arno~ia Volume 63 -· Number 2 -· 2004 Page Arnoldia (ISSN 0004-2633; USPS 866-100) is 2 In Memoriam: Richard Alden Howard published quarterly by the Arnold of 1917-2003 Harvard University. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts. 8 and the Development of American Identity Subscnptions are $20.00 per calendar year domestic, $25.00 foreign, payable m advance. Single copies of Philip J. Pauly most issues are $5.00, the exceptions are 58/4-59/1 (Metasequoia After Fifty Years) and 54/4 (A Source- 188 Lingonberry: Dainty Looks, Sturdy book of Cultivar Names), which are $10.00. Remit- Disposition, and Tasty Berries tances may be made m U.S. dollars, by check drawn on a U.S. bank; by international money order; or by Lee Reich Visa or Mastercard. Send orders, remittances, change- of-address notices, and all other subscription-related 26 Herbarium Specimens as a Novel Tool commumcations to Circulation Manager, Arnoldia, for Climate Change Research Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, ’ Jamaica Plam, Massachusetts 02130-3500. Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Daniel Telephone 617.524.1718; facsimile 617.524.1418; Pnmack, Richard B. Primack, Caroline e-mail [email protected]. Imbres, and Peter Del Tredici

Postmaster: Send address to changes 33 Finding a Replacement for the Amoldia Circulation Manager Eastern Hemlock: Research at the The Arnold Arboretum Arnold Arboretum 125 Arborway Peter Del Tredici and Alice Jamaica Plam, MA 02130-3500 Kita~ima

Karen Madsen, Editor 40 Arnold Arboretum Weather Station Mary Jane Kaplan, Copyeditor Data-2003 Andy Wmther, Designer

Editonal Committee Front cover: Cmnamomum sp. photographed by Peter Del Tredici on LuShan m the LuShan Andersen (Mountain) Phyllis Nature Chma. Robert E. Cook Preserve, Jiangxi Province, Peter Del Tredici Jianhua Li Inside front and back covers~ Chatsworth Bakewell, Richard Schulhof Derbyshire. Photographs by Alan Ward from his series Stephen A. Spongberg Portraits of Trees. Kim E. Tnpp Back cover: The Concord grape as illustrated in Copynght © 2004. The President and Fellows of U. P. Hednck’s 1908 The Grapes of New York. From Harvard College the Library of the Arnold Arboretum

IN MEMORIAM RICHARD ALDEN HOWARD

- 1917-2003

WO forces of nature hit Massachusetts in September 1938. The Great THurricane swept through on the 22nd, dramatically altering New England’s landscape. Richard Alden Howard arrived in Cambridge that same week to make his own, far more positive, impact on Harvard’s landscape and, later, on the 265 acres at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Howard was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and reared in Warren, Ohio. He graduated from the Department at Miami University in Ohio in 1938. Afterward, unable to afford graduate school, he accepted a position as a technician at Harvard University under Irving W. Bailey. Bailey put him to work on a little- known group of tropical flowering , the Icacinaceae. Howard also attended classes, and in 1939 the Society of Fellows awarded him a Junior Fellowship that supported his postgraduate training. As a graduate student, he had the opportunity to visit Harvard’s Atkins at Soledad, near Cienfuegos, Cuba. The experi- ence inspired both his life-long interest in tropical plants and his relationship with the scientists in the Caribbean. It was also where he met one of the great explorers, David Fairchild. After travel to Cuba became restricted, Howard contin- ued his tropical research and teaching efforts at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami and visited Fairchild’s estate, the "Kampong," in Coral Gables, Florida. Howard continued the work he had started under Bailey on the Icacinaceae and completed his doctorate in 1942. His thesis, entitled "Studies of the Icacinaceae: A monograph of the New World species," was later published in a series of papers. The country was at war. Howard wanted to enlist in the United States Navy but was rejected because his height of six-feet-five-inches exceeded U.S. Navy limits. Instead, he entered the Army Air Corps where his combination of leadership and teaching skills and practical knowledge of tropical plants led to his assignment

Clock~nnse from top left: On a field trip m the Lesser Antilles, Richard Alden Howard holds specimens of a plant so rare it defied identification. He located it on a spur of St. Vincent’s original volcano, north of the then-active crater lake. Dr. Howard, Harvard botanist Lily M Perry, and Yin Hung-chang, director of the Shanghai Plant Physiology Institute, photographed during the 1979 msit to the Arboretum of a delegation of botamsts from the People’s Repubhc of Chma. Colleagues Carroll E. Wood, fr., and Howard mth plant specimens in Professor Howard’s office m the Harvard University Herbaria Howard, at left, as a graduate student in Cuba. Director Howard takes his turn with a spade at the 1961 groundbreakmg ceremonies for the Arboretum’s Dana . At his left are George Taylor, director of the Royal Botamc , Kew; Bradford Washburn, director of Boston’s Science Museum; and Nathan Pusey, president of Harvard University. All photographs are from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum 4

with the newly established Research and Rescue Program of the Air Force. He was appointed its first director and devoted the rest of his time in service to teach- ing airmen how to survive adrift on desolate oceans, in freezing snow, scorching sands, and sweltering jungles. He wrote survival manuals (some published by the Arctic, Desert, Tropic Information Center (ADTIC). When he left the service, he was a captain, and he continued as a consultant to ADTIC for several years. The Air Force recognized his contributions by presenting him with the Legion of Merit award in 1947. Howard continued not only to write but also to collect survival manuals, and amassed a unique collection that he donated to Harvard’s Houghton Library in 1998. Following the war, Howard and his bride, Elizabeth "Betty" Solie, moved to New York, where Howard worked as a curatorial assistant at the New York . In 1948 he was called back to Harvard as an assistant professor responsible for the botanical semester of the large introductory biology course. He proved to be a popular and innovative lecturer who often provided generous supplies of edible plants to demonstrate his belief that the best way to a student’s mind was through his stomach. At the same time, he published papers on the floristics of the West Indies and New England. In 1953 the University of Connecticut appointed Howard professor of botany and department chair. His stay in Connecticut was short-lived since he was recruited back to Harvard in 1954 as director of the Arnold Arboretum and the Arnold Professor of Botany. Howard’s new challenge was to guide the Arnold Arboretum through a period of tremendous change and turmoil. Controversy surrounded Harvard’s decision to move portions of the Arboretum’s herbarium and library from Jamaica Plain to a new facility in Cambridge. Despite an atmosphere charged with tension, Howard forged ahead. He possessed the stamma, integrity, and sense of humor to carry him through a contentious decade. Critics were won over by his zealous promotion of the Arnold Arboretum and all things botanical and horticultural. He gave count- less lectures at garden clubs and cultural organizations and presented his lecture "A Botanist in Your Grocery Store" more times than he could recall. Among his were " , other favorite talks "Botany in Boston Restaurants," "Jungle Housekeeping," and "South to the Antilles." He was in such demand that he often joked about "living out of a suitcase for weeks on end," but he knew that he was rebuilding a support network and he channeled all of the honoraria back into the Arboretum’s public education programs. Howard encouraged the Arnold Arboretum staff to become active in local, national, and international botanical and horticultural organizations. He and staff members were soon involved in the Horticultural Club of Boston, the Mas-

- sachusetts Horticultural Society, the New England Botanical Club, the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the Botanical Society of America, the International Association of Botanical Gardens, and the International Society of Plant Taxonomists. Howard served as an officer for many of these organizations. He also encouraged the library 5

staff to join the newly organized Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries when it held its first meeting in Boston in 1968. During his twenty-four years as director, Howard assembled a capable team to advance the mission of the Arnold Arboretum. He was interested in every aspect of the operation and made himself available to his staff when decisions were needed. He acknowledged both personal and professional achievements and milestones of the staff and volunteers in the Arboretum Newsletter and in his annual Director’s Report. He restored the botanical and horticultural reputation of the institution, improved the grounds, and built greenhouses. While cultivating mutually beneficial relationships with the City of Boston and its Parks Depart- ment, at the same time he thwarted attempts by the city to reclaim portions of the Arboretum for other purposes. Computerization of botanical records was in its infancy, and Howard was among the first to introduce this new record- keeping system to the Arboretum. He bolstered the Arboretum’s public educa- tion program, introduced innovative uses for the Arboretum’s Case Estates in

Weston, Massachusetts, and promoted major research projects like the Generic - Flora of the Southeastern United States in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. Howard shuttled from his home at the Case Estates to Jamaica Plain and then on to Cambridge nearly every day for almost twenty-four years. He maintained two offices and supervised staff on both sides of the river. His motivation was clear, his energy boundless. He considered his success at the Arnold Arboretum to be his greatest professional achievement. Howard was not content to limit the Arnold Arboretum’s research program to his own sphere of interests. In the early 1970s he took every opportunity to rebuild relations with botanical institutions in China. By the mid-1970s he had succeeded in renewing the exchange of specimens, and in 1978 he was able to visit colleagues there as a member of the Botanical Society of America’s delegation. In 1980 the Arnold Arboretum resumed its botanical work m China by sending a new team of botanical explorers and hosting a stream of Chinese botanists in Cambridge to collaborate on the Flora of China project. Professor Howard continued to teach in Cambridge and to lead Harvard stu- dents on field trips to Cuba until the formal relationship with the Atkins Garden ended m 1961. From then on, he conducted his field studies m the Everglades and elsewhere in subtropical Florida but continued to correspond and exchange materials with his Cuban colleagues. Howard also devoted time to collecting on islands throughout the Caribbean, frequently traveling with colleagues and family members. He joked about the wisdom of choosing to explore the tropics, but the work was often dangerous. He and his team worked in remote locales, trekked over rough terrain, and scaled slick volcanic mountainsides. Howard’s extensive knowledge of tropical vegetation was put to practical use. Aluminum companies sought his help in the revegetation of strip-mining sites in Jamaica and later in Hawaii. A grant from the National Science Foundation permitted him to study the montane elfin forests at Pico del Oeste in the Luquillo 6

