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Botanical Gardens in the West Indies John Parker: the Botanic Garden of the University of Cambridge Holly H

Botanical Gardens in the West Indies John Parker: the Botanic Garden of the University of Cambridge Holly H

A Publication of the

Foundation

for Landscape Studies

A Journal of Place Volume ıı | Number ı | Fall 2006

Essay: The Botanical 2 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: Introduction Fabio Gabari: The of the University of Gerda van Uffelen: Hortus Botanicus Rosie Atkins: Chelsea Nina Antonetti: British Colonial Botanical in the John Parker: The Botanic Garden of the Holly H. Shimizu: Botanic Garden Gregory Long: The Botanical Garden Mike Maunder: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Profile 13 Kim Tripp Exhibition Review 14 Justin Spring: Dutch Watercolors: The Great Age of the Leiden Botanical Garden New York Botanical Garden Book Reviews 18 Elizabeth Barlow Rogers: The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of By Anna Pavord Melanie L. Simo: Henry Shaw’s Victorian Landscapes: The Missouri Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park By Carol Grove Judith B. Tankard: Maybeck’s Landscapes By Dianne Harris Calendar 22 Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor The Botanical Garden

he term ‘globaliza- botanical gardens were species was the prima- Because of the botanical Introduction tion’ today has established to facilitate the ry focus of botanical gardens garden’s importance to soci- The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries widespread cur- propagation and cultivation in former times, the loss of ety, the principal essay in he botanical garden is generally considered a rency. We use of new kinds of food species and through this issue of Site/Lines treats institution because of the establishment it to describe the and to act as holding opera- ecological destruction is a it as a historical institution in 1534 of gardens in Pisa and specifically Tgrowth of multi-national tions for plants and seeds pressing concern in our as well as a landscape type dedicated to the study of plants. However, these and corporations, the offshore intended for shipment to own. As we come to under- that combines , art, other sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century manufacture and assembly parent institutions in stand more fully that all life and science within a global Tbotanical gardens, including those at Breslau, Heidelberg, of products and provision of . was thus depends on plant life, the context. We could not within , Leiden, Leipzig, and Montpellier, did not spring into services, and the revolution globalized. floor of the food chain, and the space allowed include existence purely as a result of the great intellectual ferment of in media communications Even as vernacular lan- that plants still provide a more of the botanical gar- . Rather, they have their in the manu- made possible by satellite guages were coming into large portion of humanity’s dens whose distinguished scripts of antiquity, most notably the De of the technology and the Internet. general use, newly discov- pharmacopoeia, the role of histories would have first-century CE Roman physician Dioscorides. This long-con- There is, however, another ered plants continued to be botanical gardens in foster- enriched the composite sulted reference work, which combines a brief discussion of a much older globalization named in , and by the ing the conservation of essay we have devoted to the plant’s physical characteristics with remarks about its remedial that has been in process ever eighteenth century the uni- native and locally cultivated subject but hope that the properties for specific diseases or injuries, was copied many since prehistoric peoples versal system of binomial throughout the eight articles that are includ- times and remained the authoritative text on most known traded seeds and crops. The Latin that is still world has become impera- ed here are sufficiently plant species well into the seventeenth century. study and classification of used internationally had tive. Botanical gardens today representative to convey the Many Dioscorides-based perpetuated the knowl- plants was well established been adopted. As a result, play an ever-increasing role story that leads to this edge and application of simples, as were called then, and in antiquity and the Middle botanists in Buenes Aires in propagating endangered conclusion. the collection and study of pharmacological herbs remained Ages. During the Renais- and in Osaka can communi- plants and fostering pro- the focus of and physicians both in Europe and sance Europeans made cate, secure in the knowledge grams to reconstitute With good green wishes, the Islamic world. In the thirteenth century Ibn al-Baytar (c. botany a modern science, that they are speaking about destroyed natural habitats. At 1179–1248), the most famous Arabic physician and botanist in and as their seafaring skills the same plant. the same time, a relatively Andalusian , wrote two important books, The Ultimate in gave them the ability to While the European dis- new type, the ethnobotanical Materia Medica and Simple Medicaments and Nutritional Items, circumnavigate the earth, a covery and collection of new garden, is coming into exis- both of which were based on his own personal observations of great transplantation tence. Its mission is to assist Elizabeth Barlow Rogers some 1,400 plants as well as knowledge derived from of species from one land to the preservation of the cul- Editor Dioscorides and the Greek physician Galen. As early as the another began. Colonial ture of traditional communi- tenth century, exotic collections were planted in Andalusian ties and the indigeneous experimental gardens. Furthermore, Christian medieval art plants they collect and grow. depicted images of gardens containing ornamental flowers that had symbolic value, the highest ranked being the and the lily, both emblematic of the Virgin Mary. Monasteries also contained gardens with collections of medicinal herbs. Until Renaissance humanism revived a comprehensive and categori- cal Aristotelian approach to , however, there was little impetus to create botanical gardens as ordered collec- On the Cover: tions of plants. “Snake with Ipomoea ochracea,” Factors besides pedagogy influenced the design of the earli- hand-colored engraving from est botanical gardens, and their layouts sometimes incorporat- Albertus Seba's Locupletissimi ed astrological, cosmological, and religious notions. As the rerum naturalium thesauri. (Amsterdam: Janssonio- Waesbergios, 1734-65) 2 botanical scholar Luisa Tongiorgi Tomasi points out, the geo- The metric arrangement of Renaissance botanical gardens accord- as seen from across the Thames, ing to astrologically resonant forms – circles, squares, triangles mid-eighteenth century painting – was intended to channel the positive energy radiating from after Canaletto (1697–1768). the planets and stars into objects on earth, thereby increasing The boathouses, center, housed the the healing power of the gardens’ simples. The cardinal direc- boats used for “herborising” tions, cosmologically significant in all cultures, also influenced expeditions to collect plants. pre-Enlightenment botanical garden plans. In addition, early botanical garden designs embodied the biblical concept of because the plethora of new paradise as an enclosed, geometrically ordered quadripartite plants being introduced space with four dividing paths symbolizing the description in into Europe included many Genesis 2:10: “A river went out of Eden to water the garden; non-medicinal species, and from thence it was parted and became into four heads.” and subsequent Seen in this light, the arrangement of plants collected from colonization required the the four corners of the earth in botanical gardens was intend- consideration of botanical ed to be a re-gathering of the paradisiacal bounty of Eden that science as a discipline in was scattered at the time of the Fall. These early botanical gar- its own right. dens also should be understood as outgrowths of the gardens of princes and other wealthy individuals whose collections The Eighteenth Century of rare plants were outdoor extensions of their wunderkammer, In order to communicate cabinets containing all manner of exotica, both natural and across vernacular language manmade. The concept of the botanical garden as a kind of barriers, medical men and ethnographic and natural history can be traced back botanists needed a universal to this period. and founder of the botanical garden at the University of Pisa, classification system that would provide a uniform designation Libraries were, as they remain today, essential elements of invented the , a collection of pressed dried plants for every plant. The Latin binomial or two-name system – one botanical gardens. The invention of the printing press in the labeled and systematically classified. This method of display, for genus, the other for species – was the great contribution of fifteenth century greatly increased the opportunity for libraries unlike temporary field observation, enabled the study of a the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) to natural to expand their collections, thereby extending the distribution plant’s form and structure over an indefinite period of time. science. As vernacular languages began to replace Latin of plant knowledge in general. However, the wood-block prints The co- of the herbarium and the botanical garden as the European lingua franca in letters and published texts, in Renaissance herbals retained the diagrammatic character of continues, with many herbaria serving as important comple- Latin still retained its status as a living language through illustrations found in earlier illuminated manuscripts, and the ments to living plant collections. For example, the New York botany. To this day each new plant, , or other biological close observation of actual plant forms, such as one sees in the Botanical Garden’s continually growing 7.2 million-specimen discovery is given a Latin binomial. drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and in the engrav- herbarium is used by plant scientists every day. While apothecaries wishing to expand their store of herbal ings of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), did not become the norm in The great voyages of exploration of this era expanded the knowledge continued to make regional trips in search of botanical illustrations until the second half of the sixteenth collections of living plant material and transformed botanical medicinal herbs, explorers fostered the development of eco- century when the second grand duke of Tuscany, Francesco I gardens from places primarily useful to apothecaries and nomic botany farther afield. British landowners in the West (1541–1587), commissioned Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1626) to make physicians to vital, active centers for the study of ornamental Indies found wealth in sugarcane, tobacco, and other cash watercolor drawings of the pineapple, fig, , and other exotic and plants. For instance, the collection and later crops through the exploitation of slave labor. In and plant specimens in his garden.