they are accustomed sention has never been obvious, though to judging flower arrangements or class• it is fairly certain that on occasion an es of tulips, roses, peonies and petunias exhibitor has been disgruntled when his and are usually at a loss when faced with or her excellent plant is overlooked for a pot after pot of plants they have seldom if more flamboyant offering. They can, ever seen and know little or nothing however, always comfort themselves about. Their judgements are thus un• with the thought that the majority of likely to be acceptable to either the par• those voting probably didn't know ticipants in the show or the rest of the enough to appreciate the rarity, diffi• membership. Thus if judges are wanted, culty, or refined beauty of the plant they this leaves only the option of obtaining brought in. these from another ARGS chapter. This This is undoubtedly the reason why too presents difficulties. Distances be• some members of ARGS disapprove of tween chapers can be considerable and giving awards by vote rather than by a very few of us would be willing to spend panel of judges. There are, however, the time necessary to travel to another several reasons why a general vote has chapter's meeting place and back solely been the more usual method of judging for this purpose. The least the inviting ARGS plant shows. A panel of three chapter should do is to offer to pay travel qualified judges is not easy to come by. expenses and this can be hard on the (Three judges are infinitely to be prefer• treasury. red over a single judge, as their indi• A final reason for preferring member• vidual prejudices for and against certain ship vote rather than by judges takes us plants are averaged out and their pooled back to the beginning of this discussion knowledge is usually more wide ranging of plant shows. It is not easy, particularly than that of a single person who is un• in the beginning stages, to pursuade likely to be familiar with every species, or members of ARGS to show, but they even genera, in the entire exhibit.) At seem to be more willing to do so if they most chapter shows most of those mem• are to be judged by vote of their co- bers, who would be considered by the members rather than by "experts." membership as sufficiently knowledge• This brings us back to the premise that able to be appointed as judges, are usu• the average chapter membership is un• ally showing plants themselves thus au• able to make sound decisions as to which tomatically disqualifying them. Even if plants are best in each class. And for the available it is not easy to recruit judges first few years of showing this may be from among the local membership as true, yet it is surprising how rapidly these they are frequently unwilling to place "average members" become more

43 sophisticated as they examine plants in There are always exceptions to the show after show in order to vote for the above strictures, however. A magnifi• best. A brief program every year or two cently grown plant of Kelseya uniflora, a at which standards for showing are dis• rock hard mound of gray-green over cussed and what one should consider eighteen inches across, shown at the In• when judging help speed up this process. ternational Rock Garden Plant Confer• A qualified person, either from within the ence in Harrogate, won top honors for chapter or invited from outside, can be best American plant even though its asked to talk on this subject. flowers were well past their prime; the Qualified show judges usually elimi• judges felt that the superb condition of nate first any plant that does not fit into this plant and the fact that it had blos• the category of the class: thus a dodecat- somed profusely, even though these heon, no matter how lovely, does not fit blossoms had faded at the time the plant in a class stipulating bulbous, cormous or was shown, warranted the award to this rhizomatous plants, nor should an plant, notoriously difficult to grow and Aquilegia flabellata nana appear in a nearly impossible to bloom in cultiva• three pot class of North American na• tion. tives. (Class designations should be Rarity or difficulty of cultivation do not clearly displayed for all to read.) In a well in themselves necessarily make a plant a run show such mis-entries would be prize winner unless these qualities are pointed out to the exibitor by a member stipulated in the class description; never• of the show committee and the mis• theless, if it becomes necessary to placed plant would be put in a class in choose between two or more equally which it does fit, but members of the well grown entries, the more rare and dif• show committee can miss seeing such ficult would have a very definite edge. things in the rush of setting up the show. On the other hand, particularly in a class Messy looking plants with dead, slug of mixed genera, a good judge must be slimed or insect chewed leaves or, careful not to make a judgement on the Heaven forbid, those harboring aphis or difficulty or ease of cultivation solely by scale are also quickly cast beyond the his own experience in growing it and he pale. An attenuated or lopsided growth must at all times beware of allowing his habit also counts against an entry. personal preference for one genus over Flowers, too, when these are present, another to sway his judgement. should be in good condition; faded blos• The presentation of the entry can also soms and tattered or discolored petals count either for or against it, though not count heavily against an otherwise well as heavily as the quality of the plant itself. grown plant. One below par plant in a A clean pot, an easy to read, but not ob• multipot class is a mark against the whole trusive label, a suitable surface finish entry. A plant with most of its flowers such as gravel or bits of rock around an open is usually preferred to one with just alpine, or pine needles under a wood• a few open blossoms or only buds. Of land species, all enhance a plant's ap• course, in a class for foliage effect or pearance. However, the pot itself should growth habit flowers should be dis• be considered immaterial. Thus a hyper- counted, counting neither for nor against tufa pan or handthrown ceramic pot an entry unless the presence of blossoms should be ignored when it comes to actually mars the plant's effectiveness in judging the entry and, except where clay that particular category or flowers are or plastic is stipulated in the show rules, stipulated for that class. the material of which the pot is made