Mountains of eastern Puerto Rico, a project that resulted in seventeen papers. The Boston Poison Information Center relied on his advice about poisonous plants, and he was "on call" to them for many years. The work that represents the culmination of Howard’s research in the West Indies is the six-volume Flora of the Lesser Antilles 1974-1989/. In the foreword to Volume One, Howard wrote, "Since the time of the voyages of Columbus much botanical data has been assembled from the various islands of the Lesser Antilles. Yet, after almost five hundred years, a unified and comprehensive account of the specific components of the vegetation that flourishes on that chain of islands is still wanting. The launching of the publication ... is aimed to fill this gap just before the last steadfasts of our natural vegetation succumb to the recklessness of man and his civilization ... The undertaking of the preparation of a definitive flora dates back to some twenty years involving both extensive field work, com- bined with exploration, and intensive research in herbaria." The series was com- pleted in 1989 and it is still a standard reference work on Lesser Antilles flora. Professor Howard asked to be relieved of his administrative duties in 1978. He continued his teaching and research as professor of dendrology in Cambridge. His courses ranged from introductory botany to graduate level classes in advanced plant anatomy and the phylogeny of flowering plant families, and he was proud to have supervised three graduate students. In 1988, when he reached mandatory retirement age, he taught his last course at Harvard: "Plants and Human Affairs."" He was asked to substitute at the last minute but did not hesitate to accept since it was a course that he had always wanted to teach. His research during this period focused on his extensive survey of the nodal and petiolar structure of the vascular conducting system through which plants move materials between blade and stem. Howard left Cambridge briefly from July 1989 until September 1990 to serve as the vice president for science at the New York Botanical Garden. Howard was an international goodwill ambassador for the botanical and horti- cultural sciences. In 1963 he made a world tour, visiting gardens and herbaria at every stop, collecting whenever he could, and photographing plants and people to add to his already voluminous collection of Kodachrome slides. He served on boards and consulted at established or new botanical and horticultural organiza- tions like the Pacific Tropical Garden based in Kauai, Hawaii (now the National Tropical Botanical garden), the Acton (Massachusetts) Arboretum, the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, the Fairchild Botanical Garden, and the beloved Kam- pong. He was thrilled to return to Cuba and the garden at Soledad in 1999 with a delegation sponsored by Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. In a surprise finale to the conference, the Cuban delegation planted two new palm trees in his honor. _~ Over a sixty-year period Howard published thirteen books and more than three hundred papers. Their depth and breadth reflect his eclectic interests. He wrote on plant anatomy and morphology, floristics, cultivated plants, economic botany, tropical ecology, biogeography, the social and economic history of the West Indies, the lives of botanists, and botanical trivia. Even in his later years, when 7

his eyesight and general health began to fail him, he spent his good days working in the library on various projects and manuscripts. During his long career Howard received many awards. The Jamaica National History Society, the Montserrat Natural History Society, and the Montserrat National Trust acknowledged his botanical contributions to their islands. The American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, the American Herb Society, the American Horticultural Society, the Garden Club of America, the City of Boston, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the National Coun- cil of State Gardens bestowed horticultural awards upon him. He was named an honorary fellow of the Danish Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the Distinguished Citizen Award from his hometown of Warren, Ohio. He was named an honorary Doctor of Science at Framingham State University in 1977. In 1999 the National Tropical Botanical Garden awarded him the Allerton Award in recognition of his decades of service in the advancement of and the understanding of tropical plants. Howard was a member of the New England Botanical Club from 1940 until his death. He served as president in 1953 and held the record of most-often-featured speaker at the Club’s milestone meetmgs-the 700th, the 800th, and the Centen- nial. At the centennial meeting Howard was not content merely to summarize the highlights of one hundred years of the organization; he commissioned noted author Maurice Sagoff to compose a poem about the NEBC, which he read at the end of his speech. The Howards reared four children, Jean, Barbara, Bruce, and Philip, and the family shared many botanical adventures. Betty co-authored several papers with her husband and edited many more. She co-hosted open houses, exotic botanical- theme dinners for international digmtaries, impoverished students, and prospec- tive faculty and staff. She was a true partner in Howard’s life, traveling the world with him and managing their family and home when he was off on his own. They were proud of their children and eight grandchildren and m later years looked forward to annual family reunions in Florida. (Of course, Howard timed the reunions to coincide with his work on the inventory of plants at the Kampong.) Richard Alden Howard’s legacy to Harvard and to the fields of botany and hor- ticulture are as large as his life. The citation presented to him by Framingham State College in 1977 is an apt tmbute. It reads, "Scholar, interpreter of the world of plants to people of all ages, botanical explorer of the world’s remote corners, entrusted with the care of our botanical treasures, he has taught us survival in the wilderness and the beauty of civilized nature.""

-Judith A. Warnement, Librarian, Harvard University Herbaria, and Carroll E. Wood, Jr., Professor of Biology emeritus, Harvard University. Acknowledgments Special thanks are due to Bruce Howard and staff of the Arnold Arboretum and the Harvard University Herbaria for contributions and corrections. The memorial was previously published m Rhodora (2004) 106(926): 178-184. Horticulture and the Development of American Identity Philip j. Pauly

-1 ulture was not the same in nineteenth- century America as it is today. This ~statement is so obvious as to be banal, whether the subject is painting, clothing, sport, or slang. One difference, however, stands as prominent yet unexplored: the word culture itself. In the Century Dictionary and Cyclo- pedia, a massive scholarly compendium of the 1880s, the primary meanings of culture in- volved "tillage," controlled breeding, and tech- niques used in the new science of bacteriology. Only with apologies did the editors extend their definitions of the word to describe, on the one hand, the individual and collective improve- ment of the mind, and, on the other, the ethno- graphic whole.’ This essay sketches aspects of a world where culture was a verb that referred primarily to activities that are now considered parts of bio- technology. Well into the nineteenth century, Americans could speak unselfconsciously about strawberry culture, pear culture, and arboricul- ture. More tellingly, high culture meant, not sweetness and light, but manure, hand weeding, and controlled pollination. The primary sites of culture were rural pastures and suburban gar- dens, not opera houses or Polynesian villages. This is not to say that the meaning of cul- ture then was either completely different from now, or that it was more precise. Horticultur- ists in particular were aware that they stood hip deep in a linguistic redolent with metaphors that sprouted like mushrooms and with meanings that hybridized uncontrollably. Even if they did not read Virgil or Alexander Pope, they knew that was as much about culturing themselves as their shrubs, and

"Elms at Yale College," ca. 1840, engraving by William Henry Bartlett (1809-1854), from Nathamel Parker Willis’ Amencan Scenery, or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature, 1857. 9

that a man’s pears, pines, and peonies were indi- cally specific. One way to understand the par- ces of his taste. I take advantage of these many ticular is to focus on certain exemplary plants. connotations of culture but hold to the idea This essay focuses on two characteristic but that its primary meaning in mneteenth-century contrasting New England types-American America was the use of intelligence to improve elms (found objects that were used as street living things. ornaments) and the Concord grape (a construct- Some elements of culture were universal, ed variety with horticultural uses). Comparing while others were geographically and histori- the histories of these two Yankee plants gives Z O 6 p Z 5 z ~ z n z

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fresh shape to an old and brambly theme-the States was linked to both European traditions role of New England culture in forming Ameri- and to the progress of civilization. In New York, can national identity. Washington, and elsewhere, they designed pub- Political independence separated the citi- lic buildings in classical styles to proclaim zens of the new United States of America from that Americans had taste. Gentlemen such as their European . They were no longer ordi- Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, William Ham- nary members of transatlantic British imperial ilton in Pennsylvania, and Christopher Gore networks, and their ad hoc alliance with the in Massachusetts built villas that advertised French grew tortured after 1789. The possibil- classical values. Landscaping and planting were ity of a national future of drift and degenera- integral to these displays: Hamilton initiated tion loomed in Americans’ increasing tendency a broad movement when he planted the drive to disperse across the countryside to isolated leading to his Philadelphia estate, The Wood- farmsteads and barren frontier settlements; lands, with Lombardy poplars he imported from in the new nation’s vast swamps and increas- Europe. The pioneering Prince family nursery ingly virulent fevers (yellow fever struck New on Long Island soon marketed these columnar York and Philadelphia heavily in the 1790s) ; in exotics widely; by the 1810s symmetrical rows many Americans’ unrefined diets of corn and of poplars marked dozens of cities, displaying, potatoes; and in the surplus of cheap and crude more visibly than any pillared stone building, whiskey, punch, and cider, and shortage of good the affiliation between the United States and wine to be drunk in moderation. both the Roman and Florentine republics. Within this context, American leaders sought Fruits were surprisingly significant elements to reaffirm that the development of the United within this complex of anxieties and desires. 111

:s J zH O North American "fruits of nature"-huckleber- m x ries, cranberries, crabapples, and strawberries- O were or o either small, puckery, only fleetingly z x little stimulus to productive; they provided w x sophisticated tastes. The introduction of Old H c World "fruits of culture" had been an integral w > part of early colonization. Apples were par- _ u ticularly successful immigrants, but the vast majority of trees were undistinguished cider- producing varieties. In the late 1700s British, French, and Dutch fruit growers were making major improvements in pears, peaches, plums, grapes, and strawberries through a combination of selection, hybridization, and grafting. The few Americans who traveled to Europe could experience these products of modern high cul- ture, but such people were too preoccupied to raise American horticulture to the European level. In the 1820s, gentlemen and nurserymen in New York, Pennsylvania, and (most conse- quentially) Massachusetts organized to collect and distribute the fruits of European culture as well as to identify and improve American plants. They imported scions, selected vigor- ous varieties, compared fruits, and encouraged emulation. The American elm (Ulmus americana) became iconic within this cultural landscape. In the early nineteenth century this previously unremarked swamp dweller became a special tree in New England, transforming village and city streets into cool gothic archways. Because The tt u~r~i ~ t r Im, Ulmus amcncana, photographed the elm could survive in as diverse places in 1893 showing the trunk cavity after dressing and as Maine, Texas, Virginia, and Oregon, its an apphcation of coal-tar. appearance, identified with the New England village, could be replicated throughout the sible to cutters, and because isolated specimens nation. Elm culture thus became part of the were innocuous-casting only light shadows construction, both real and ideal, of a common that did not hamper surrounding -they American experience.z were almost the only trees not systematically Puritans imported the English elm (Ulmus lumbered in the New England lowlands in the procera, a continental species probably brought 1600s. By default elms became a prominent and to Britain by the Celts or Romans) to Massachu- therefore characteristic element of rural nature setts as part of their colonization toolkit. These in the Connecticut River Valley and in other familiar trees shaded yards and produced a split- settled parts of New England. resistant timber that was used for specialized In towns and villages, particularly as sur- purposes such as wagon hubs. Scattered speci- roundmg forests disappeared in the 1700s, indi- mens of the related North American species vidual trees became community pets. Certain grew in wet areas. Because these trees seemed magnificent specimens of great size and pre- inferior to English elms in growing less straight, sumably great age (such as the Great Elm on because they did not occur in large stands acces- Boston Common or the elms named for Pitts- 12