* hybridization of the , a much-prized purely ornamental Guatemala Spanish conquerors forced native people to This does not mean, though, that close observation, analy- garden flower originally found in the wild in central , was work producing plant-related dyes, notably indigo and also sis, and attempts to group and classify plants did not proceed due to the efforts of (Charles de l’Escluse, cochineal, the latter derived from a parasitic insect (Dactylopius apace. In 1544 Luca Ghini (1490–1566), the great Italian botanist 1526–1609), the first prefect of the . coccus) harbored on cacti of the Opuntia family (the source, The European diet also gained new foods such as the potato incidentally, of the red dye once used for the uniforms of the and corn. The gathering and shipment of plant seeds and cut- British army). tings from the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia as well as from the East and West Indies necessitated expanded * These magnificent and rare watercolors were displayed at the and re-organized layouts of botanical gardens. In addition, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in “The Flowering of Florence: Botanical Art for the Medici,” an exhibition curated by Luisa Tongiorgi Tomasi in 2000. 3 The exchange of economic plants from colony to colony sunlight, which allowed to house and protect tropi- primary biological unit upon which all life depends. Some became common. After the Dutch discovered in at cal plants in northern latitudes. In 1836 at Chatsworth, the seat botanical gardens are actually propagating endangered plants the beginning of the eighteenth century, they established cof- of the dukes of Devonshire, head Joseph Paxton and reestablishing them in their natural habitats. fee plantations in Java, Sumatra, and Bali, their colonies in the (1803–1865) used these malleable materials to pioneer the con- The transformation of the botanical garden through suc- East Indies. From Java they shipped seeds to Amsterdam for struction of a 67-foot-high conservatory measuring 227 by 123 cessive stages can be observed in individual botanical gardens. conservatory-propagation in order to produce seeds that were feet. Called the Great Stove, it became the model for his design We are grateful to the directors, curators, and staff of seven sent to other conservatories throughout Europe. From this of the Crystal Palace for ’s Great Exhibition of 1851. In of these institutions for providing the illuminating histories source the French were able to take coffee seeds in 1715 to start 1844 (1800–1881), working with iron founder that follow. – EBR plantations on Martinique in the West Indies. The Portuguese Richard Turner, built the Palm House at . Its dimensions brought seeds from their colony in Goa to , while the are 363 feet long by 100 feet wide by 66 feet high. Such archi- Spaniards brought seeds to Brazil from Cuba. tecturally striking structures soon became the conspicuous The evolution of the Renaissance botanical garden from its origins centerpieces of many botanical gardens and parks, particularly in the princely display of exotic plants in the palace and villa gar- The Nineteenth Century in America where grand conservatories were built in Golden dens of the Medici to university-based institutions dedicated to sci- By the nineteenth century European botanical gardens, most Gate Park in San Francisco, Garfield Park in Chicago, the entific study is illustrated in the following essay by Fabio Garbari. notably the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, were sending United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., the New botanists on plant-hunting expeditions and establishing colo- York Botanical Garden in Bronx, New York, and the Missouri The Botanical Garden of the University of Pisa nial botanical gardens as outposts to hold and propagate Botanical Garden in St. Louis. n 1543, the great naturalist, herbalist, and physician Luca plants destined to be sent back to parent institutions. The popularity of the nineteenth-century botanical garden Ghini (1490–1556) was summoned by Grand Duke Cosimo I Scotland’s Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh was also active was coincident with the growth of the public parks movement, de’ Medici (1519–1574) from to Pisa and given a in funding expeditions to remote areas. Its roster of intrepid and as botanical gardens became places of recreational resort, piece of land for the purpose of teaching botany. In a letter botanical explorers includes David Douglass (1799–1834) for as well as learning institutions, their collections began to dated July 4, 1545, Ghini states that he had gathered plants whom the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) of northwestern be arranged and displayed within redesigned grounds of a pic- I“which I have planted in a garden of Pisa to be useful for the America is named, and Robert Fortune (1812–1880), whose turesque parklike nature. At the same time, parks became students.” From this we can infer that his garden of simples plant-hunting skills are immortalized in the Euonymus for- more like botanical gardens with the planting of exotic trees was the world’s first academic botanical garden. Ghini’s garden tunei. Kew sent (1817–1911), E . H. (“Chinese”) and the addition of display beds for flowers. was soon replaced by another in the eastern part of the city. Wilson (1876–1930), and many other notable botanists to far- It was entrusted to (1525–1603), the most away lands, while the Royal Horticultural Society sponsored The Twentieth- and Twenty-first Centuries brilliant of Ghini’s pupils. However, its site also proved several plant hunters, including William Forsyth (1737–1804), The role of the botanical garden as a place to study the medic- unsuitable, and Grand Duke Ferdinand I (1549–1609), who was one of whose discoveries is honored by the name of the shrub inal properties of plants persists in a world where approxi- Cosimo’s son and successor after his brother Francesco Forsythia. The Cambridge University Botanic Garden was the mately 80 per cent of the population still uses herbal remedies. de’Medici (1541–1587), ordered the garden to be moved again. beneficiary of numerous herbarium specimens that Charles Ethnobotany has become an important branch of botanical During the years 1591 to 1595, two hundred meters from Pisa’s Darwin (1809–1882) collected during his five-year voyage on studies, wedding sociology with plant science. The recently baptistery, cathedral, and famous leaning campanile, the third the HMS Beagle and later sent to its director, John Stevens established Jardín Histórico Ethnobotánico at the former con- and remaining botanical garden was created. Its construction Henslow (1796–1861), his former professor and mentor. Partly vent of Santo Domingo in Oaxaca has as its mission the study initially was entrusted to Lorenzo Mazzanga, probably a stu- because of the exciting discoveries of these explorers, botani- of the craft, culinary, and medicinal uses of wild plants by dent of Cesalpino’s, and then to the Flemish gardener Jodocus cal gardens also became horticultural showcases, thus stimu- indigenous Mexicans, the conservation of human and plant De Goethuysen (d. 1595), known as Giuseppe Casabona, who lating the growth of the nursery industry and the introduction communities, and the protection of succulents in areas where had served the Medici family in Florence. of exotic plants into private gardens during this period. they are being plundered for sale to commercial nurseries. The plan of this garden, which can be seen in a copperplate Simultaneous advances in the manufacture of iron and Today the global conservation of endangered plants and the engraving in the Catalogus Plantarum Horti Pisani published glass introduced prefabricated parts into building technology, ecological niches in which they grow has become an important in 1723 by Michelangelo Tilli (1655–1740), is a descendant of the enabling the construction of large-scale conservatories with component of the operations of many botanical gardens. Field curving sides and glass roofs admitting a maximum amount of scientists work in forests and other areas where plants and are being destroyed by clear-cutting. The worldwide destruction of native plant species and plant com- munities has propelled many botanical gardens to undertake educational programs that stress the role of plants as the

