Fall 2005 Page 1 Botanic Garden News The Botanic Garden Volume 8, No. 2 of Smith College Fall 2005 Pots, Pots, and More Pots Madelaine Zadik W alk into the Church Exhibition Gallery at the Lyman Plant House through December 15 and you will be greeted by over one hundred different flower pots, in all shapes and sizes, some weighing almost 200 pounds! No, we have not turned the Gallery into a shopping emporium. These pots are part of A Place to Take Root: A History of Flowerpots and Garden Containers in North America, the first exhibit devoted to the evolution of the common flower pot. (Continued on page 4) Page 2 Botanic Garden News Fall 2005 Leaving for Vegas W e were panic stricken earlier this year when Tracy Omar, our Collections Manager, Botanic Garden News is published twice a year announced that he had accepted a by the Friends of the Botanic Garden new position as Registrar for of Smith College. the Las Vegas Springs Reserve in Nevada. The Botanic Garden of Smith College Tracy came to us in August of Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 413-585-2740 2002 with extensive experience in www.smith.edu/garden the field of collections management. His previous positions included Curator at J.R. O’Neil Botanic Garden in Director Michael Marcotrigiano Manager of Education and Madelaine Zadik the British Virgin Islands, Curator of Living Outreach Collections at the Desert Botanical Garden in Manager of Living Elaine Chittenden Phoenix, and Curatorial Assistant and Collections Plant Registrar at the Washington Park Conservatory Manager Rob Nicholson Arboretum in Seattle. With such a Administrative Assistant Sheri Lyn Peabody geographic spread, Tracy’s Greenhouse Technicians Nathan Saxe knowledge of plant material was Steve Sojkowski broad, a particularly helpful trait Drawing by Jie Zheng ’05 Chief Arborist John Berryhill since the Lyman Conservatory Chief Gardener Tracey A. P. Culver houses many tropical, subtropical, and desert species. His Asst. Curator & Gardener Jeff Rankin Gardener Manuel Santos accomplishments at the Botanic Garden included completing computer mapping of about 80 percent of the trees on campus, using GPS for tree Friends of the Botanic Garden of locations, working with Physical Plant to coordinate our maps with those Smith College Advisory Committee of underground utilities, revamping our labeling procedures, managing our Index Seminum (international seed exchange program), and most Lisa Morrison Baird ’76, Co-Chair Clara Couric Batchelor ’72 importantly computerizing much of our old paper records, giving us better Molly Shaw Beard ’54 access to all the data supporting our collection. He trained many students Susan Komroff Cohen ’62 and volunteers, and gave us sound advice on many occasions. Paula V. Cortes ’70 We know that Tracy will be successful in his new position. It is typical Donna S. De Coursey ’72 of Tracy to come into an organization and get their collections systems Paula Deitz ’59 organized. He did this for Smith College and he will do it in his new role Nancy Watkins Denig ’68 where he will be responsible for inventory, records management, and Elizabeth Scott Eustis ’75 cataloging for biological, botanical, and archeological collections Julie Sullivan Jones ’77 associated with the Reserve. Missy Marshall, ’72 Lynden Breed Miller ’60 On behalf of the Botanic Emily Mobraw ’87 Garden staff we thank Tracy for Pamela Sheeley Niner ’63 his outstanding contributions and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander ’44 professionalism during his three- Sally Roth ’64 year stay at Smith College. Barbara Palmer Stern ’72 Following an international Shavaun Towers ’71 search that yielded over 80 Ellen Wells ’91 applicants, we are pleased to Marcia Zweig ’75, Co-Chair announce that we have hired Elaine Ex Officio: Carol T. Christ, President, Smith College Chittenden as our new Manager of Living Collections. We are thrilled Botanic Garden News to have someone with so much Editor and Designer Madelaine Zadik experience join the Botanic Garden. Editorial Assistant Constance Parks Elaine introduces herself in the article Botanic Garden Logo designed by on page 3. Margaret P. Holden, copyright 1999 Michael Marcotrigiano All photos in this issue may be viewed in full color Z on the newsetter page of our website: http://www.smith.edu/garden/botgarnews.html Drawing by Pamela Dods ’08 Fall 2005 Botanic Garden News Page 3 Returning to My Roots Elaine Chittenden Manager of Living Collections W hen I first saw the position announcement and description for the Manager of Living Collections at the Botanic Garden of Smith College, it conservation-minded farmer Chuck took my breath away! My last full-time and most wonderful job was serving as Rogalla. It was the 1970s, prior to any Collections Manager for the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden of Michigan State bottle bill legislation, and our 4-H group University (MSU) in East Lansing for over 10 years. Beal was picking up roadside trash Garden is