An allee of elms m Sandwich, Massachusetts, photographed by E. H. Wilson m September 1929. 13

field, Sheffield, or Weathersfield) were revered landscape theorist Andrew Jackson Downing, as living relics of presettlement times. During the vase-shaped American elm, with its pen- the Revolution, particular trees also became dulous branches and dappled shade, expressed semi-pagan symbols of liberty (and were some- the truth that the Gothic was the aesthetic times cut down by royal troops for that rea- appropriate for modern America. And as Yan- son). Finally, trees could become markers for kees began to worry about their region’s decline remembered or imagined historic events: Cam- relative to the Midwest, rows of elms expressed bridge residents revered the elm under which their towns’ supposed organic traditions, dis- George Washington supposedly accepted his tinctive cultural maturity, and appeal as sum- commission as head of the revolutionary army, mer residences for prosperous Manhattanites and other towns preserved elms associated with and Southerners. Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette. (Farther Elms thus shifted from being trees that grew west, in my hometown of Cincinnati, we had to in New England to the trees that, to a substan- be satisfied with the General "Mad Anthony" tial degree, defined New England. After mid- Wayne Elm.) Not all these special trees were century, village improvement societies, aided elms: Marylanders celebrated the large and by nurseries, initiated elm-planting programs old Wye Oak, and Hartford claimed the Char- that soon made the region’s villages look as ter Oak, associated from the late 1600s with if they had been cloned. Elm the preservation of Connecticut autonomy.3 spread, along with copies of Downing’s books, Local people often went to great lengths to pre- along streets in the Midwest and beyond. In serve these specimens. With the short-lived, his journals, Henry Thoreau expressed the top-heavy elm, these struggles were predictably implications of these movements. On the one tragic. Illustrations of Cambridge Common in hand, he imagined that New England was its 1839, 1861, and 1908 show the Washington Elm elms: his idea of a village included "more of increasingly contorted and cut back, hemmed the elm than of the human being." On the in by streets; it toppled in 1923 while undergo- other, he understood that New England, like ing surgery following a rainstorm. the elm, could reproduce itself and migrate: Elms were easy to move in quantity from that "Free " principles, like elms, would swamps to roadsides; sometimes-as in Litch- spread across the continent, outcompeting the field, where thirteen sycamores planted to cel- decaying slave South. ebrate the new republic soon died-they were The importance of questions regarding a second choice. The realization that double different plants’ American identities, and the rows of American elms produced a particularly difficulty in providing answers, become evi- impressive effect emerged gradually. Only after dent if we turn from shade trees to the domes- 1820 did travel writers (including the generally ticated species that provided people with food disdainful Charles Dickens) begin to emphasize and fiber. Cultivars (named varieties of cultured that elms in quantity transformed some other- plants) were products of particular places, his- wise ordinary New England towns into distinc- tories, and values. Choice of a cultivar could be tively beautiful blends of country and city. a major practical issue: the economic survival The apotheosis of the American elm occurred of a plum grower, for example, could depend in the 1840s. Emersonian Transcendentalism on the hardiness, productivity, and taste of the elevated communion with trees to a religious stick-like slips planted years before. experience. Nationalistic garden writers argued No plants that had evolved in temperate that planting and experiencing common Ameri- North America were cultured prior to 1800. can, rather than rare Eurasian, trees and shrubs Angloamerican colonists grew either cultivars would advance American identity and promote from such New World tropical regions as Mex- democratic values. On a more practical level, ico (corn) and Brazil (tobacco), or some frac- the Lombardy poplars planted in the Federal- tion of the grains, beans, and fruit trees that ist period were becoming tatty from age and Old World farmers had developed over previ- diseases that killed the tops. For the influential ous millenia. The degree to which Eurasian 14

and African cultivars could be "naturalized," lack of experience of Anglo-American or grown successfully, in North America varied growers, or the lack of American experience greatly. The apple, originally from central Asia, with French or Italian viticulturists imported was a paradigm of effortless naturalization. for the purpose. The more ominous argument, Recent books by Michael Pollan and Sue Hub- in retrospect understandable and close to the bell both describe how this highly variable spe- truth, was that eastern North America was cies evolved rapidly into forms that flourished somehow inherently inhospitable to the high in New England and beyond.4 Pears, although culture of winemaking. closely related to apples, seldom grew well in In the early 1800s, scattered American wine the Northeast. Maintaining wheat culture was enthusiasts gave up on vinifera and sought a continual struggle. The most fraught situa- instead to culture the vines already growing tion symbolically-one element in my ongoing wild in North America. The common north- research on the history of American horticul- eastern species, Vitis labrusca, produced good ture-involved grapes. yields of large fruits but it was singularly The European wine grape, Vitis vinifera, was unpromising from the standpoint of taste. Its by far the most "cultured" plant in the world in common name, the "fox grape," referred to a the 1800s. Domesticated in the Near East four distinctive odor that was linked with varying to six thousand years ago, it had been altered degrees of specificity to anal secretions. Cultur- through selection by generations of vinegrowers ing vinifera had taken millenia; the idea that a into a plant that could only live and bear fruit grape as rank as labrusca could in a few years with constant and careful attention. Its quali- be sufficiently tamed to serve to ladies was ties were the result of tastes that changed in only imaginable among men who believed in unrecorded ways from the times of Hesiod and the heroic potential of horticulture. Pliny up to the emergence of the great Bordeaux Such men existed in Massachusetts in the chateaus in the 1700s. 1840s. With symbolism so weighty it could The English, while avid consumers of wine, split an elm, the birthplace of the great Ameri- were unable to participate in for lack can grape was Concord-the reputed birthplace of summer heat. As a consequence, the early also of American freedom, American philoso- promoters of Virginia and New England, who phy, American environmentalism, and, in some (like the Vinlanders six hundred years earlier) interpretations, American fiction. learned that grapevines grew rampantly along Ephraim Wales Bull (1806-1895), the devel- North American shorelines and riverbanks, oper of the Concord grape, was a fine craftsman anticipated that Vitus vinifera could be made from Boston with liberal religious leanings, to prosper there and that wine would soon be good social connections, and a longstanding flowing from America to England. interest in gardening. At the age of thirty he Colonists, however, failed repeatedly in moved to a hobby farm just east of Concord their efforts to establish viticulture. Thomas where his acquaintances included Thoreau, the Pinney explains that imported vinifera vines vegetarian Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott would readily take and grow vigorously (and his teenaged daughter Louisa Mae), agri- but would fruit for only a few years before cultural editor Simon Brown, and Nathaniel fading away.5 The reason for these failures, not Hawthorne. Bull was an avid reader of nursery understood until the late nineteenth century, catalogs and annually purchased a diverse lot of was that American grape species supported material from the Prince nurseries, the leading bacteria (black rot), fungi (downy and powdery supplier of new and exotic plants. mildews), and root aphids (PhylloxeraJ that The Concord, however, began mythically, reliably destroyed the evolutionarily defense- with a seed dropped in a corner of Bull’s garden less vinifera vines. Prior to the 1870s, local and around 1840 by a passing bird or local boys. Fol- English commentators debated whether the lowing theories articulated most prominently difficulty in growing vinifera lay in the particu- by Belgian medical scientist and pear cultur- lar chosen, problematic local climates, the ist Jean Baptist Van Mons, Bull believed that 15

Alfred W. Hosmer photographed Ephraim Wales Bull m the 1890s standmg next to the ongmal ’Concord’ grapevme m Concord, Massachusetts. culture involved a combination of gentleness, Bull advertised the Concord as a "native grape" selectivity, and patience. He moved his volun- with a decidedly Yankee character-it was teer seedling to a comfortable bed in the center early, versatile, did not wilt, and had "good of his garden, tended it carefully, and planted shoulders" (that is, the bunches were neither the seeds it produced. The crucial step was to small nor spindly). This hardy "American" fruit select the offspring most susceptible to culture. was contrasted to its "too tender Syrian broth- The quickest-sprouting seedlings were rejected ers" (a coded reference to Semitic/Jewish degen- as close in type to their wild parent; those that eracy). Bull’s reputation as a hero of American were slower to germinate, or more "feeble,"" horticulture enabled him to gain election to the were considered more likely to put their energy Massachusetts legislature under the auspices into the production of fine fruit. of the nativist American Party (the so-called One of these plants rewarded Bull’s efforts by Know-Nothings) and then appointment to the producing, at the end of the 1840s, grapes that State Board of . There he became were early, large, and, Bull claimed, tasty. He an archetypical village Yankee, noted for blunt shared the news of his new fruit with neighbors attacks on sharp businessmen who controlled such as Thoreau and, naming the vine for his the distribution of new varieties and who adopted village, arranged to market cuttings unfairly captured profits that should go to through Charles Hovey, the leading plant pro- farmers and local innovators. moter in Massachusetts. The variety gained After the Civil War, increasingly sophis- national prominence thanks to favorable press ticated tastemakers like Horace Greeley coverage by Alcott’s former commune compan- rejected the still-foxy and highly tannic Con- ion Horace Greeley, who was editor of the New cord as crude. But the variety continued to York Tribune and a weekend farmer in Chap- solidify its position as the standard American paqua, New York. grape. Provincial backyard growers appreci- The identities of Bull, his grape, his village, ated its reliability and good looks, and rapidly and his nation fused rapidly in the mid 1850s. expanding commercial producers in upstate 166

turned to readily available Concords. Makmg this leathery liquid palatable required the addition of large quanti- ties of sugar; the consequence was that a beverage sold originally in drug stores as "Dr. Welch’s" tonic for the el- derly succeeded because it appealed to the naive tastes of children. While Welch’s was not, as one ad claimed, "the national drink," it was nationally specific. Imagining an Angloameri- can family around 1900, sitting on a porch and sipping Welch’s grape juice while looking out onto an elm-shaded street in a suburban town-whether in Connecticut, Illinois, or Oregon-is a remarkably easy exercise.6

What happened to this idyllic picture? Elm culture declined dramatically in the decades after 1930. The most vis- ible reason was the introduction of an Asian fungus misleadingly named Dutch elm disease. But in contrast to the almost complete disappearance of the mature American chestnut due to another Asian fungus, elms were not completely at the mercy of their new parasite. In particular, a cultivar sold widely by New Jersey’s Princeton Nurseries prior to the 1930s happened to be particularly resistant. As a conse- quence, scattered sites-including the quadrangle at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where my office is located-are still filled with of mature American elms. Concord grapes as illustrated m Les Vignes Americaines, 1876. plantings The appeal of such groves in the New York saw the value of marketing a sin- twenty-first century derives, to a significant gle named product that could be identified by degree, from their uncommonness. More than urban consumers. a century ago, tastemaking Americans who In addition, the Concord became the chafed under elm were promot- basis for a technologically grounded, clear-head- ing alternatives. The Arnold Arboretum was ed grape culture different from any that had established in the 1870s explicitly to test existed since the pre-Sumerian development any tree that could grow in Massachusetts. of controlled fermentation. In 1869 the New These included both southern and western Jersey Methodist dentist, Thomas Welch, used North American species (such as sequoia and the new technology of pasteurization to make various magnolias) and, especially after 1890, a non-alcoholic church wine. When his son plants from China (including the dove tree and Charles decided to target a larger market, he dawn redwood). The renewed interest in exotic 177