4 The Botanical Garden at the University Other parts of the garden reveal the Arcangeli studied the practical applications of plant biology. In of Pisa, copperplate engraving, 1723 extensive revisions to the original plan addition, he was a highly respected taxonomist. His 1892 undertaken in 1782 by the new direc- Compendio della Italiana outlines the modern concept of medieval . It tor Giorgio Santi (1746–1822). During subspecies. depicts eight slightly rhom- his enthusiastic stewardship the old The three-hectare (7.4-acre) garden is divided into two princi- boid beds, each of which is beds of medicinal plants were pal parts: the southern half contains the school and the northern divided into smaller geomet- reconfigured as a series of symmet- half the . In addition, 880 square meters are devoted ric shapes, which may have rical rectangles and replanted with to glasshouses and service areas. In order to facilitate mainte- had symbolic significance of new species that were classified nance and to improve botanical pedagogy, the school section an astrological or religious according to Carolus Linnaeus’s recently has been subdivided into smaller beds, each containing nature. A circular or octagonal (1707–1778) system of binomial a single herbaceous species, mainly Mediterranean ones. Stu- fountain marked the center taxonomy. In addition, outside dents and teachers from the University of Pisa in the courses of of each bed, six of which are the confines of the garden’s biology, natural sciences, environmental sciences, , still in place. Tilli’s Catalogus basic geometrical layout Santi veterinary medicine, and pharmacological studies regularly visit lists more than four thousand planted an arboretum. A fine the garden. Twelve staff members – the director, the curator, plants cultivated in the gar- ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) and and ten gardeners – ensure that it contains material for their den, fifty of which are illus- a Magnolia grandiflora, both courses and laboratory experiments. trated by the artist Cosimo planted in 1787, are still standing. In addition to fulfilling its traditional didactic and scientific Mogalli. Since the end of the Under the direction of the roles, the Botanical Garden of Pisa University now focuses on the sixteenth century, many artists noted botanist Gaetano Savi conservation of plants threatened with extinction. A humidity- have been commissioned (1769–1844) the garden gained new controlled seed bank with a temperature of twenty degrees below to illustrate the garden’s speci- glasshouses and a special conserva- zero has been provided to store seeds of critically endangered or mens, and a collection of tory for aquatic plants. Savi also vulnerable species gathered mainly from the National Park of their watercolors is preserved increased its library and herbarium the Tuscan Archipelago, the Regional Park of the Apuan Alps, the in the central library of the collections, and in 1839 he hosted a San Rossore Estate, and their surroundings. Scientists from University of Pisa. historically important first meeting of the university’s biology department study their physiology in Although intended to be Italian scientists, himself chairing the order to develop appropriate strategies for . instructive, the Botanical session on botany and plant physiology. Further, the garden hosts the presidency of RIBES, the Rete Garden of the University of (1830–1898), director Italiana Banca Ex Situ, a national network of approximately Pisa was also a place of plea- during the second half of the nine- twenty research units dealing with the conservation of Italian sure where members of the teenth century, continued to enrich flora. In addition, it is a member of ENSCONET, the European Medici family and their guests and document the garden’s collections Native Seed Conservation Network. The twin aims of both could discuss scientific, artis- while further revising its layout. organizations are to promote the quality, coordination, and inte- tic, and literary subjects and Giovanni Arcangeli (1840–1921), the res- gration of European native plant conservation practice, policy, enjoy the display of specimen olute, versatile, and prestigious naturalist and research and to assist the European Community in meeting plants. In addition to present- who succeeded Caruel, managed to acquire all its obligations to the Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biological ing exotic plant material, the the land delimited by four streets of the town, Diversity. garden boasted a cabinet of thus enlarging the garden to its present size. Thus, the world’s oldest botanical garden, while rich in his- curiosities – a gallery showcasing thou- He also constructed a neoclassical botanical torical material – much of which is displayed in its fine museum sands of specimens, such as corals, minerals, whalebones, institute in its center. As a skilled systematic containing portraits of famous early botanists, wax models a dried crocodile, a mummy, a variety of shells, and fossil botanist experienced in agricultural techniques, of more than a hundred fungi, and the studiolo, or multidrawer plants and . The facade of this forerunner of the natur- writing desk, of Grand Duke Ferdinand I (the seed bank of its al history museum was decorated in the Grotesque style. Its day) – is also a modern institution whose distinguished past is restoration in 2005 perpetuates an important element of the linked to the challenges of the future. – Fabio Gabari, Director, garden’s early years. Botanical Garden of the University of Pisa