one of the principal centers of plant interest and recycling glass via monthly within the arboretum-like campus of MSU, packed with collections at the local A&P. diverse plant material and detailed interpretive labels. We used the money earned from Those collections focus on themes of natural plant glass recycling to fund a trip to diversity, economic botany, ecology, and plant North Carolina (my first travel conservation with an emphasis on the Great Lakes region. experience) to showcase our Like the Botanic Garden at Smith, Beal Garden participates club’s work in controlling gypsy in the international seed exchange program, commonly moth infestations in southern referred to as Index Seminum, and has a systematic section, New England. where plants are grouped by family and the families I am grateful for those early arranged according to a particular classification system. experiences and the numerous Additionally Beal Garden maintains the only public people and places that furthered endangered and threatened species plant collection of my interest in plants and carried Michigan, as well as 50 beds containing economically me to this point. Some of them important plants ranging from oil plants, injurious plants include my hometown’s high (e.g., poison ivy and ragweed), perfume and fiber plants, to school vocational agriculture weeds, dye plants, Native American food plants, vegetables and their progenitors, program, working on shade tobacco, and medicinal plants. Surrounding the main collections are the ecological slopes working as a florist, being the gardener representing Michigan, European, and western U.S. floras, the riparian area of the counselor at Camp Treetops in Lake Red Cedar River, one of three athletics buildings, and MSU’s main library. Visit Placid, studying floriculture at Ratcliffe the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden online at www.cpa.msu.edu/beal. Hicks School of Agriculture at UConn, Some of my accomplishments at Beal include establishing and maintaining the working in small private gardens for the volunteer program, verifying the identity of the plants in the collections and likes of rhododendron and orchid breeder writing interpretive labels for over 1000 species within various collections, Dr. Gustav Mehlquist and landscape performing inventories and maintaining all BGBase files (computerized database) architect Maud Sargent, being a student of associated with Beal Garden collections, rehabilitating the ecological slopes and the Harvard Summer School with P. B. Michigan wetland plants collection, collecting seed and refining procedures for Tomlinson and Peter Stevens at Fairchild production of the Index Seminum, and providing local and international outreach. Tropical Garden in Coral Gables, Florida, Due to an economic downturn in Michigan and subsequent budget cuts, the and interning at the Marie Selby Botanical position was eliminated in the fall of 2003. Since the spring of 2004 I have been Gardens in Sarasota, Florida. freelancing as either one-woman-and-a-wheelbarrow or backyard botanist, hence There is one word that, for me, my reaction to learning that Smith College needed a collections manager. summarizes all of the above and that is Prior to working at MSU I worked for The Nature Conservancy as a field sankofa, a Ghanian word illustrated by a botanist and protection specialist, performing rare plant surveys and inventories bird looking backward and meaning “one (including a 146,000 acre military reservation) and establishing a landowner must return to the past in order to move contact program for private landowners with Great Lakes shoreline endemics on forward.” I am thrilled to have returned to their property. Previously, while earning a master’s degree in botany at MSU, I my roots here in New England and at worked as a biology teaching assistant and in MSU’s herbarium (ask me about the Smith College. Z value of dead plants sometime). I attribute my move to Michigan to Howard W. Pfeifer (University of Connecticut professor) who inspired me during his last year The Akan people of Ghana teaching angiosperm taxonomy. He subsequently recommended people I might and La Côte d’Ivoire make great use of symbols. The word study with, scientists who still dealt with whole plants and not just their DNA. sankofa is derived from san Howard had a personal story or joke for every plant family covered in that class. (return), ko (go), fa (look, seek, If there are any Pfeifer students reading this, I would appreciate help in putting and take). It represents a quest for knowledge, based on critical examination, together a list of “Pfeiferisms.” They are still funny and have great sentimental and intelligent and patient investigation. The value to me. symbol is based on a mythical bird that flies My heritage and growing up in rural Suffield, Connecticut, near the forward with its head turned backward, reflecting the Akan belief that the past serves as Connecticut River provides me with the pedigree of a swamp Yankee.