plants may have directly impacted elms. The varieties imported from Europe by the Prince cosmopolitan horticulturist David Fairchild family, there is considerable likelihood that his re-imagined the nation’s capital in the early unusually early and sweet volunteer was also 1910s by planting flowering cherries around hybrid. The original Concord, in sum, was prob- the newly built Tidal Basin in place of a grove ably the result of at least two generations of of elms. These contorted Japanese cultivars, mixed breeding. dripping with both imperial tradition and ori- This revision of the Concord’s genealogy entalist romanticism, played a role m freeing provides a congenial avenue for reinterpreting the cultural landscape of the United States from its identity in the twentieth century. Tradition- the bland symmetries of nineteenth-century alist Jewish immigrants to New York needed New England. a ceremonial wine that would be both kosher Similar but more complex transformations and inexpensive; to produce it, they turned to occurred in American grape culture. Ephraim the grapes that were available on the Lower Bull had achieved fame and influence by iden- East Side-Concords-and, like Welch, added tifying both himself and his grape as Yankee sugar to make the product drinkable. Schapiro’s natives, as that term was understood in the Kosher Wines, forthrightly advertised their 1850s. The constraints of this identification syrupy beverage as "wine so thick you can cut became evident to Bull after the Civil War. it with a knife." The nativist Bull would likely Concord evolved from a rural center with an turn farther in his grave were he to know that overlay of authors and bohemians to a suburb his grape was identified as much with Schap- of Boston with historic weekend homes. The iro and Manischewitz as with Welch. But cul- house next to Bull’s, previously occupied by tural hybridization has been a characteristic Alcott and Hawthorne, became the part-time phenomenon in the history of North America residence of Harriet Lothrop, the wealthy writer during the last four hundred years; it would be who sentimentalized antebellum village pov- surprising if grapes were different. m The Five Little and How erty Peppers They Notes Grew. did not with the Bull, however, change Adapted from "The Interpretation of Horticulture," He his hair and beard neighborhood. grew long, Rantan 23 /2004/: 111-124; reprinted with permission. tended his tinkered with his and garden, grapes, ’ W. D. Whitney, ed., The Century Dictionary An railed at the businessmen who, he believed, Encyclopedic Lexicon of the Enghsh Language, 9 vols. had taken advantage of him. His socially (New York. The Century Co., 1889) 2: 1393. proper wife, unable to abide his eccentricities, 2 My discussion of elms is drawn largely from Thomas left him around 1870. When, at age 87, he fell J. Campanella, Repubhc of Shade New England and the American Elm Haven: Yale while trying to patch his leaky roof, he was (New University Press, 2003). put into a rest home, and the plants he had ’ For more information, see "The Charter Oak" by nurtured during the past fifty years soon died. Gayle Barndow Samuels m Arnoldia (1999-2000/ The cranky epitaph on his tombstone was, "He 59(4) : 2-9. others JJ sowed, reaped." 4Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire (New York: The Concord, like Bull, was native only in a Random House, 2001), 1-58; Sue Hubbell, Shnnkmg historically constrained sense. Bull classified the Cat (Boston: Houghton Mifflm, 2001), 121-154. it as a variety of labrusca because, like its Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in Amenca wild relatives and unlike vinifera, it was self- (Berkeley University of Cahforma Press, 1989). infertile. But as culturists understood by the For more information on the Concord grape and 1850s, species of Vitis hybridized readily. the man who developed it, see "He Sowed; Others Reaped": Ephraim Wales Bull and the Origins of Bull believed that one of the Concord parent the ’Concord’ Grape" by Edmund A. Schofield m was a Catawba, a variety believed then to be Arnoldia (1988) 48(4/: 4-15. native but in fact a Euro-American hybrid. He asserted that the seed was original bird-dropped Philip J. Pauly is a histonan of science at Rutgers Umversity, but since he and other Concord wild; probably New Brunswick, New Jersey He is completing Fruits and were enthusiastic planters of grape Plams~ Horticulture and the Meaning of Amenca. Lingonberry: Dainty Looks, Sturdy Disposition, and Tasty Berries

Lee Reich

ong popular in other parts of the the lingonberry (Vaccimum tvitis-idaea) world, is only now being recog- nized in the U.S. for its lovely appearance and good taste. Those qualities should come as no surprise since lingonberry is a member of the heath family (Ericaceae), a close relative of such beauties as rho- dodendron, pieris, and, of course, heath (Erica) and heather (Calluna) as well as to the delectable blueberry and our Thanks- giving cranberry. Vaccmium vitis-idaea is separated into two botanical varieties with natural hybrids occurring in Scandinavia. The larger of the two, V. vitis-idaea var. vitls- idaea, is a spreading subshrub that grows to about two feet high and has inch-long, pointed . The more diminutive lingonberry, V. vitis-idaea var. minus, stays under eight inches in height and has commensurately smaller leaves, one- third by one-sixth of an inch, oval, and rounded at the tips. Although fragile in appearance, leaves of both varieties are evergreen, with a green gloss similar to that of holly leaves. The larger lingon- berry, hardy to USDA zone 4, is native to the lowlands of Europe and northern Asia. Variety minus grows wild in the moun- tams of Scandinavia and extends west- A Swiss Army pocketkmfe takes the measure of a flowenng ward to Iceland, Greenland, and northern Imgonberry plant.t. portions of North America; it is hardy to zone 2. Both botanical varieties can be grown 1651 by Andre Mollet, the French to as far south as USDA zone 7 provided summers Queen Christina of Sweden. are not too hot for too long; nonetheless, they Lingonberry can be enjoyed in one way or are at their best in cooler areas. In fact, as an another year-round. Let’s start in spring, when ornamental plant in cold climates lingonberry small, urn-shaped blossoms dangle singly or in stands in well for low-growing boxwood-in clusters near the ends of the thin, semiwoody , for example, a use first suggested in stems. The urns hang upside down and are 19

white with a pink blush. They’re not going to Attempts have been made to hybridize ling- stop traffic from the street, so the plants should onberry with cranberry (Vaccinium macrocar- be grown where they can be looked at up close. pon) in order to combine the taste of the small Don’t worry if you miss the spring floral show lingonberry fruits with the large size of cran- because lingonberries blossom twice each sea- berries. Thus far, success has been achieved son. The second show, appearing in mid to late only when cranberry was the pollen parent, summer on young stems, is absent at far north- and the resulting plants showed characteristics ern latitudes. intermediate between the two parents (except The pea-sized fruits that follow the flowers that none produced underground runners). But are a show in themselves. The bright red-or, like mules, the hybrids have all been sterile and rarely, white-berries hang on the plants for a therefore bear no fruit. long time, well into winter, making a perfect THE FRUIT Christmas decoration in situ. Fruit yields are greater from the second flowering than from the Lingonberry may be a pomological upstart in first, and although cold and time will eventu- the U.S., but this is not the case elsewhere in ally darken and shrivel the berries, I find them the world. Merely utter its name to Scandina- tasty at whatever season I find them. Vitamin vians and watch for a smile on their lips and a C concentration in the fruits, at 25 milligrams dreamy look in their eyes. Each year, thousands per 100 grams, is moderately high. and thousands of tons of lingonbernes are har-

A bed of lmgonbernes m frmt. 20 .

vested from the wild throughout Scandinavia, hug the ground, where they are sheltered from destined for sauce, juice, jam, wine, and baked and close to the earth’s warmth, and often goods. And of course, a fair number of these further protected by snow cover. All the soils berries are just popped posthaste into apprecia- that lingonberry inhabits are extremely rich tive mouths. in humus, thus providing good drainage and at Lingonberry has long been a favorite not the same time holding moisture. In addition to only of Scandinavians but of northern peoples having good drainage and abundant organic throughout the world. It grows in climates matter, the soil must be very acidic, with a so rigorous that any palatable fruit is appreci- pH ideally between 4.5 and 5.5. These condi- ated, making the delicious lingonbernes all the tions-similar to those needed by blueberry, more cherished. So important was the fruit in cranberry, mountain laurel, rhododendron, and thirteenth-century Iceland that laws limited other lingonberry relatives-must be met for berry-picking on other people’s lands to what lingonberry to thrive. could be eaten on the spot. This fruit is the Adapting site conditions to suit lingonberry Preiselbeere of the Germans, the kokemomo is not at all difficult on the scale of a garden, of the Japanese, the puolukka of the Finns, the or even a small farm, as long as natural condi- msakimin of the Cree, the airelle rouge of tions are not too far off the mark. After ridding the French, the keepmingyuk of the Inuit-and an area of weeds, against which lingonberries the lingon of the Swedes. In English, the plant are poor competitors, a bucketful of acidic peat has a number of monikers, including partridge- moss mixed into each planting hole provides berry (Newfoundland), cowberry (Britain), fox- the needed humus and helps acidify the soil. berry (Nova Scotia), mountain cranberry, and Peat moss, being poor in nutrients, is especially rock cranberry. suitable for lingonberries; rich soils can burn I don’t wish to seem unpatriotic, but the their delicate roots and promote more vigorous cosmopolitan lingonberry outshines our native weeds. The soil behmd the rock wall where I cranberry in a number of respects. A lingon- planted my lingonberries and lowbush blueber- berry couples just enough sweetness with a rich, ries was nothing more than a great quantity of umque aroma so that the fruits-if picked dead old potting soil that was almost fifty percent ripe-are delicious eaten right off the plants peat moss. or mixed with morning cereal. A cranberry, in Where soil pH is not low enough-that is, contrast, is never palatable until doctored up below about 6.5-elemental sulfur should with plenty of sugar and cooked. Lingonberry be applied before or when planting. Three- also beats the cranberry as an ornamental, its quarters of a pound of sulfur per hundred square leaves retaining their lush, green color through feet in sandy soils, or two pounds per hundred winter-long after the cranberry’s leaves turn square feet in loams, will change the pH by one a muddy purple. Along the front of my home, unit. Where soils are naturally very alkaline a rock retaining wall anchors a bed of lingon- (pH higher than 8), such as in many parts of the berries whose glossy greenness is enlivened in western U.S., native soil should be excavated autumn by the red leaves of interplanted low- from the planting site and replaced with a fifty- bush blueberries, and then, in winter, by the fifty mix of peat moss and sand. If the planting red stems. site has poor drainage, mounds of soil and peat can be built up to keep the lingonberries’ shal- CULTIVATION low roots above water level. Lingonberries grow naturally on raised bogs, Lingonberries can thrive in full sun but as rocky barrens, lichen woodlands of boreal a plant of northern climes, it will appreciate taiga, dry heaths, tundra, mountaintops, and the coolness of some shade or-like the lingon- other cold, sometimes exposed -that berries on the east side of my house-a site is to say, among the harshest conditions in the shielded from hot afternoon sun. Too much world, especially for an evergreen. One reason shade, on the other hand, will produce lusty the plants tolerate such conditions is that they stem growth at the expense of yield. 21

The shmy leaves of the evergreen Imgonbernes set off the bmght fall red of Vaccmium angustifolia, and mce versa.