5 Like the earlier botanical garden at Pisa, the Hortus Botanicus collection of curious objects, including representations of a Boerhaave and visited the Hortus during his stay in the Leiden has its origins as a university-based teaching garden, which, dragon and a mermaid described in three contemporary from 1735 to 1738, during which time he reputedly as Gerda van Uffelen explains, has evolved from an institution inventories. planted a specimen of the Alpine honeysuckle (Lonicera focused on the study of medicinal plants by physicians and apothe- The oldest plant still surviving from that early period is alpigena). caries to one that has become increasingly dedicated to pure botani- the Golden chain tree (Laburnum anagyroides) next to the main Following some small additions in the seventeenth century, cal science and the preservation of its own rich historical record. entrance. It was planted in 1601, at which time Clusius was the garden was substantially enlarged in 1730. It now covered preparing two of his major works for publication: Rariorum land on both sides of the Binnenvestgracht, the canal that con- Hortus Botanicus Leiden Plantarum Historia (1601) and Exoticorum Libri Decem (1605). At tinues to run through it. Its size at this point was approxi- Sixteenth Century the same time he wrote letters to the board of the Dutch East mately sixteen hundred square meters. A large brick ounded in 1590 by the curators of India Company encouraging its members to ensure that physi- designed by the French Huguenot architect Daniel Marot on a thirty-meter-square plot obtained from the cians and other travelers to faraway places collected exotic (1661-1752) was erected in 1744. This building housed both a municipality at the back of their academy, the Hortus plant material for study in the Hortus, an activity continued by large number of tub plants in winter and a collection of classi- Botanicus Leiden is the oldest botanical garden in the his successor, Pieter Pauw, a professor of botany at Leiden cal sculptures left to the university by Gerard van Papen- Netherlands. Like other early botanical gardens, its University. Between 1669 and 1676, broeck, founder of the University of Amsterdam. Foriginal purpose was to instruct medical students on the heal- Antoni Gaymans, a pharmacist ing properties of various plants. In 1592, Carolus Clusius in Leiden, accumulated a Nineteenth Century (Charles de l’Escluse, 1526–1609), a major figure in Renaissance still extant large herbari- During the heyday of the exploration of the , botanical science who recently had laid out a garden in um containing more the search for and study of useful and valuable plants led for the Emperor of , agreed to come to Leiden to than 1,450 foreign to the establishment of the Rijksherbarium, or National become its first prefect, or scientific director. He brought with plants, many of which Herbarium, in 1829 by royal decree of King Willam I. Today him a large tulip collection that eventually was planted in became part of the its Leiden branch houses about four thousand specimens. Leiden, thus forming the basis of the tulip trade in the collection of the In 1816 the garden quadrupled in size when the city bastion Netherlands. Hortus. In this way beside the Singel Canal was extended. The new part of the Clusius, then age sixty-six, had traveled widely all over the collection grew Hortus was laid out in the then popular jardin anglais style, Europe and had published extensively. He continued to main- spectacularly over the and several of the remaining trees from that period are among tain a vast network of scientific correspondents. Because decades from a thou- its most venerable specimens. These include an enormous of his advanced years and his having been seriously injured by sand species in 1594 to horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), a Caucasian wingnut a fall, the university appointed Dirck Outgaertszoon Cluyt three thousand by 1685, (Pterocarya fraxinifolia), and a -leaved beech (Fagus sylvatica (1546–1598), a pharmacist from Delft, as his assistant. Cluyt, or when , also ‘Asplenifolia’). Many of the garden’s nineteenth-century trees Clutius according to his Latin appellation, was called hortu- a professor of botany at were imported from by Franz Philipp von Siebold lanus, the keeper of the garden. Working as a team, Clusius Leiden University, was prefect (1796–1866), a German physician in the service of the Dutch and Cluyt developed a plan with carefully numbered beds Carolus Clusius (1526–1609) of the Hortus. East India Company. He collected and described a large num- accompanied by a list of the plants they intended them to con- ber of animals and plants as well as an enormous number of tain. In 1594 they presented this plan to the overseers of the Eighteenth Century Japanese objects, which are now exhibited in the Ethnology university, who were surprised to find that what Clusius and From 1709 to 1730, , a physician of world- Museum in Leiden and in the Siebold House, which is located Cluyt envisioned was a botanical garden laid out for the study wide standing, was the director of the garden. A catalogue near the Hortus. About fifteen plants in the Hortus were and enjoyment of plants rather than a simple garden published two years after his death in 1738 lists approximately personally imported by von Siebold, who lived in Leiden for focused solely on materia medica. Nevertheless, the garden was seven thousand species. In the eighteenth century several several years and even owned a nursery there. He introduced constructed according to their intentions. exotic trees were planted that still survive. These include a many well-known garden plants such as Hydrangea and tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), from planted Wisteria into Holland. In 1990 a newly designed Japanese gar- Seventeenth Century sometime between 1710 and 1720; a date plum (Diospyros lotus) den commemorating von Siebold was laid out around a In the summer of 1600 the Ambulacrum, the Hortus from Asia planted around 1740; and a Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), Zelkova serrata tree that he had planted. Botanicus’s first permanent building for the protection of del- a tree Europeans had previously thought extinct but which had In 1857 the Hortus had to give up a parcel of land in order icate plants in winter, was constructed. Here, on the south side been rediscovered in a few years earlier, planted in for the university to build an astronomical observatory. Today of the garden, both plants and students could find a place 1785. The eminent Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus met its telescopes are no longer employed for scientific purposes, sheltered from inclement weather. The Ambulacrum might be and it may prove possible for the garden to repossess the called the oldest museum in the Netherlands because of its observatory grounds and gain more space in which to increase its outdoor collections in years to come.

6 The recreated Clusius Garden, Research concerning the into botanical gardens as we know them today. Never having Hortus Botanicus Leiden early years of the garden con- been attached to a university or teaching hospital, Chelsea tinues and recently was maintains continuity with its origins. benefited by the discovery in Krakow of a set of several hun- When the Society of Apothecaries chose to rent four acres dred botanical watercolors dating from the second half of the beside the , the area known as Chelsea consisted sixteenth century. Many of the plants found in these libri pic- of green fields, market gardens, and . London was still turati were present in Clusius’s original layout of the Hortus, recovering from the Great Fire of 1666 and several years of and there is reason to believe that the watercolors were made plague. Travel was infinitely safer and quicker by boat than by in Flanders under his supervision. In addition, there are close road, and King Henry VIII, his chancellor Sir Thomas More, links between the Hortus, the National Herbarium of the and Sir John Danvers had all built fine country houses in Netherlands, and numerous in Leiden, such as the Chelsea. The location, which was a convenient distance from Naturalis, the museum of natural history. In 2007 Linnaeus’s the crowded city and had the added attractions of good, free- three hundredth birthday will be celebrated in the places he draining and a southerly aspect, also met the Society’s visited in Holland, including the Hortus in Leiden. need for a place near the river to house the gaily painted barge Twentieth Century Today the garden is a haven of rest in the middle of a uni- used for royal pageants and for their celebrated “herborising” In the last century many changes were made to the Hortus versity town and attracts students and visitors from all over expeditions to collect plants. that are still visible today. Between 1930 and 1940 the prefect, the world. It is a registered museum, where many Leiden citi- For the first ten years the Society had difficulty finding a Professor Lourens Baas Becking, and the hortulanus, Hesso zens have queued at night to witness the large nocturnal good gardener to grow simples, the herbs that the apothecaries Veendorp, collaborated on the completion of some large pro- bloom of the giant water lily (Nymphaea amazonia) or to have who were its members would have taken downriver to their jects begun earlier. They laid out a new , built a their babies photographed on one of its enormous floating guild hall at Blackfriars. However, by 1683 John Watts, the new set of tropical glasshouses to replace a number of . All schoolchildren in and around Leiden are offered a whom they appointed to oversee the garden, was glasshouses scattered throughout the garden, and undertook a visit to the Hortus during their school career. Thus, this able to establish valuable links with Paul Hermann, a profes- replication of the 1594 garden laid out by Clusius. Since 1999 remarkable 416-year-old botanical garden continues to play an sor of botany at Leiden University, and the two men were the united Hortus and the Rijksherbarium have functioned as important role in the life of both the university and the city exchanging plants and seeds, the most famous being four a separate institute of Leiden University. Its combined collec- of Leiden. – Gerda van Uffelen, Collection Manager, Hortus seedlings of the cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), which had tions have grown, and 77 percent of the now more than twelve Botanicus Leiden never before been cultivated in Britain. Offspring of the thousand specimens are used for research and teaching. Chelsea Physic Garden cedars still can be found in botanical The glasshouses contain the larger part of the collections, gardens and old estates, and the garden continues to exchange mainly tropical plants from , especially orchids, Among early botanical gardens, the Chelsea Physic Garden is seeds with other botanic gardens around the world and to , pitcher plants, and cycads. These form part of the notable for being founded not by aristocratic patronage or by a uni- publish a yearly Index Seminum. national plant collection, established in 1988, in which seven- versity but rather by an independent guild of apothecaries as a As early as 1685, the celebrated diarist John Evelyn describes teen Dutch botanical gardens participate. Contemporary means of furthering their own professional knowledge and that of a heated glasshouse, thought to be the first in Europe, along taxonomic research includes DNA-analysis, for which purpose their apprentices. Operated today as charitable trust under the with one of the plants it sheltered, a tree (Cinchona a laboratory is situated next to the Hortus. direction of curator Rosie Atkins, it is now a pleasant London oasis ledgeriana), the source of quinine, a drug promoted by the and educational institution featuring primarily plants used physician (1660–1753), an important figure in the Twenty-First Century in herbal medicines, cooking, cosmetics, fabric dying, and other garden’s history. Sloane, who studied medicine at Montpellier Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Hortus purposes of a socially and economically beneficial nature. in France and who was appointed president of both the Royal Botanicus Leiden has gained the , a temperate Society and the Royal College of Physicians, was knighted in for subtropical plants. In 1993 Gerda van Uffelen, a Chelsea Physic Garden 1716. By 1712 he had acquired enough money to buy the manor botanist who has studied fern spores and published on ferns, History of the Chelsea Physic Garden of Chelsea, and in so doing he also took over the freehold was appointed collection manager with responsibility for n 1673 the Society of Apothecaries of London founded a of the Chelsea Physic Garden. Sloane was sympathetic to the horticultural administration and, beginning in 2005, the laying Physic Garden at Chelsea so that its apprentices could learn Society’s constant struggle to pay the rent on the property, out of a new systematic garden according to the latest results to grow medicinal plants and study their uses. Similar and in 1722 he granted them a lease of £5 a year in perpetuity of plant DNA. teaching gardens were created in Padua and Florence, and on condition the garden “be for ever kept up and maintained the universities in Bologna, Leiden, Montpellier, Edinburgh, as a physick garden.” Iand Oxford soon founded others. With the exception of the Chelsea Physic Garden, these medicinal teaching gardens grew