44 should count neither for nor against the effect "are not eligible when selecting the entry. After all we are judging the plant best plant in the show as, by their very not the pot. An exception would be nature, such containers hold an aggrega• made, however, in a class for "contain• tion of plants, not a single "best plant." ers planted for effect." In such a class the Yes — showing and judging may beauty of the container, how it is "land• sound difficult, but it also can be great scaped," and the health and attractive• fun if approached in the right spirit, and it ness of the plants and their suitability to certainly is an excellent way to get to each other should all be considered. know the less common plants. § One last point: containers planted for

CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? Please send prompt notification of change of address to the Secretary, Norman Singer, Norfolk Rd., S. Sandisfield, MA 01255 If you do not do so we must charge you for the additional postage needed to forward Bulletins and notices returned to us because of non-delivery at your former address.

PACIFIC HORTICULTURE a magazine about plants and Gardens of the West Illustrated Color Quarterly Annually: U.S. $10; Canada & Mexico $12; Overseas $14 in U.S. Currency Write to P.O. Box 22609, San Francisco, CA 94122

THE AMERICAN RHODOHYPOXIS PENSTEMON SOCIETY Wonderful long blooming pot plant Cordially invites you to join its growing list of for the alpine house enthusiastic members. Bare root plants, Feb. 1983 If you are interested in Penstemons, you will be $2.50 each postpaid interested in the activities of the society. R. 'Great Scott' Small vermillion fir. Write to the Secretary, R. 'Fred Broome' Large deep pink Orville M. Steward R. 'Dawn' Large white to blush P.O. Box 33 R. 'Garnet Botfield' Medium vermillion Plymouth, VT 05056 Carman's Nursery for Particulars 16201 Mozart Ave., Los Gatos, Calif. 95030

45 ALPINA RESEARCH

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47 Grower of ROCK PLANTS, HERBS COENOSIUM GARDENS Rare and unusual dwarf conifers, PERENNIALS standard conifers, and deciduous trees ANNUALS available from the Coenosium collection. For descriptive listing Large Selection send 2 first class postage stamps to No Catalog Robert Fincham All Plants for Sale at Nursery Only 425 N. Fifth St. Lehighton, PA 18235 SAMUEL F. BRIDGE, JR. 1-215-377-1495 Evenings 437 North Street Greenwich, Conn. 06830 THE CUMMINS GARDEN

DWARF RHODODENDRONS YES, We Ship! DECIDUOUS AZALEAS Custom Propagating DWARF EVERGREENS Catalog $1.00 COMPANION PLANTS (Refundable With Order) Phone (201)536-2591 22 Robertsville Road Marlboro, NJ 07746

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Visitors Welcome — Picnic Area — Garden Rhododendrons, Clubs Welcome (please by appointment) Dwarf Evergreens WE SHIP AGAIN and Rock Plants Helen E. & Slim Payne For sale at nursery only. PLANT JEWELS OF THE HIGH COUNTRY Catalog 50c

Sempervivums and Sedums by Helen E. Payne 1159 Bronson Road Fairfield, Conn. 06430 111 Full Color Photographs Autographed Copies $9.50 Shipping Charge $2.00

48 SOUTHERN SEEDS RARE SOUTHERN OFFERINGS Large selection of hard-to-find offers you TREES, SHRUBS & PERENNIALS native and exotic species UNUSUAL and RARE ALPINE PLANT SEED ALL NURSERY GROWN of the Please send self-addressed stamped envelope WAIMAKARIRI CATCHMENT, SOUTHERN ALPS for free mail-order list or $1.50 to include NEW ZEALAND Descriptive Catalog.