If you grub beneath lingonberry plants, you Lingonberry plants are partially self- will find a dense mat of fine roots growing just fertilizing, though cross-pollination results beneath the soil surface. Aboveground shoots in increased yield and berry size. Pollination originate from buds near the ends of ; occurs best at about sixty degrees Fahrenheit; they are responsible for the plant’s spread. very little takes place at temperatures below Plants that are raised from seed, in contrast to fifty degrees, which are common during the those propagated from rooted cuttings or run- early bloom period in spring. Fortunately, ners, also have taproots. when the plants bloom for the second time Lingonberry looks and feels at home in a in a season, conditions are more conducive to . It also makes an attractive, edible good pollination. groundcover if plants are placed equidistant The plants benefit from annual applications in all directions to eventually fill a bed with a of , the ideal being a two-inch layer of uniform mat of stems. Vaccinium vitis-idaea finely divided, organic material that is not too var. vitis-idaea, being more vigorous, can fill an rich in nutrients: sawdust, woodchips, chopped initial spacing of eighteen inches within three straw, or shredded leaves, for example. Such to five years; plants of V. vitis-idaea var. minus sift down through the leaves and need to be set about ten inches apart. When stems, keeping the ground cool and moist, pre- farmed, lingonberries are planted in rows four to venting frost from heaving plants in winter, and five feet apart, then-like strawberries-main- decomposing to maintain high humus levels tained as solid ribbons thirty inches wide. in the soil while at the same time providing 22

limited nutrients and buffering changes in soil maintenance applications of organic mulches acidity-all of which translates into larger ber- should eliminate the need for further watering ries and more of them. New roots, which form once plants are established. mostly in spring and autumn, will eventually Just because lingonberries thrive in lean form along covered portions of stems. Sand can soils does not mean that they never get hungry. also be used as an annual mulch, as it is for Annual additions of organic materials help sup- cranberries, but it has the drawbacks-espe- ply many nutrients, however, so nitrogen may cially in a backyard garden-of being heavy to be the only additional nutrient needed, if any. move and providing no nutrition or buffering of One indicator of nitrogen deficiency is yellow- changes in soil acidity. ing of the oldest leaves. Soybean meal, available Plants need care their first season if they are at feed stores, is an ideal source of nitrogen for to thrive, perhaps even to survive. Most of that lingonberry: it is inexpensive and doles out its care can be summed up in one word: water. nutriment slowly and in synch with growing One-half gallon per week per square foot of conditions because these are the same condi- planted area, the equivalent of an inch depth tions-heat and moisture-that stimulate soil of water, keeps plants happy whether it comes microbes to work on the soybean meal. In from the sky, a sprinkler, or drip . acidic soils, the nitrogen from soybean meal Except in drought conditions high levels of soil ends up as ammonium ion, which is the form humus from initial additions of peat moss and of nitrogen that suits lingonberry and other acid-

Heathers and Imgonbernes make good neighbors. 23

loving heath plants. As a general rule, a pound of A one-to-one mixture of sand and peat moss, soybean meal per hundred square feet per year, equal parts sand, peat, and soil, or one-hundred- spread sometime between late fall and spring, percent milled sphagnum moss are all good will fulfill the plant’s nitrogen needs. Avoid sowing media. Barely cover the seeds because overfertilization because lingonberries’ fine they need light to germinate. A period of about roots are especially susceptible to burn three months of cool, moist stratification seems and because it encourages the growth of weeds. to improve germination, although fresh seeds Soils that are not sufficiently acidic require may sprout without it. Seeds sprout within periodic adjustments to keep acidity in lingon- a few weeks, after which the seedlings grow berry’s preferred range. Every few years I spread slowly and begin fruiting, on average, within elemental sulfur over the ground. Yellowing of three years. It is probably because of that three- the youngest leaves while their veins remain year juvenile period-when all of a plant’s green is a sign of iron deficiency, the result of energy is directed to growth and none to fruit- insufficient acidity among other things. ing-that seed-propagated plants spread faster Lingonberry bears flowers and fruits on its than plants grown by other methods. youngest shoots, so will stimulate the Cuttings have several advantages over seeds: growth of young, fecund stems, as it does for they are easy to root, bear fruit a year after root- lowbush blueberries. Plants are slow to estab- ing, and replicate genetically the plant they orig- lish themselves and need no pruning for the inate from. Cuttings of succulent new shoots first five or six years. Then, while the plants are or just ripened, mature shoots (the younger dormant, mow or cut a portion of the planting the better) are the most successful. Two-inch down to within an inch of the ground (leaving lengths treated with rooting hormone and kept an unpruned portion so that you can still har- in a humid atmosphere, preferably with bottom vest that year). Current recommendations for heat, root in about two months. Rhizomes tend the frequency of this drastic pruning range from to develop slowly on rooted stem cuttings. every three or four years for the slower-growing Pieces of rhizomes two to four inches long minus-every two to three years for the more can also be used to grow new plants. The best vigorous idaea-to as long as every fifteen years times to propagate from rhizomes are spring for either variety. Being evergreens, lingonber- and fall, probably because these are peak peri- ries will not bounce back from drastic pruning ods for new root growth. with as much enthusiasm as do their deciduous If you want to create just a few new plants, relatives the lowbush blueberries. you can dig up older plants in spring or late Except for needing annual mulching, summer and divide them just like any peren- occasional pruning, and perhaps additions of nial. Take clumps having both roots and shoots fertilizer and sulfur, lingonberry is a carefree for replanting. The same technique can be used plant. Problems with insects or diseases are to move plants or parts of plants from the wild, rarely significant. success being largely a function of the soil in which they are growing; damage to the thin, PROPAGATION fragile roots can most easily be minimized when A number of techniques can be used to prop- the plants are taken from soil rich in humus. agate lingonberries, each with its advantages Micropropagation-cloning-is the creation and disadvantages. of new plants from just a few cells of a mother Sowing seed can produce many plants, but plant. When used with lingonberry, it produces the seeds do have their quirks. Fresh seeds are more plants in less time than any other tech- best, averaging about eighty-percent germina- nique, but it requires specialized equipment tion. To extract seeds in quantity, crush the and sterile conditions. fruits in water and let the mix ferment for a Small plants, whether seedlings, cuttings, few days. Then wash away the pulp and skins. or micropropagated plants, do best if grown Sound seeds sink. for a year or two in a nursery bed enriched 24

ditions. Under suboptimal condi- tions-in fertilized forest stands, for example-yields might be five to ten pounds per hundred square feet (one to two tons per acre). Skillful cultivation and the use of better cultivars can yield twenty- five pounds or more per hundred square feet (five tons per acre). A berry comb like that used for lowbush blueberries speeds the task of picking fruit, but the resultant harvest needs to be cleaned of leaves and unripe fruits. A berry-hungry Scandinavian can rake about five pounds of fruit in an hour. But there’s no need to rush the picking or eating of lingonber- ries. They keep well on or off the bush, in part because they contain benzoic acid, a natural preserva- tive. Refrigerated, they can be enjoyed for at least eight weeks, longer for the variety idaea than for minus. In nineteenth- century Sweden, lingonbernes were kept from one year to the next as "water lingon," made by simply filling a jar with berries, then pouring water over them. There seems to be no end to the uses for lingonberries. In Fin- land, for example, the berries are the traditional accompaniment to blood sausage or blood pancakes. They also find their way into meat stews, sauces, juice, and A berry-hungry author wine. They make excellent jam alone and an even better one with abundant humus. Spread mulch over the when combined with rosehips. The juice is plants in the dead of winter and, perhaps, cover- delightfully refreshing mixed with that of ings of glass or plastic to help them keep their other berries. still-fragile roots in the ground as it freezes A refreshing, albeit potent, drink can be made

and thaws. from lingonberries and vodka. One recipe calls _- for soaking a quart of berries in a quart of vodka HARVEST AND USE for two months, then pouring off the liquid into Three to six years is needed before a reason- a bottle and adding two cups of sugar to the able can be expected and even then yields berries. Let the berries and sugar sit for about vary considerably depending on growing con- a week while the sugar draws out more liquid, 25

then add it to the vodka. Let that mix age for a ’Masovia’, a 1985 selection from Poland, is month before tippling. vigorous with heavy yields. Lingonberries also find their way into the ’Red Pearl’, a 1981 selection from Holland, Arbutin, the hydroquinone glyco- dispensary. is not the most productive cultivar, but it in a tea made from the leaves is side, reputedly spreads rapidly and gives consistent yields. good for intestinal and bladder disorders, and Stems are upright, reaching sixteen inches; the fruits are said to combat bladder and kidney the dark red fruits are medium sized and have lower cholesterol and treat infections, levels, excellent flavor. rheumatic diseases. I have never used lingon- berries for curative purposes, nor have I tasted ’Sanna’, a 1988 Swedish introduction, spreads them in all their culinary incarnations. But I do moderately fast, with erect stems that grow have great affection for the bernes plucked right eight to twelve inches high. Its productivity is from the plants-at their peak of ripeness-mto excellent, perhaps the highest of any variety to my eagerly waiting mouth. date. It bears attractive crops of bright red ber- ries in both the summer and the fall. CULTIVARS OF VACCINIUM IDEAE VAR. VITIS-IDEAE ’Scarlet’, a Norwegian selection, grows twelve to inches ’Ammerland’, introduced from Germany, eighteen high. spreads at only a moderate rate and is produc- CULTIVARS OF VACCINIUM VITIS-IDEAE tive if given suitable soil; stems are upright and VAR. MIlVUS bushy, reaching twelve inches in height; berries ’Ida’, a Swedish selection introduced in 1977, are bright red and small to medium sized, ripen- stands out for its beautiful leaves and abundant ing midseason. and repeated bloom. It is a vigorous, compact ’Erntedank’, also from Germany, introduced by plant of about eight inches in height with a pre- Zillmer in 1975, has relatively pale leaves and cocious first bloom and a profuse second bloom; poor growth. It produces very heavy yields of its large fruits ripen early. small- to medium-sized berries. ’Regal’ was selected in Wisconsin in 1990 from ’Erntekrone’, yet another introduction from Ger- Finnish seeds. Plants spread moderately fast many, also introduced by Zillmer-in 1978-is with stems growing eight inches high; it is vigorous and stiffly upright with roundish, dark precocious and produces a low yield of small green leaves. It produces high yields of large, red fruits. dark red fruits. ’Splendor’ was also selected in Wisconsin ’Erntesegen’, likewise from Germany and in 1990 from Finnish seeds and is also moder- another 1978 introduction by Zillmer, won a ately fast spreading. The stems grow six to eight Gold Medal in the 1981 Show. inches high; it is precocious, with a low yield of It is a very vigorous plant with large leaves, medium-sized carmine berries. growing sixteen inches tall; productive, with introduced from Sweden in is a profuse second bloom and late-ripening berries ’Sussi’, 1985, variety with stems of only four to that are bright red and very large. low-growing eight inches high. It spreads rapidly; production ’Koralle’, introduced from Holland in 1969 by H. of the dark red, medium- to large-sized berries van der Smit, represents a seedling population of is moderate. thirty-five plants that produces some variation depending on the clone a plant was propagated Lee Reich was a fruit researcher with the U.S. from. It is Europe’s most popular lingonberry and formerly Department of Agriculture and Cornell University. He is winner of a award of merit in 1976. prestigious currently a garden writer and consultant (www.leereich. In growth and yield it is very similar to’Ammer- com). This article is adapted from his book Uncommon land’, with slightly smaller berries. Fruits for Every Garden (Timber Press, 2004). Herbarium Specimens as a Novel Tool for Climate Change Research Abraham j. Miller-Rushing, Daniel Primack, Richard B. Primack, Caroline Imbres, and Peter Del Tredici