7 This deed of covenant secured the garden’s future and them. (The Chelsea Physic Garden will celebrate the three such as the opium poppy that have been used over the cen- established its place in horticultural history. One condition of hundredth anniversary of Linnaeus’s birth in May 2007 turies in herbal medicines. In addition, there are culinary the lease required that each year the garden must deliver fifty with an exhibition focusing on and modern plants, ones for the perfumery and cosmetic industries, and pressed and mounted plant specimens to the Royal Society methods of plant identification.) others that are used in the manufacture of fabrics and dyes. until two thousand had been received. By 1795 the garden had Sloane was active in fostering economic botany – research In 1993 the garden laid out A Garden of World Medicine, a provided more than thirty-seven hundred herbarium speci- on cash-producing crops – an endeavor promoted by Miller, living exhibit displaying medicinal plants used by the world’s mens, which are now housed at the who arranged for various crops including to be sent indigenous peoples. in London. out from Chelsea to the new colony of Georgia in America. A replica of the 1733 statue of Sir Hans Sloane by Michael When Sloane died at the age of ninety-two, his collec- Miller also introduced the cultivation of madder (Rubia Rysbrack (1694–1770) stands in the center of the garden. The tion of curiosities and his vast library became the tinctorum), the roots of which are used to produce original, which was being damaged by air pollution, is now in nucleus of the . His plant speci- red dye, as an agricultural crop in Britain. In the British Museum. Next to the statue is an exhibition created men collection later was moved to the 1732 Sloane laid the foundation stone for an in 2003 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Sloane’s Natural History Museum. Botanists from orangery where Miller lived for a short death. Nearby is the oldest in Europe. Here the this institution continue to use the time with his family; sadly, this elegant rocks include pieces of the Tower of London and basalt used Chelsea Physic Garden and its team of building was pulled down in the as ballast on Sir ’s (1743–1820) ship on a voyage to expert gardeners to help them with mid-nineteenth century when the Iceland in 1772. In the northeast corner an education depart- their research. Sloane’s name lives on Chelsea Physic Garden’s fortunes ment building, opened in 1997, is used to teach children about in such local landmarks as Hans went into decline. the vital role plants play in our lives. Nearby is the Historical Crescent and Sloane Square as well In 1899 the Society of Apothe- Walk. It charts the garden’s history with plants introduced as in the fixed rent of £5 that the caries finally gave up the manage- into cultivation over the centuries by the garden’s curators and Chelsea Physic Garden still pays to ment of the garden, and it was by other notable botanists including Banks, William Hudson Sloane’s heirs every year. taken over by the City Parochial (1730–1793), William Curtis (1746–1799), and Robert Fortune On Sloane’s recommendation Foundation. Until 1983 it remained (1812–1880). By the Embankment a wider area of flowering (1691–1771), a Scottish closed to the general public, shrubs and rare peonies offers places to sit and enjoy the gar- botanist, was appointed head garden- although university and college stu- den’s tranquil atmosphere. er in 1721. Miller, who made the gar- dents continued to use it for scien- Wildlife flourishes in the garden. The frogs, toads, and den world-famous during his fifty-year tific research. When the City Parochial newts inhabiting the Fortune’s Tank help control the tenure, trained (1731–1793), Foundation then determined that it growth of the slug population. This year videocameras another Scottish botanist and the first could no longer maintain the garden, a installed in the Tank Pond and a bird box have broadcast director at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, new independent charity was established wildlife activity live on television. The Ethnomedica Project – a as well as his successor at Chelsea, William to manage and operate it. At this time it was joint initiative with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Forsyth (1737–1804). Miller’s correspondence with also decided to open the garden to the public Eden Project, the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and the the leading botanists of his day generated an Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) for the first time in its three hundred year history. Natural History Museum – supports the collection of data on exchange of plants and seeds, many cultivated for herbal remedies that have been used over the centuries in the first time in Britain. Miller also produced eight editions of Description of the Chelsea Physic Garden Britain. In June 2006 Princess Alexandra opened the Back to his famous Dictionary of , which became the standard Today the Chelsea Physic Garden occupies 3.8 acres of prime the Garden Recycling Project, which reveals the mysteries of reference work for several generations of gardeners in Britain London real estate bounded by Royal Hospital Road to the making and the recycling of green waste. Like all and America. north, Swan Walk to the east, and the Embankment to the botanical gardens in the twenty-first century, conservation, sci- Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist who is consid- south. As the Embankment is a busy thoroughfare, the garden entific research, and education play vital roles in the Chelsea ered the father of binomial Latin plant taxonomy, made is now cut off from the Thames. Otherwise, it has changed very Physic Garden’s activities. Indeed, the garden can be said to be several visits to the garden in the 1730s, and many species first little since the mid-eighteenth century. The main buildings – London’s oldest outdoor classroom. – Rosie Atkins, Curator, described by Miller retain the names Linnaeus ascribed to offices, lecture rooms, and the curator’s house – as well as most Chelsea Physic Garden of the glasshouses are at the northern end. Gravel paths divide it into quadrants, and grass paths run between beds that are planted in a manner that demonstrates the botanical relation- ships of various plants. Beds in the northeast quadrant display plants used in the pharmaceutical industry as well as plants