The Vicarage, WOODLANDERS, Dept. RG Sheffield, Canterbury, New Zealand 1128 Colleton Avenue, Aiken, SC 29801

Alpines, Perennials, Sedums, BEAUTIFUL — COLORFUL Dwarf Conifers and Shrubs, SEMPERVIVUM Bonsai Starter Plants. (Hen and Chicks) Hardy Semps are great decor for between Comprehensive Descriptive Catalog rock edgings, borders, containers $1.00 Send 50c (coin or stamps) for Deductible first order descriptive listing COLVIN GARDENS RAKESTRAW'S GARDENS R.R. #2, Box 272 3094 S. Term St., Burton, Mich. 48529 X-c-tjjj^ Nashville, Ind. 47448

ORCHID GARDENS ALPENFLORA GARDENS Owner-operator Mrs. Clair Phillips is tak• 17985-40th Ave., Surrey, B.C. ing 1983 off from wildflower shipping to Canada V3S 4N8 complete and publish a book about Alpines, choice and rare plants, dwarf shrubs, wildflower gardening. Hopefully a new colorful primroses — auriculas and species, many Copyrighted Wildflower Culture Catalog irises — dwarfs and species, rockery plants, minia• can be printed early in 1984. In the mean• ture roses, dwarf rhododendron, floriferous time 1982 or older catalogs at 50c per copy perennials, dwarf evergreens, groundcovers. will be available for culture information use only. No foreign orders please. Quality plants in 3" and 4" pots. 6700 Splithand Road Mail order list Grand Rapids, Minnesota 55744 U.S. $ at premium. We are open — Visitors welcome

An unrivaled selection of over 700 alpines and rock garden plants, including 100 Northwest natives and 60 rock ferns... .^SfSKIYOlT RARE PLANT JSlJRSERY" Mail Order Catalog and Fall Supplement — $1.50 — Shipping within U.S. Only VISITORS WELCOME BY APPOINTMENT J. Cobb Colley Baldassare Mineo 2825 Cummings Road, Medford, Oregon 97501 Phone: (503) 772-6846

49 DWARF CONIFERS Over 140 Dwarf Conifers and Dwarf Companion Plants. Many suitable for Bonsai. Send for our 50 page catalog ($1.00) describing plants by size, shape, color and texture. Particular attention is given to plant sizes after 10 years growth. Dwarf conifer books and plant collection locations listed. 1982 Plant and Price List is free on request. Washington Evergreen Nursery Box 125RG, South Salem, New York 10590 Telephone: 914-763-5072

STONECROP NURSERIES Cold Spring, NY 10516 (Just off Rte. 301 — between Rte. 9 & Taconic) Offering a wide selection of Alpine plants and wildflowers for the Rock Garden and Alpine House; Trough Gardens; Unusual Perennials and Dwarf Shrubs. Cash and Carry — No Catalogue By Appointment only — 914-265-2000 Display Gardens and Alpine House Frank Cabot (914-265-3533) Sara Faust — Mgr. (914-223-3419)

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50 OWL RIDGE ALPINES ROCKNOLL Choice Alpines & Native Wildflowers Send for our special list of

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COLLECTOR'S CATALOG Dwarf Evergreens Thousands of different Seeds Uncommon Trees from every continent Many collected in the wild. Visitors Welcome Displays Labeled • ALSO' Browsing Encouraged BARNHAVEN SILVER-DOLLAR PRIMROSES Please send a stamp or two for our list Seeds & Transplants (No shipping) Catalog plus Collector's Seed List $1.00 (deductible) DILATUSH NURSERY FAR NORTH GARDENS 780 Rte. 130 15621 AR Auburndale, Livonia, Ml 48154 Robbinsville, N.J. 08691

WATNONG NURSERY THE SEEDLIST HANDBOOK 3rd Edition 1980, Reprinted 1982 The place to find some With Paging Errors Corrected "HARD TO FIND" PLANTS BERNARD HARKNESS, COMPILER Gaylussacia brachycera 246 pages. References to Illustrations. Dwarf Conifers, Leiophyllum, dwarf & low Bibliography growing Rhododendrons, R. yakusimanum

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51 THE ALPINE GARDEN SOCIETY