any changes in plant and animal Boston, like other large cities, is an especially point to the effects of good place to study climate change because its Mbehavior-L v global climate change. In recent average annual temperatures have risen over years, biologists have observed birds migrat- the last hundred years by 1.5 degrees centigrade ing earlier in the spring, tropical frog popula- (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)-more than in less tions declining, and insects relocating to higher urbanized parts of the world. Only half of altitudes on mountain slopes. Yet the most Boston’s increase corresponds to the increase convincing evidence that living organisms are in the average global temperature. The other responding to global warming comes from flow- half is related to urbanization-more paved ering plants, which are especially responsive surfaces to absorb sunlight and radiate it as to warm weather in the spring. The data on heat, less plant cover to remove heat through plant flowering times is particularly compelling transpiration, and more sources of because there is so much of it. Thanks to the gas emissions, such as buildings and cars-a professional and amateur botanists who have phenomenon collectively labeled as the kept annual records for a variety of plant species "urban heat island effect." As a result, the and locations, there exists more long-term data increase in Boston’s average temperatures has on first flowering dates than on other biological already reached the magnitude expected for the phenomena. As described in a 2003 article in entire planet later in this century. Thus, Boston Arnoldia, analyses of these records show con- provides a preview of the warming that will clusively that both wild and cultivated species occur elsewhere in the world. are flowering earlier than in the past because Prior to 2002, the Arnold Arboretum did not of warmer growing conditions. Although these systematically collect phenological data-that data sets have proven valuable for understand- is, records of the dates of seasonal biological ing how certain plants in certain places have events such as flowering or fruiting, which have already been affected by global climate change, been used in previous studies of climate change. there are too few long-term data sets available However, the Arboretum does possess an alter- to predict future impacts worldwide. To build native source of phenological data extending a more geographically complete picture, scien- well over a hundred years: the Arnold Arbo- tists must seek new sources of data. Botanical retum Herbarium, a collection of 80,000 dried gardens and museums might be those sources. plant specimens, most of which were taken In the spring of 2002, we decided to mvestigate from the woody plants of the living collections whether the extensive collection of herbarium as part of the Arboretum’s standard documen- specimens at the Arnold Arboretum could be tation process. The record that accompanies used in conjunction with the Arboretum’s liv- each dried and pressed specimen includes the ing collections to determine how plants in Bos- name of the species, the identification num- ton are responding to global warming. If so, our ber of the plant, the date of collection, and- study would show that herbarium collections importantly-the phenological state of the throughout the world could be valuable tools for plant on that date, such as flowering, past flow- studying plants’ responses to climate change. ering, or in fruit. Many of the plants from which 27

the specimens were taken are still among the controlled environment found there. Indi- the 15,000 plants growing on the grounds of the vidual plants are well spaced and grown under Arboretum. Together with the 80,000 herbarium conditions considered ideal for their species, specimens, of which a large number were col- with the grounds being carefully mulched, lected while the plant was in flower, the Arbo- weeded, fertilized, and kept free of pests. This retum’s living collections provided a potential level of care probably reduces the possibility of sample size large enough to compensate for any unrepresentative flowering times that might species-specific phenological changes unrelated result elsewhere from crowding, scarcity of to temperature change. Thus, we could detect nutrients or light, or other suboptimal condi- general patterns of response common to most of tions. Finally, one would expect the relatively the species despite occasional anomalies. high temperature increase in metropolitan Bos- Studies published by other researchers have ton to have produced a greater magnitude of typically tracked the date of first flowering phenological change at the Arboretum than in within a certain population to measure a spe- rural areas, making it easier to detect changes cies’ response to climate change. This method in flowering times. is potentially sensitive to changes in population HOW WE WENT ABOUT IT size: if the population is growing over time, or the plants getting larger and producing more In 2003, using a computerized list of all plant- flowers, first flowering dates might come earlier ings currently in the living collections and of all even without a warming trend and even though specimens in the herbarium, we selected her- the average flowering time within the popula- barium specimens and corresponding plants on tion remains constant. (Increasing population the Arboretum grounds for our study sample. sizes and larger individual plants tend to cause We chose only living plants that are represented the first flower to appear earlier and the popu- in the Arboretum’s herbarium by at least one lation to flower for a longer duration.) Herbar- preserved specimen taken between 1880 and ium specimens, however, are generally taken 2002 when the plant was in peak flowering con- when the flowers are most visible and interest- dition-that is, with most of its flowers open ing to collectors-that is, when the plant is in and in good condition. full flower. As a result, a herbarium specimen Our second criterion was that the plants had reflects more accurately the date of peak flower- to have flowers that were easy to recognize, ing, a measurement that is not affected by the observe, and census; we typically chose plants size of the population or the individual plants. with large, dramatic flowers, such as cherries Another advantage of using the plants at the and magnolias, and usually avoided plants with Arboretum for climate research derives from small flowers lacking petals, such as birches

25 April 2004 30 April 2004 7 May 2004 Almost flowenng Full flowermg Past flowenng Weekly monitoring of a pear tree (Pyrus) progressing through its seasonal stages demonstrates that it has a short flowermg pemod that peaked on April 30 Monitormg once a week appears to be sufficient to determme flowenng phenology. 28

Researchers at the Arnold Arboretum standmg m front of Rhododendron vaseyi on May 11, 2004, holdmg a herbamum specimen collected from the same plant on May 19, 1938. Both Imng plant and specimen were captured m full flower This is a visual demonstration that plants are now flowermg earlier than they did in the past. and oaks. Third, we selected primarily spring- have been collected up to two or three weeks blooming species; these were likely to show from the plant’s peak flowering date. Finally, in greater response to increases in spring tempera- order to minimize possible phenological effects tures than later-blooming plants because their caused by unknown alterations to plant physi- flower buds are preformed the season before. ology, we selected plants that are representative Fourth, we selected plants known to have of wild species, whether native to the New Eng- short flowering cycles, which would permit land region or introduced, rather than cultivars us to more accurately estimate a single date of or hybrid plants. full flowering by calculating the average Using these criteria, we selected 229 liv- between the dates on which the plant was ing plants encompassing 35 different genera. observed in full flower. We could be reason- Major genera (represented by ten or more indi- ably confident that herbarium specimens viduals) were Amelanchier (shadbush), Cornus taken from plants that flower for less than three (dogwood), Corylopsis, Enkianthus, Halesia weeks-azaleas and apple trees, for example- (silverbells), Magnolia, Malus (apple), Prunus had been collected within a week of the time (cherry), Rhododendron (including azalea), of peak flowering. Specimens taken from spe- and Syringa (lilac). Because multiple herbari- cies with longer flowering times, on the other um specimens were often collected from the hand-spring-flowering witch hazel, for exam- same plant, we found 372 herbarium specimens ple, which flowers for a month or more-could taken from these 229 plants. (A complete list of 29

specimens and species is available online at the WHAT WE FOUND Arboretum’s website, http://www.arboretum. The spring of 2003 (February through May) was harvard.edu/). colder than in any previous year since 1967, We located the selected readily 229 plants with temperatures typical of the early twenti- the Arboretum’s using computer-generated map eth century. As a result, the 229 plants exam- of the collections. the living Then, during spring ined in this study flowered at about the same and summer of 2003 two observed the people time in 2003 as they had between 1900 and individually numbered plants weekly between 1920. In contrast, typical plant flowering times 13 and 14. Plants were recorded as April July between 1980 and 2002 were about eight days being in one of four stages: not flowering, earlier than in 2003, and eight days earlier than almost m full full or full flower, flower, past between 1900 and 1920, thereby showing a sig- in was as flower. (A plant full flower defined nificant trend toward earlier flowering over the at of its buds in full having least fifty percent last one hundred years (Figures 1 & 2). bloom and being suitable for herbarium speci- While the data showed wide variations in mens.) Once a plant was recorded as past full historical plant flowering times, it is clear that flower it was no longer observed because the plants have been flowering earlier in recent plants in our sample flower only once a year. years than they did in the past because of warm- These weekly observations enabled the observ- ing temperatures in Boston. Eight days may ers to determine the peak flowering date and not seem like much, but it constitutes a major duration of flowering for each plant in 2003. change. For plants that flower for three weeks, We also determined a single Julian date (day it represents more than one third of the entire numbers that run from 1 to 365 over a year) of flowering season. Changes of this magnitude full flower for each plant, although this date can significantly affect relationships between could have missed the true flowering peak by plants and the animals that pollinate their several days because of sampling only once a flowers, eat their leaves and seeds, and disperse week. For example, if a plant reached its highest their fruits. In many cases these relationships number of flowers on day 110 but was sampled rely on a synchrony between the phenology of on days 108 (when it had lots of flowers) and the plant and that of the animal-for instance, 115 (when it retained only a few flowers), then between the flowering of a plant and the activ- the day of peak flowering would be listed as day ity of a pollinator-which may be disrupted if 108 rather than the true peak flowering day of the timing of events shifts too quickly. Evidence 110. In cases where full flowering was observed from elsewhere in the world shows that some on multiple dates, the mean of the Julian dates of these relationships are already changing. for those days was used. If a plant was recorded CAVEATS AND STATISTICAL as being in peak flower on days 121 and 129, its date of full flowering would be calculated CONSIDERATIONS as day 125. Once the Julian date of full flow- Although we found a significant correlation ering in 2003 was determined for each plant, between changes in temperature and flowering we subtracted it from that of the correspond- times, the use of herbarium specimens raised ing herbarium specimen to estimate a change several questions. First, as noted earlier, we in flowering time. If a plant was observed in could not be certain that the herbarium speci- peak flower on day 120 in 2003 and flowered on mens were all collected on the exact day of peak day 110 in 1990 according to the herbarium flowering. Specimens identified as "flowering" specimen, then it flowered 10 days earlier (-10) may have been collected when the plant first in the past than it did in 2003. We then inves- started to flower or when it had just finished tigated how changes in spring flowering times flowering. In the case of short-flowering plants, correlated with the temperature differences the error would be small: if the collector took a between individual years as recorded at the sample from a plant with a one-week flowering Boston weather station. period, for example, the collection date would 30

Figure l. Boston temperatures from 1885 to 2003 as reported by the National Oceamc and Atmosphemc Admmlstration m 2004. The top senes (diamonds) represents mean annual temperatures. The bottom semes (squares) represents mean temperatures m February, March, April, and May Boston temperatures are clearly increasmg over time. The two homzontal hnes represent the long-term mean temperatures for each semes (annual = 10.3 degrees centigrade or 50.5 degrees Fahrenheit; February through May = 61 degrees centigrade or 43 degrees Fahrenheit; °F = (°C x 1.8J + 32).