8 The voyages of exploration in the seventeenth century inaugurated the Royal Botanic Gardens. The explorer, navigator, and car- continued to expand in European literature, drama, and art, the era of European colonization of hitherto unknown continents tographer Captain (1728–1779) also played an and while the realms of research science and were and islands with resources ripe for exploitation. At the same time, important role in this era of discovery, conferring the name being vastly enriched by the importation of exotic species, the founding of colonies fostered opportunities for the enrichment of Botany Bay on the harbor where Banks and the Swedish native plant communities in the British West Indies were botanical gardens with numerous newly discovered exotic plants. botanist (1733–1782), who were attached to his being degraded. This was especially true on the islands of Colonial botanical gardens were thus set up as propagating stations voyage to , enthusiastically collected numerous plant Barbados and , where the clear-cutting for plan- for plants awaiting shipment to parent institutions. According to species. tations by slave labor caused rapid deforestation and resulting Nina Antonetti, the environmental degradation of colonial lands Soon colonial botanical gardens began to be created for the soil depletion. As a consequence, eighteenth- and nineteenth- through tree-cutting and agricultural abuse imposes environmental collection and propagation of plants intended for shipment century botanists there found themselves engaged in issues of restoration challenges for the British colonial botanical gardens to Kew. These played a central and sustaining role in colonial soil erosion and depletion of coupled with still in existence today in the West Indies. botanical expansion during the directorships of William famine and environmentally induced illness. Thus, while the Jackson Hooker (1785–1865) and first colonial botanical garden managers were mainly interest- British Colonial Botanical Gardens in the West Indies (1817–1911), father and son. With ties to Britain and a strong ed in shipping specimens back home, their successors began he rapacious exploitation of the New World colonies link to India, Kew-sponsored colonial botanical gardens pro- to provide reports of deforestation, soil erosion, and land mis- for plantation development and exportation of cash vided a network of scientific inquiry and economic trade. management. Evelyn’s plea in his Sylva for the reforestation of crops in the eighteenth century led scientists to rec- As British colonization proceeded, information began to , where extensive shipbuilding had depleted its timber ognize nature as both bountiful and fragile. British flow back home in the form of diaries, correspondence, resources, fell on deaf ears at home; however, his concerns colonial botanical gardens played an important role ledgers, and sketches. These provide historians today with pre- became obvious in colonial lands where the effects of aggres- Tin achieving this understanding. cise and valuable evidence of the material, economic, political, sive tree cutting on soil and climate were more obvious. As The history of British colonial botanical gardens can be cultural, and scientific world during England’s age of imperial a result, new conservation restrictions were made to benefit traced back to the beginnings of botanical science in England. expansion. Botanical illustrators were among those sailing such island settlements as Tobago, which consequently John Parkinson (1567–1650), apothecary to King James I back and forth from motherland to colony. The naturalist and escaped the environmental destruction inflicted on Barbados of England and a founding member in 1619 of the Society of artist Marianne North (1830–1890), for whom the Marianne and Jamaica. Apothecaries, and John Evelyn (1620–1706), English diarist, North Gallery at Kew is author, gardener, and early environmentalist, were among named, was one of a handful those who fostered the development of modern botanical sci- of women central to the his- ence. Parkinson, the author of Paradisi in sole paradisus tory of the colonial botanical terrestris (1629) and Theatrum botanicum (1640), was able to grad- garden. During her travels to uate from the role of herbalist to that of botanist and to exam- the West Indies as well as to ine and write comprehensively about plants imported from Brazil, Java, India, Africa, and exotic lands. Evelyn, one of the founders of the Royal Society Australia, she documented in 1660, is the author of two important treatises: Fumifugium more than nine hundred or The Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated species in more than eight (1661) and Sylva, or discourse on forest trees (1664). hundred botanical paintings. The further progress of botanical science during the Paradoxically, as the Enlightenment was characterized by a zealous search for hith- ancient ideal of paradise erto unknown plants. Several plant-hunting expeditions were sponsored by the Royal Society under the direction of the noted naturalist, botanist, and trusted scientific adviser to King George III, Joseph Banks (1743–1820), and by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew under the direction of the Scottish View of the Botanic Garden of St. botanist William Aiton (1731–1793). Banks himself went on voy- Vincent from the superintendent’s ages to Australia, the Faroes, and Orkney Island in Scotland, house. Lithograph of a drawing discovering nearly eighty species. In 1789 Aiton published by the Reverend Lansdown Guilding Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of all the plants in cultivation in in his Account of Botanic Garden in Island of St. Vincent (1825). Originally published in Kew: The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens by Ray Desmond (1995). 9 Founded in 1754, the Royal Society of Arts subsequently The story of the Botanic Garden of the University of Cambridge dif- gown, a place created according to the highest horticultural played a key role in launching measures to protect the natural fers from that of typical botanical gardens in that it was laid out by standards while also providing a beautiful, tranquil haven resources of British territories. The Society in 1765 assisted Professor as a living laboratory for studying available to everyone for recreation and self education. in the creation of the first colonial botanical garden in the the question of plant speciation: when does a variety of a particular Henslow quarrelled vehemently and passionately with the Western Hemisphere on St. Vincent in the . The plant develop into a separate species? The dividing line between ruling Senate of Cambridge University for funds to develop medically trained Scottish botanist James Anderson was its trees that are simply variations of the same species and trees that and support his new botanic garden, and this argument elo- first curator. Among the tropical species still protected there is share common characteristics but are sufficiently different as to con- quently expressed his view of the significant value of botanical the breadfuit tree (Artocarpus altilis), which was brought to the stitute a separate genealogical family branch is difficult to deter- gardens to the whole of society. However, an appreciation of island from Tahiti in 1793 as a potential food crop for slaves by mine. John Parker’s discussion of the history of the garden implies the scientific philosophy that underpinned his design and Captain William Bligh (1754–1817), whose name is associated how Henslow’s theories may have stimulated the discoveries of his planting of the Cambridge Botanical Garden has been lacking with the famous mutiny aboard the HMS Bounty. Anderson star student, . until recently. Unfortunately, as far as we know, Henslow never launched a bifurcated campaign, balancing fact-gathering mis- wrote down his theories on why he grouped trees according to sions with interest in native cultures. Despite the depredations The Botanic Garden of the University of Cambridge certain relationships to one another, nor do we have any docu- inflicted by the Arawak and Indian Carib tribes and then by n 1831, on the wheat fields to its south, the University of ments of his short-lived curator, Andrew Murray, who planned the British and French along with the volcanic eruptions Cambridge established a new botanical garden to replace its and planted much of the garden. Nevertheless, a partial of Soufrière in 1812 and 1902, the St. Vincent Botanical Garden small physic garden, founded in 1762, which lay in a smoky understanding of the intellectual framework guiding its devel- has survived and retained its reputation for forest protection location overshadowed by buildings in the heart of the city. opment recently has emerged through close scrutiny of and the conservation of rare species. The new garden’s design, planting, and care became the Henslow’s scientific career and observation of the way in The colonial botanical gardens of the West Indies always Ilifework of John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861), an accom- which the groups of trees remaining from his original have been threatened with extinction. More modest in scale plished mathematician, zoologist, and artist, as well plantings are interrelated. and reputation than the great sponsoring gardens in Britain, as an ordained priest. A professor of mineralogy Henslow’s botanical research during the 1820s they are still plagued by natural and political storms as well as from 1822 until his resignation in 1827, he also was directed toward understanding the nature by chronic underfunding. As an example of their tenuous served as the university’s professor of botany of species based on the study of plant varia- state, visitors arriving at the grounds of the Dominica Botanic from 1825 until his death. tion through examination of wild popula- Gardens at Roseau in the eastern Caribbean are confronted Henslow considered trees to be the most tions and by experimental manipulation of with a startling scene: a school bus crushed by a fallen baobab important plants in the world and was plants in cultivation. Contemporary analy- tree (Adansonia digitata) during Hurricane David in 1979 is particularly excited by the recent discover- sis of his herbarium specimens, research now part of an exhibit demonstrating how prostrate trees put ies of such conifers as the Douglas Fir papers, and letters has revealed three ele- forth new growth. (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in North America. As ments that were fundamental to the devel- The ecological destruction and the loss of in a result, the visionary young professor opment of his understanding of species: colonies during the period of imperial rule is now a global planned the new botanical garden as an the nature and extent of continuous varia- phenomenon. The environmental concerns originally raised arboretum, thereby deflecting botanical study tion that characterize species in nature; the on such islands as St. Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, Dominica, at Cambridge towards trees rather than the phenomenon of “monstrosity,” sudden Barbados, and Jamaica, have become universal. In spite of their medicinal properties of plants, its original changes of flower or form due to mutation lack of financial resources, the British colonial botanical gar- focus. Within the garden, according to Henslow’s or developmental abnormality; and the properties dens in the West Indies are participating in land restoration contemporary parklike design, trees, shrubs, and of hybrids, which he believed would reveal “the projects that are germane to the regeneration of plant species herbs were to be planted in naturalistic group- John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861) laws that govern nature.” Although many of the throughout the world. Thus, the recovery of parts of these ings, and modern glasshouses were to extend the garden’s original plant specimens have been ecologically damaged islands offers lessons and hope for the range of climates and, hence, plants available for study. Then lost over the years, sufficient numbers remain to enable us to rebuilding of native plant communities elsewhere. as now, the garden was meant to be a working collection in deduce some of the ideas behind Henslow’s initial plantings. – Nina Antonetti, Assistant Professor of Landscape Studies, which all plants would be grown and maintained primarily for Remarkably, the three themes around which Henslow Smith College scientific research and teaching purposes. focused this collection – variation, monstrosity, and hybridiza- Henslow was a passionate advocate of universal education. tion – are all represented by groups of trees still living in the He was closely associated with the development of mechanics garden. So far, nine different assemblages have been identified institutes, night schools for the education of workingmen, and within the surviving trees that illustrate his research, allowing the organization of village schools for the children of illiterate farm workers. Thus, his garden for botanical research was intended to be a public institution accessible to both town and