Membership of the Alpine Garden Society puts the American alpine gardener in close touch with those throughout the world who share his interest in one of the most absorbing branches of horticulture. The Quarterly Bulletin of the A.G.S. is respected internationally as one of the most informative publica• tions of its kind. It will bring into your home a distillation of the experience and ideas of some of the finest gardeners, plant explorers and horticultural thinkers of our time. Among the many other benefits of the Society, its uniquely comprehensive seed list alone is worth more than the modest subscription of $15.00 for Overseas Members. Apply to:— The Secretary, the Alpine Garden Society Lye End Link, St. John's, Woking, Surrey, England

THE ALPINE GARDEN SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS,

WRITTEN BY ACKNOWLEDGED EXPERTS IN THEIR OWN SUBJECTS, OFFER OUTSTANDING VALUE HANDBOOK OF ROCK GARDENING $4.00 THE GENUS LEWISIA By R. C. Elliott $4.50 SAXIFRAGES By Winton Harding $6.00 ALPINES IN SINKS AND TROUGHS By Joe Elliott $2.25 THE GENUS CYCLAMEN By D. E. Saunders $3.25 ASIATIC PRIMULAS By Roy Green $12.00 DAPHNE By Chris Brickell and Brian Mathew $11.25 ANDROSACES By George Smith and Duncan Lowe $12.00 MOUNTAIN FLOWER HOLIDAYS IN EUROPE By Lionel Bacon $17.00 DWARF SHRUBS By Harold Bawden $9.00 A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO ROCK GARDENING By Winton Harding $3.75 PROPAGATION OF ALPINES By Ken Hulme $2.75

AGS Publications are available ONLY from AGS Publications Ltd. (All prices postpaid) D.K. HASELGROVE, 278/280 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, London E17 9PL, England

THE SCOTTISH ROCK GARDEN CLUB Offers you... its twice yearly Journal, well illustrated and containing authoritative articles on all aspects of rock gardening, rock plants, and their world wide haunts. Its excellent annual scheme for the distribution of rare & unusual seed, amongst its international members. for $12.00 U.S. Currency per year or £5 British Currency on Bank in UK or £5 International Money Order Hon. Subscription Secretary Mrs. R. Law Kippielaw Farm, Haddington, East Lothian EH41 4PY, Scotland

52 DIRECTORATE AMERICAN ROCK GARDEN SOCIETY President Emeritus HAROLD EPSTEIN, 5 Forest Court, Larchmont, New York

President ROBERT L. MEANS, 410 Andover St., Georgetown, Mass. 01833 Vice-President KENNETH J. LOVE, 3335 N.W. Luray Terrace, Portland, Ore. 97210 Secretary NORMAN SINGER, Norfolk Rd., S. Sandisfield, Mass. 01255 Treasurer FRANCIS H. CABOT, Cold Spring, N.Y. 10516 Directors. Term Expires 1983 Marvin E. Black Iza Goroff Howard W. Pfeifer Term Expires 1984 Patricia Lou Carson Mamie Hook Dr. Robert McDermott (Mrs. Orel Dale) Term expires 1985 William S. Folkman Andrew Pierce Waid R. Vanderpoel

Director of Seed Exchange Kenneth Vogel Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 3675 Arboretum Drive, Chanhassen, MN 55317

Director of Slide Collection Mrs. Lois E. Ecklund Route #5, River Haven, St Cloud, Minn. 56301

ARGS-PHS Library Service Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Library 325 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106

CHAPTER CHAIRMEN

Adirondack LEE NELSON , 8 Peer St, Binghampton, NY 13901 Allegheny MARIE PLAISTED, BOX 232, Connoquenessing, PA 16027 Co/umbia-lVi//amette VIOLA V. SOBOUK, 2120 Pioneer Rd., Dallas, OR 97338 Connecticut ESTHER LEGEYT BAILEY, 157 Douglas St, Hartford, CT 06114 Delaware Valley ROBERT WAY, P.O. Box 116, Kennett Square, PA 19348 Great Lakes JUDY PEARSON. 5421 Whipple Lake Rd., Clarkston, MI 48016 Hudson Valley DR. ROBERT M. COLE, 60 Benedict Ave., Tanytown, NY 10591 Long Island ISABEL HIBBARD, 4 Nancy Dr., S. Farmingdale, NY 11735 Midwestern AILEEN MCWILLIAM (Acting Chm.), 711 Magnolia St., Mena, AR 71953 Minnesota STEVEN KELLEY, 2325 S. Watertown Rd., Long Lake, MN 55356 New England MRS. ROBERT ALBERTS, BOX 35, Old Milford Rd., Amherst, NH 03031 Northwestern MARVIN E. BLACK, 124 N. 181 St., Seattle, WA 98133 Ohio Valley MICHAEL D. COLE, 730 Carlsbrook Dr., Beaver Creek, OH 45385 Potomac Valley LYNN MAKELA, 5408 Yorkshire St., Springfield, VA 22151 Rocky Mountain RAY RADEBAUGH, 335 Gorham Ct, Louisville, CO 80027 Siskiyou RAMONA OSBURN, 1325 Wagon Trail, Jacksonville, OR 97530 Watnong DIANE MCNALLY, 7 Ski Hill Rd., Bedminster, NJ 07921 Western WILLIAM FOLKMAN, 2640 San Benito Dr., Walnut Creek, CA 94598 Westem-No. Carolina SAM CHILDS, 3410 Brevard Rd., Hendersonville, NC 28739 Wisconsin-Illinois IZA GOROFF, 1976 Church St., East Troy, WI 53120 YOUR ARGS BOOKSTORE