Figure 2. This graph tracks changes m flowenng times of plants at the Arnold Arboretum over time: The dots mdicate the number of days plants flowered earher or later in the past than they did m 2003 calculated as the Julian date the herbamum specimen was collected subtracted from the peak Jlowenng date m 2003 Negative values indicate that a plant flowered on an earher date than it did m 2003. Note that 2003 was a relatively cool year; plants from the cool 1900 to 1920 pemod flowered about the same time that they did m 2003 In contrast, plants flowenng m the warm pemod of 1980 to 2002 flowered about 8 days earlier than they did m the cool year of 2003 The Ime is the best fit Ime for the senes. 31

be only 3.5 days away from the actual date of specimens were collected, creating gaps in the peak flowering. In the case of a plant with a period between 1940 and 1960 that could give 20-day flowering period, on the other hand, the disproportionate weight to certain years in our amount of error would be 10 days. However, analysis. We resolved this problem by dividing our statistical tests found no evidence of this the data into two subsets, one on either side of type of bias; data were no more variable over the 1940-1960 gap, and separately analyzing time for long-flowering plants than for short- each subset using the same methods that were flowering plants. used for the entire group. In each subset, we A second concern was that trends would be found the same significant trend toward earlier obscured by outlying data points resulting from flowering times, indicating that the irregularity plants that had flowered many weeks earlier or in specimen collection (i.e., the gap in collec- later in the year that they were collected for tion) did not affect the outcome. the herbarium than they did in 2003. Exam- Given these concerns about the quality of ples of outlying data points include a dogwood data from herbarium specimens, our results (Cornus mas) that flowered 27 days later in are quite striking and show clearly that plant 1965 than in 2003 and a cherry tree (Prunus flowering times are highly responsive to changes apetela) that flowered 24 days later in 1987 in average temperatures in the four months than in 2003. These apparent anomalies may before and during flowering. (For the spring- have been caused by someone collecting the flowering species we studied, we used the mean specimen at the very end or very beginning of temperature for February, March, April, and an unusually long flowering season in those May to calculate changes. See Figure 3.) In years. But again, thanks to our large sample general, flowering times advance 3.9 days per size the few outlying data points did not have a one degree centigrade increase in mean spring statistically significant effect on the results. temperature, as calculated using a statistical Finally, we were concerned about the technique known as multiple regression that uneven collection of herbarium samples: in dif- considers the flowering time of plants in warm ferent years, different numbers of herbarium years and cold years. This rate falls within the

Figure 3 This graph demonstrates changes m flowering times of plants at the Arnold Arboretum as temperatures increase, shou~ng the number of days plants flowered earher or later m the past than they did m 2003 m relation to the average temperatures m the February through May preceding flowenng. Plants flower earher m warm years, and later m cool years. Years mth many specimens or with extreme temperatures are noted. The Ime is the best fit lme for the senes. 32

range of findings of other published studies ern tip of Newfoundland, and Cape Cod in Mas- from the U.S. and Europe, which record flower- sachusetts. If information on flowering times ing times occurring from two to ten days earlier from one of these locations could be gathered for each degree centigrade of increase in tem- into one data set, an analysis could assess the perature. Since Boston’s temperatures in Febru- responses of native species to local climate ary through May have warmed approximately change and improve our capacity to predict the 1.5 degrees centigrade over the past hundred effects of future climate change on biological years, the recorded temperature increase can communities. We believe that many data sets account for nearly six (5.85) of the eight days of this sort could be assembled from around that flowering time has advanced over the past the world, covering the last one hundred to one hundred years. Factors other than the tempera- hundred fifty years. Botanical gardens are an ture increase recorded at the Boston weather especially promising source for these dispersed station must account for the other three days specimens. We hope that our own study will of increase. contribute to the ongoing discussion of global These other factors might include tempera- climate change and encourage others to take tures during other months of the year or other advantage of this novel methodology of docu- climatic variables such as rainfall and humid- menting biological response to climate change. ity. Local conditions within and around the For Further Reading on Climate Change Arboretum may also be affecting flowering M. N. 2004. Chmate shakes times. Construction of roads and buildings on Jensen, warmmg up species. BioScience 54/8/: 722-729. adjacent land, for example, may have led to a Ledneva, A., A. J. Miller-Rushing, R. B. Pnmack, and very localized mcrease in temperature that was C Imbres. Climate change as reflected not at the Boston weather station. registered in a naturalist’s diary, Middleborough, Finally, if plants were flowering over a longer Massachusetts. Wilson (Ormthological SocietyJ period as they increased in size and age and Bulletm, in press. were consistently collected for the herbarium at Miller-Rushmg, A. J., and R. B. Pnmack. 2004. Climate the beginning of their flowering periods-while change and plant conservation: plant conservation need to our baseline observations in 2003 were made strategies anticipate climate change. Plant Talk 35: 34-38. at peak flowering-there could be a false trend Parmesan, C , and G. Yohe. 2003. A globally coherent toward earlier flowering over time. Further fingerprint of climate change impacts across are in to investigations needed order determine natural systems. Nature 421: 37-42. the relative of these factors. importance Pnmack, D., C. Imbres, R. B. Pnmack, A. J. Miller- ~ Rushing, and P Del Tredici. 2004. Herbarium WE GO FROM HERE WHERE specimens demonstrate earher flowenng time We have shown that herbarium collections in response to warming m Boston. Amencan Journal of Botany 91: 1260-1264. and data collected by botanical gardens can be R. 2003. The role of historical used to measure the effects of climate change Pnmack, special plant records m monitoring the impact of climate on and we know that phenological events, change. Arnoldia 62(3): 12-155 many large collections of herbarium specimens Root, T. L., J. T. Price, K. R. Hall, S. H. Schneider, C. exist at other institutions. Even more col- Rosenzweig, and J. A. Pounds 2003. Fingerprints lections probably exist in dispersed form as of global warmmg on wild animals and plants. samples collected at different times by many Nature 421:57-60. individuals from a single location and now held Walther, G., E. Post, P. Convey, A. Menzel, C. Parmesan, T. at multiple storage sites. In the past, biolo- J. C. Beebee, J. Fromentm, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, gists have collected intensively in places with and F. Bairlein. 2002. Ecological responses to recent climate change. Nature 41G: 389-395. unusual concentrations of endemic or rare species, especially mountain peaks, islands, Abe Miller-Rushing, Dan Primack, Richard Pnmack, swamps, lake shores, and dunes; examples and Carolyn Imbres are all at Boston University. Peter include the top of Mount Washington in New Del Tredici is a senior research scientist at the Arnold Hampshire, the Florida Everglades, the north- Arboretum. Finding a Replacement for the Eastern Hemlock: Research at the Arnold Arboretum

Peter Del Tredici and Alice Kitajima he hemlock woolly adelgid tsugae, hereafter (AdelgesHWA) is an introduced insect from Asia that was first discovered feeding on eastern (or Canadian) hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) in Virginia in the 1950s.1 It did not become a seri- ous problem on the East Coast until the 1980s, when it started killing entire populations of both wild and cultivated trees in the mid-Atlantic region. HWA is now well established in the eastern portion of the range of eastern hemlock, from New Hampshire south to North Carolina,z as well as in most of the range of Carolina hemlock (T. caroliniana). While considerable research has been directed toward developing chemical and biological controls for HWA on eastern and Carolina hemlock,3 relatively little work has been done to determine the resistance of other hemlock spe- cies. In one experiment, McClure’ found that one Japanese species, T. diversifolia (northern Japa- nese hemlock), and two species from western North America, T. heterophvlla and T. mertensiana (western hemlock and mountain This specimen of Tsuga chinensis was collected by E. H Wilson m Hubei showed more resistance hemlock) Province, Chma in 1910 It Is now growmg at the Arnold Arboretum. to HWA than Carolina and east- ern hemlock when all tive species were cul- only infrequently in natural populations of T tivated outdoors in Connecticut for one year. diversifolia and T. sieboldii in Japan~ and in a Subsequent fieldwork on native hemlock popu- subspecies of T. chinensis (Chinese hemlock), lations in Asia has shown that HWA occurs in China.b These results have been attributed to 34

a combination of host resistance and the pres- second Japanese species, T. sieboldil (southern ence of natural predators. Bentz et al.’ reported Japanese hemlock), showed variable levels of that cultivated specimens of northern Japanese damage. The existing literature on HWA resis- hemlock and Chinese hemlock growing in tance of various hemlock species is summa- close proximity to infected eastern hemlock in rized in Table 1. Washington, D.C., and in Philadelphia, Penn- At the Arnold Arboretum we have been study- sylvania, showed strong resistance to HWA ing the Chinese hemlock as a possible replace- over an eight-year period of exposure, while a ment for eastern hemlock in landscape settings.

Table 1. Comparison of the environmental tolerance factors of various Tsuga species cultivated at the Arnold Arboretum.

Table 2. This hst of Tsuga chinensis accessions received by Arnold Arboretum and ongmatmg m Chma between 1901 and 2002 documents the Arboretum’s persistence m mtroducmg specimens from diverse parts of T. chmensis’s native range. See text for details. 35

Our ten-year research project has focused on three primary goals: reconstructing the history of the introduction of Chinese hemlock into cultivation in North America; documenting its resistance to HWA; and delineating its environ- ’Excellent = outstandmg specimen, good = healthy specimen, no evidence of disease mental tolerances. or physical damage, fair = specimen in decline, evidence of disease or physical damage, poor = spectmen m poor condtuon, more dead branches than Itvtng CHINESE HEMLOCK IN CULTIVATION IN Table 3. Changes m the condition ratmgs of the 1,905 eastern NORTH AMERICA hemlocks (i.e., those mth dbh’s greater than 2 mches (5 cm~J on Hemlock Hill at the Arnold Arboretum between Chinese hemlock is widely distributed at eleva- growmg 1998 and 2002 Plant condition was rated both the tions between 3,282 and 11,487 feet (1,000 and years by same staff members. 3,500 m) in mountainous regions of eastern, central, and southwestern China.8 E. H. Wilson collected and distributed seeds from wild popu- is credited with introducing the species into lations growing at altitudes between 3,282 and cultivation in North America with seed he 8,697 feet (1,000 and 2,650 m) m the provinces collected in Xing Shan, Hubei Province (col- of Sichuan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Fu~ian, Zhejiang, lection #952), in October 1901, while working and Yunnan (Table 2).). for the Veitch Nursery Company of Chelsea, England.9 Despite this early introduction, Chi- THE ARBORETUM’S RESEARCH PROJECT nese hemlock remains poorly represented in The north-facing slope called Hemlock Hill North American botanical gardens. One of the consists of approximately 22 acres (10 ha) cov- very few specimens of known provenance was ered with a nearly pure stand of eastern hem- collected by Wilson as a seedling in Fang Xian, lock. Bedrock is close to the surface on much Hubei Province, China, in September 1910. of the hill, and the soils that overlay it are well He sent it to the Arnold Arboretum, where it drained but poor in nutrients. When HWA was arrived in February 1911.’° As of the winter of first discovered there in April of 1997, the hem- 2004, Wilson’s tree was growing under acces- lock population numbered 1,905 individuals sion #17569 and was 49.2 feet (15 m) in height with diameters at breast height greater than with a diameter at breast height of 14.4 inches two inches (five cm). Smce then the pest has (37 cm) and a branch spread of 39.4 feet (12 m). spread rapidly. The entire population was It showed no sign of HWA infestation. labeled, mapped, and qualitatively assessed for Over the years, the Arboretum’s staff has condition and HWA damage during the win- propagated both seedlings and cuttings from ter of 1997-1998. The trees along the base of the Wilson tree and distributed them to vari- Hemlock Hill have been sprayed annually in ous botanical gardens and nurseries throughout the fall with dormant oil since 1997, which has the United States; records show at least sixteen effectively protected them from HWA, but those separate distributions involving twenty-eight in the out-of-reach interior portions have been plants between 1915 and 1945. Many of the left untreated and are now m a serious state of older Chinese hemlocks now growing in botani- decline. By the winter of 2002-2003, when the cal collections in the United States are direct entire population was recensused, 263 trees had descendants of Wilson’s Hubei seedling. been removed (all were either dead or nearly Apart from Wilson’s collections in 1901 and dead), and those remaining had lost foliage and 1911, wild-collected germplasm of Chinese were in poor health." Table 3 shows the dra- hemlock appears not to have entered North matic decline in the hemlocks’ condition that America again until 1979 and 1980, when vis- occurred between 1998 and 2002 as a result of iting delegations of Chinese botanists presented the HWA infestation. their hosts with seed from the Chinese Acad- For our study of Chinese hemlock’s resis- emy of Forestry. Since then, numerous Ameri- tance to HWA, we used seedlings that were can and European expeditions to China have raised from a seed lot purchased in February 36