10 us to interpret some of the interesting visual dialogues he set Darwin (1809–1882), known around Cambridge as “the man Columbia asking that a “Botanical Garden” be incorporated up among trees. who walks with Henslow” due to his constant proximity to the into the plan for Washington, D.C. Recognizing the value of The garden’s central axis is an east-west avenue flanked professor. It was Henslow’s methods of investigation and plants to the well-being of the young nation, he suggested that by conifers. Among these is a group of four subspecies of intellectual position on speciation that Darwin took with him the proposed botanical garden be placed prominently in the the widespread European species of black pine (Pinus nigra). on his epic five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle, during which new city and pointed out several possible sites, including the Extreme variants of this species are planted opposite each he collected plant specimens as well as those of rocks, fossils, square next to the President’s House. other, presenting an oddly unbalanced juxtaposition for such a and animals. Today one can see all Darwin’s pressed plants In 1816 a group of respected citizens founded the majestic vista since, unlike traditional axial allées, the trees from this expedition on sheets bearing his name in the uni- Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences. that line it are not uniform in appearance. Thus, P. nigra ‘nigra’ versity’s herbarium collection. One of the institute’s goals was to create a center for scientific from central Europe, with an almost unbranched growth Henslow’s successors did not value, or did not comprehend, pursuits. The first objective of its constitution was “to collect, habit with densely crowded, very short needles clustered at the his innovative botanical approach, so the emphasis in the cultivate, and distribute the various vegetable productions apex and on the ends of thin downward-directed branches, is Botanic Garden of the University of Cambridge shifted from of this and other countries, whether medicinal, esculent, or for placed opposite a huge dominating specimen of P. nigra ‘salz- plantings based on plant variation to studies in and the promotion of arts and manufactures.” The Columbian mannii’ from the Pyrenees, which has massive upward-direct- genetics as these sciences developed in the late nineteenth Institute received a congressional charter on April 20, 1818, ed, trunklike branches, an open, spreading crown, and long, century. The twentieth-century expansion of Cambridge swept and after considerable lobbying by its members, on May 8, flexuous needles. Here Henslow’s fundamental scientific query over the countryside, and the Cambridge Botanic Garden is 1820, Congress approved a bill providing for the use of five is starkly revealed: Do these trees belong to one species or now surrounded by the city. However, its boundaries have acres on the Mall for a national botanical garden. The bill was two? By placing other variants nearby, the commonalities of remained inviolate, and the forty-acre garden is now a serene signed by President James Monroe and Speaker of the House the two dissimilar pines become clear. Thus, we can ascertain urban oasis where many of Henslow’s trees live on as testimo- Henry Clay, and the president, who accepted the title of Patron that Henslow was attempting to explore visually a principle ny to the scientific brilliance of Darwin’s mentor. – John of the Columbian Institute, agreed to let the institute place the that modern botanical science confirms: we are viewing varia- Parker, Director of the Botanic Garden of the University of botanical garden on property adjacent to the west side of the tion within a single species. Similar visual arguments are rep- Cambridge Capitol. Other early members of the institute included presi- resented by plantings of the Cedrus species libani, atlantica, and dents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, who served deodara, regarded by Henslow as belonging to a single species ex officio during their terms of office. Honorary members and thereby illustrating his theory of continuous variation. When the present-day United States was still a collection of included former presidents John Adams, , Elsewhere, on the eastern side of the garden’s perimeter colonies, it served as an immense field for botanical exploration. and . belt of deciduous trees, we can see Henslow’s investigation of Many New World species collected by European plant hunters were While the collection of plants and seeds continued, work on “monstrosity” within a group of three European beeches sent to botanical gardens where they were propagated and then dis- the site began by clearing and draining the soggy land fol- (Fagus sylvatica), which were arranged according to the “natural persed into the estate gardens of horticultural connoisseurs. At the lowed by tree planting. In 1824 one of the institute’s members, taxonomic order” of the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyrames same time, colonial Americans such as and William Elliot, wrote a “List of Plants in the Botanic Garden of de Candolle (1779–1841), director of the Botanic Garden at the Thomas Jefferson planted foreign as well as native species in their the Columbian Institute,” which contains more that a hundred University of Montpellier. One beech is a standard tree typical gardens, and a lively plant exchange and burgeoning nursery trade species. In 1826 Congress appointed a committee to meet with of British woodlands, the second is a weeping form grown existed. Holly Shimuzu tells how the establishment of a national the heads of government departments to help solicit “all sub- from a graft on a standard rootstock, and the third is a superb botanical garden became a priority of the new federal government at jects of natural history that may be deemed interesting” from specimen of the cut-leaved beech (F. sylvatica var. asplenifolia) the time of its inception. foreign representatives. However, Congressional support was with fine filigreed leaves instead of normal ones of simple limited and maintenance of the garden was sporadic, often ovate outline. United States Botanic Garden done by volunteers or by an occupant of the house located on Henslow’s interest in hybridization is evident nearby in a isitors to the National Mall often are surprised to the grounds. Occasionally, the gardener from the Capitol collection of three trees of the genus Platanus: P. orientalis and see a large conservatory and surrounding gardens grounds would help out after hours. The Columbian Institute two different interspecific hybrids with the American sycamore, situated so near the U.S. Capitol. It was President for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences disbanded in 1837 P. occidentalis, referred to as P. x acerifolia (the London Plane), George Washington – himself the designer of the due to lack of professional leadership and lack of financial and P. x acerifolia ‘cantabrigiensis’ (the Cambridge Plane). In garden at Mount Vernon – who initially envisioned support. It was reconstituted in 1941 and merged with the addition, parents and their hybrids are still represented by Va botanical garden at the seat of government. Washington Historical Society of Washington. some of the garden’s remaining oaks, Quercus robur, Q. petraea, wrote a letter in 1796 to the Commissioners of the District of The efforts to create the U.S. Botanic Garden gained Q. cerris and Q. suber. momentum in 1842 when the U.S. Exploring Expedition with By 1829 Henslow had a coherent view of the nature of six naval vessels captained by Lt. Charles Wilkes (1798–1877) species, which he transmitted to his students through lectures returned after four years of scientifically exploring the lands and field classes. His most assiduous student was Charles