* New items in stock

1. ALPINES OF THE AMERICAS — The Report of the First Interim International Conference, 1976. 327 pp., 20 pp. of color plus black and white photos $15.95 ' 2. THE ALASKA-YUKON WILDFLOWER GUIDE — 217 pp. Color photos by plant family $9.00 3. THE SEEDLIST HANDBOOK — by Bernard Harkness. 3rd ed., 246 pp. Quick reference to seed listings of ARGS, Alpine Garden Society, Scottish R.G. Club. Gives genus, type plant, height, col• or, origin and horticultural reference $7.50 4. THE GENUS PHLOX — by Edgar T. Wherry. 174 pp. Monograph with photos, line drawings, dis• tribution maps $6.50 5. ROCK GARDENS — by Wilhelm Schacht. 192 pp. Edited and with introduction by Jim Archi• bald. 28 pp. of color photos plus line drawings $17.50 6. THE HANDBOOK OF ROCK GARDENING — 77 pp. Published jointly by the ARGS and Brook• lyn Botanic Garden. Well illustrated $2.25 7. WHAT'S IN A NAME — 24 pp. An easy explanation of botanical names $2.50 8. *ROCK GARDENING — by H. Lincoln Foster. Paperback reprint $22.95 9. PLANTS OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK — 168 pp. Color photos $6.95 10. WILDFLOWERS ACROSS THE PRAIRIES — 214 pp. Color photos $8.50 11. PLANT HUNTING IN — by Roy Lancaster. 194 pp. Text and a few illustrations $19.00

Handling and Mailing — $1.00 per 1 st book plus 500 per additional book Overseas — $1.50 per 1 st book plus 50C per additional book

12. ARGS PRINTS OF LAURA LOUISE FOSTER PEN AND INK DRAWINGS Set of 12 prints (all different) .. $21.50 Set of 24 prints (all different) $38.00 Set of 36 prints (all different) $54.00 Set of 36 prints autographed $108.00 All Postpaid by Insured Mail

13. ARGS NOTE PAPER — 12 cards and envelopes, 41/2" x 6V2". Each of different rock plant by 7 ARGS members $4.25 14. CUMULATIVE INDEX — Volumes 1 thru 34 75(5 15. SEEDS — 3 Methods of germinating seeds. Xeroxed from ARGS Bulletins $2.50 16. SEED GERMINATION REPORT — by Dara Emery. Data on selected species $1.50 17. TROUGHS — Construction and lists of plant material to use. Xerox $3.50 18. ARGS LAPEL PIN $3.35 19. ARGS SHOULDER PATCH — Washable $2.25

Nos. 12 thru 19 are all postpaid. Overseas add 50C to order

20. LIBRARY BINDERS for ARGS Bulletins $4.00 each plus $2.00 mailing chg. for 1, plus $3.25 mailing chg. for 2. Overseas add 500 per binder. All orders prepaid in U.S. funds. Make checks or money orders payable to "ARGS". U.S. destinations must show ZIP code. Airmail billed at cost. 21. ARGS BOOKSTORE stocks back issues of our ARGS Bulletin. Inquire about availability and prices.

ARGS BOOKSTORE WILL BUY BACK ISSUES OF ARGS BULLETINS Contact for offer. Postage for shipping will be refunded.

ARGS BOOKSTORE: Anita Kistler, 1421 Ship Rd., West Chester, PA 19380