’Based on samples of 12 shoots per tree

Table 4 Performance of Tsuga chinensis versus T. canadensls m the Arnold Arboretum study.

1994 and known to have been collected in six topmost shoots on each branch (consisting China in the wild (AA accession #100-94/. After of growth from both 2002 and 2003). The fol- a three-month period of cold stratification, seed lowing was then recorded for all the shoots: was sown m a warm greenhouse. In April 1999, (1) shoot length to the nearest millimeter; (2) when the five-year-old seedlings were between the number of HWA egg sacs found on the 23.4 and 42.9 inches (60 and 110 cm) tall, we undersides of the 2002 shoots; (3) the presence planted 42 of them in scattered light gaps of the or absence of new (2003) growth; and (4) the interior portions of Hemlock Hill, in groups of presence or absence of spider mite damage, three to six individuals. The canopy for all the assessed by looking for the characteristic leaf seedlings consisted of eastern hemlocks that stippling on the upper sides of the 2002 shoots. 12 were badly infected with HWA. At the same The 38 Chinese hemlock seedlings were time, we established a control group by tagging recensused on March 9, 2004, to obtain final 33 seedlings of eastern hemlock that were grow- height measurements for the 2003 growing sea- ing spontaneously on the north-facing slope of son and to learn how many had survived after Hemlock Hill, adjacent to the newly planted an unusually cold winter that saw the tempera- Chinese hemlocks. Unlike the majority (68 per- ture at the Arboretum reaching a low of -8.5 cent) of the Chinese hemlock seedlings, which degrees Fahrenheit (-22.5 degrees centigrade) were growing in light gaps with at least some on January 16. direct sunlight during the day, the majority of RESULTS OF THE STUDY eastern hemlock seedlings (94 percent) were in understory positions that received no direct Results of the study are summarized in Table 4. sunlight at all. The most dramatic finding was the total absence Four years later, on June 25 and 26, 2003, of HWA egg sacs on all of the 38 Chinese hem- we evaluated the growth and extent of HWA lock seedlings, in contrast to a mean of 45.9 egg infestation of the control group and of 38 of the sacs per 12-shoot sample for eastern hemlock. 42 Chinese hemlocks that had been planted in Another indicator of Chinese hemlock’s resis- 1999. By this time the Chinese hemlock seed- tance to HWA was found in the measurement lings had had four years of exposure to HWA of new growth: 100 percent of the terminal buds and the eastern hemlock seedlings six years. on the sampled shoots of Chinese hemlock had We measured the heights of all the seedlings in produced new growth in 2003, compared with both groups and rated their canopy positions as only 45 percent for eastern hemlock. Finally, "sun" (growing in a large canopy gap with mod- the mean shoot length for Chinese hemlock erate amounts of direct sun), "gap" (growing in was 4 inches (10.3 cm), more than twice the a small canopy gap with minimal amounts of 1.9 inches (4.9 cm) recorded for eastern hem- direct sun), or "shade" (growing in complete lock. These results clearly show that Chinese shade). To assess the level of HWA infestation, hemlock possesses a high degree of resistance we selected at random two branches on oppo- to HWA when growing in conditions that are site sides of each tree, taking for evaluation the optimal for infestation of eastern hemlock. 37

, ~~ --- Hemlock Hill as photographed m 1905 by T. E. Marr 38

One of the Tsuga chinensis seedlings (AA #100-94) growmg m a canopy gap on Hemlock Hill at the Arnold Arboretum, photographed in summer 2003. 39

The remeasurement of the 38 Chinese hem- 6 M. E. Montgomery, D. Yao, and H. Wang. 2000. Chmese Coccinellidae for control of the locks on March 9, 2004, showed them to be 177 biological hemlock of native taller than had been the woolly adelgid: Description , percent they previous pp 97-02. In K. A. McManus et al. 1999. summer when their shoot tips were drooping, with an average height of 77.1 inches (197.8 cm) ’ S. E. Bentz, L. G. H. Riedel, M. R. Pooler, and A. M. within a range of 57.3 to 96.9 inches (147.1 to Townsend. 2002. Hybndization and self-compatibillty 248.5 cm). The seedlings had averaged between m controlled pollinations of eastern North American and Asian hemlock (Tsuga) species. Journal of 31.2 and 35.1 inches and 90 in (80 cm) height Arbonculture 28~4/: 200-205. when they were planted out in April 1999; their average growth over four growing seasons was Z.-Y. Wu and P. H. Raven, eds. 1999. Flora of Chma, therefore more than a meter. This is a remark- Vol. 4. Science Press, Beyng, Chma, and Missouri able figure, considering the stressful conditions Botamcal Garden Press, St. Louis, MO. on Hemlock Hill and the minimal aftercare the 9 C. S. Sargent, ed. 1913-1917. Plantae Wilsonianae plants received. It should also be noted that An Enumeration of the Woody Plants Collected m the plants showed very little winter damage at Western Chma for the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard the Years and 1910 the time of the March resurvey, despite the low University During 1907, 1908, by E H. Wilson recorded in 2004. Cambndge University Press, Cambndge, temperatures January MA; A. Rehder. 1940. Manual of Cultivated Trees These results show that Chinese hemlock is and Shrubs, 2nd ed. Macmillan, New York, NY; K. S. fully hardy in USDA Zone 6 and is a suitable Clausen and S. Y. Hu. 1980. Mappmg the collectmg replacement for eastern hemlock in landscape localities of E. H. Wilson m Chma. Arnoldia 40~3/: situations thanks to its 139-145, R. A. Howard. 1980. E. H. Wilson as a relatively rapid growth botamst Arnoldia 102-138. (part I). 40/3/: ~ rate, its tolerance of shade, and its resistance to HWA. ’° Sargent 1913-1917, 3:446; Howard 1980

Endnotes " P. Del Tredici, T. Akin, J. Coop, J. DelRosso, R. Ervm, S. Kelley, A. Kitayma, J. Papargirls, and K. Port. 2003. Hemlock Hill Plant. Arnold ’ R. J. Gouger. 1971. Control of Adelges tsugae on Proposed Management Arboretum Collections internal hemlock m Pennsylvania. Sci Tree Topics 3 1-9. Living Department, report. Jamaica Plain, MA. *. 2 M. S. McClure. 1990. Role of wind, birds, deer, and ’z M. E. 2003. Research scientist, humans m the dispersal of hemlock woolly adelgid Montgomery. (Homoptera: Adelgidae). Environ Entomol 20: 258- USDA Forest Service, Camden, CT. Personal 264, D. A. Ormg, D. R. Foster, and D. L. Mausel. 2002. communication. Landscape patterns of hemlock decline m New England due to the mtroduced hemlock woolly adelgid. Journal Acknowledgments of Biogeography 29:1475-1488. The authors would hke to thank Arnold Arboretum staff 3 McClure. 1995. Managing hemlock woolly adelgid in members Tom Akm, Julie Coop, John DelRosso, Bob Ermn, ornamental landscapes. Bulletm of the Connecticut Susan Kelley, Jim Papargms, and Kyle Port, whose work Agnculture Experiment Station # 925. New Haven, on the Hemlock Hill project made this study possible; CT; McClure, C. A. Cheah, and T. C. Tigner. 2000. Is Mike Montgomery of the USDA Forest Service, Northeast Pseudoscymnus tsugae the solution to the hemlock Region, for providing details on protocols for countmg woolly adelgid problem? An early perspective, pp HWA; and Nathan Havill for his helpful comments on a 89-96. In K. A. McManus, K. S. Shields, and D. R. draft of the manuscript. Souto, eds. Proceedmgs. Symposmm on Sustamable Management of Hemlock Ecosystems in Eastern North America, 22-24 June 1999, Durham, NH. GTR- Peter Del Tredici is a senior research scientist at the NE-267. USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Arnold Arboretum. Ahce Kityama now coordinates plant Station, Newtown Square, PA. records at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintndge, Cahforma. This article is adapted from "Introduction ’ McClure. 1992. Hemlock woolly adelgid. American and Cultivation of Chinese Hemlock (Tsuga chinensis) Nurseryman 175/6/: 82-89. and Its Resistance to Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae)," published in Journal of Arbonculture (2004) 5 McClure et al. 2000. 30~5/: 282-287. 40

Arnold Arboretum Weather Station Data - 2003

Average Maximum Temperature 60° Average Minimum Temperature 40° Average Temperature 50° Total Precipitation 52.59 inches Total Snowfall 80.2 inches

Warmest Temperature 99° on June 27 and 28 Coldest Temperature -6° on February 14 Date of Last Spring Frost 32° on May 18

Date of First Fall Frost 29° on October 20

Growing Season 163 days .

Note: Accordmg to state climatologist R. Lautzenheiser, 2003 was quite sunny although colder than normal with above-normal levels of precipitation. The temperature averaged 50.2 degrees Fahrenheit for the year, 1.4 degrees below normal. This was 2.7 degrees colder then 2002 and the coldest year since 1992. The total precipita- tion of 52.59 mches was 9.76 inches above normal, which is 42.53 mches a year. Our snowfall total of 80.2 mches was 38.2 inches more than the past average of 42 mches. The snowiest month was February with a record-breaking storm that came on the 17th and 18th and dropped 27.6 mches. The coldest month was January when the state recorded 308 hours of continuous temperatures below freezing. Nonetheless, the growing season at the Arnold Arboretum was a very good one. Cooler summer temperatures and consistent levels of precipitation allowed the plants to put on above-average amounts of new growth.