11 along the South American, The United States Botanic Garden, Burnham and Charles F. McKim, sculptor Augustus Saint- Australian, and Asian coasts; 1874 Gaudens, and landscape architect , Jr. – 280 islands of the South presented its report. Among its many recommendations was Pacific; one hundred miles Smith, to begin work as a that the U.S. Botanic Garden be relocated in order to reestab- of the coastline; gardener. Having been lish the Mall’s original axis between the Capitol and the and a hundred-mile stretch trained at the Royal Botanic grounds adjacent to the Washington Monument, with a fur- of the Columbia River. Gardens at Kew, Smith ther extension to a grand terminus at the proposed site of Included on the expedition brought experience and the Lincoln Memorial. were naturalist Charles determination to his new Public outcry was enormous. Washingtonians, including Pickering, horticulturist position and initially was members of Congress, were openly opposed to the move William Brackenridge, charged with preparing a because it meant uprooting many magnificent trees. When the botanist William Rich, and comprehensive catalogue of relocation from the center to the edge of the Mall bordered by geologist James Dana as well the garden’s plants. While Maryland Avenue and First Street SW finally occurred twenty as taxidermists, artists, and a the majority of the plants in years later, more than two hundred trees were destroyed and philologist. After encircling the garden’s collection were the glasshouses dismantled. the globe and logging more from the U.S. Exploring In November 1931 the cornerstone was laid for the present than eighty-seven thousand Expedition, Brackenridge U.S. Botanic Garden’s new conservatory. The following year miles, Captain Wilkes obtained a wide variety the fountain created by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste returned with four thousand through exchanges with Bartholdi (1834–1904) for the 1876 Centennial ethnographic objects and other botanical gardens. Exhibition (at the same time he was working on New York’s fifty thousand specimens of When Commodore City’s ) was brought out of storage and placed ten thousand species of Matthew Perry (1794–1858), in the Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi Park, which this part of the pressed plants. A place was having opened Japan to relocated U.S. Botanic Garden has been called since 1985. needed to care for this Western trade two year earli- Although now significantly smaller in size, the garden was able immense herbarium along with the living botanical treasures er, returned from his second voyage in 1855, new species to successfully continue its operations throughout the twenti- collected by Pickering and Brackenridge. of Asian flora were added to the U.S. Botanic Garden. Larger eth century, and in the 1990s the conservatory received a major Initially, the expedition’s plant collections were housed at glasshouses were built to display the expanding collections reconstruction. The newest addition to the U.S. Botanic the U.S. Patent Office, where a glasshouse was added to the and to study and propagate new plants. Smith was appointed Garden is the National Garden made possible by private dona- back of the building to accommodate the study and propaga- first superintendent of the U.S. Botanic Garden in 1863, a post tions to the National Fund for the U.S. Botanic Garden. This tion of plant specimens. However, the presence there of so he held until his death in 1912. During his tenure, the garden three-acre garden is on the land adjacent to the west gallery of much exotic flora rekindled congressional interest in having a experienced tremendous growth and increasing national the conservatory. It consists of a regional garden, rose garden, national botanical garden, and in 1850, when the Patent Office prominence. and the First Ladies . building was enlarged, Congress appropriated $5,000 to build Built in 1867, the conservatory’s rotunda contained more Thus, from its rich roots with ties to the vision of George a new glasshouse on the site of the former Columbian than three hundred majestic palms in addition to plants from Washington and other important figures in American history, Institute’s previous garden. This small Gothic structure filled Asia, , Madagascar, Panama, and . the U.S. Botanic Garden has emerged in the twenty-first centu- with rare plants quickly became a public attraction, and by The wings of the conservatory housed plants from the East ry as one of the nation’s foremost botanical gardens. Through the end of that year, the old garden grounds had been reestab- and West Indies, the South Seas, and China. In a nearby con- partnerships with other botanical gardens, exhibits, and horti- lished on ten acres of the Mall adjacent to the Capitol. servatory a lecture hall holding up to a hundred people dou- cultural displays, its public outreach, conservation, and volun- Officially named the United States Botanic Garden in 1856, bled as a botanical classroom. teer programs, and through the scientific work it does in the garden was placed under the jurisdiction of the Joint Although well established and surrounded by lush gardens conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution’s Department of Committee on the Library of Congress and was given regular and large trees, the site of the U.S. Botanic Garden at the east Botany, the U.S. Botanic Garden ensures the nation’s commit- funding to support its growth. end of the Mall became problematic at the beginning of ment to plant science, display, and education. – Holly H. Brackenridge, the horticulturist who had collected many of the twentieth century when the Committee on the District of Shimizu, Executive Director of the U.S. Botanic Garden the plants to be installed in the reestablished garden, was Columbia headed by Senator James McMillan (1838–1902) put in charge. In 1853 he hired a young Scotsman, William R. sought to restore Pierre L’Enfant’s (1754–1825) 1791 plan for the nation’s capital according to the tenets of the City Beautiful movement. In 1902 the McMillan Commission – a distin- guished group of professionals including architects Daniel

12 Today one of the world’s greatest botanical gardens, the New York The New York Botanical Garden’s link to Torrey is significant States, the plants of the West Indies, and the family; and Botanical Garden is a relative latecomer to the scene. Like the first in many ways, and not the least is that its research collections his wife, Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton (1858–1934), an avid botanical gardens, however, it too had its embryonic origins in the contain both his botanical library and herbarium. and respected scholar of . In 1888 the Brittons traveled quest for plant-based medicinal knowledge. Under the leadership of to London, visited the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and Gregory Long during the past fifteen years, its three-prong mission Creation admired the way that institution operated in three principal has renewed that of the garden’s founders in 1890: to make the In the period between the end of the Civil War and the begin- areas: as a museum of plants in a designed landscape; as a garden an important center for scientific research; to offer a strong ning of World War I, the civic leadership of was public educational program deriving authority from the cura- public education program; and to design, restore, and maintain intent on creating a cosmopolitan world capital. Men such as tors of its plant collections; and as an international plant its landscape as a beautiful setting for its collections. J. P. Morgan (1837–1913), (1835–1919), John D. exploration and research program devoted to the study of the Rockefeller (1839–1937), and Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843–1899) evolutionary history and basic biology of plants and the rela- The New York Botanical Garden possessed sufficient wealth to found an impressive roster of tionship between plants and people. Upon their return home, Origins institutions emulating those they admired abroad: the the Brittons launched a public campaign to establish a similar he principal center for the study of plants in pre- American Museum of Natural History (1869), the Metropolitan institution. Three years later the New York Botanical Garden Revolutionary War America was Philadelphia, but by Museum of Art (1870), the Metropolitan Opera Company (1883), was founded, Vanderbilt became the first president of the the early nineteenth century New York City had the New York Botanical Garden (1891), the New York Zoological board, and in 1896 Britton became its first director. become the focal point for scholarship and higher Society (1895), and the New York Public Library (1895). The New The New York Botanical Garden has remained constant to a education in plant biology. This was so because York Botanical Garden is thus part of a constellation constitut- tripartite mission inspired by Kew throughout its history. Tmedical practice still involved extensive herbal knowledge and ing the city’s cosmopolitan cultural infrastructure. However, its scientific empha- the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and The New York Botanical Garden’s professional founders sis, following that established The Elgin Botanic Garden existed Columbia College were eager to foster its expansion. Dr. David were (1859–1934), a Columbia professor by Britton, has differed some- on the site of present-day Hosack (1769–1835), who taught botany on the faculty of of botany and who later distinguished himself with what from that of Kew in that from 1801 until Columbia College and maintained a large, lucrative, and major publications on the trees of the northeastern United the New York Botanical Garden 1811. socially prominent medical practice, knew that his students needed a botanical garden in order to learn from living plants. In 1801 on the site of today’s Rockefeller Center, then some distance north of the settled parts of the city, he founded the Elgin Botanic Garden, forerunner of the New York Botanical Garden. Hosack invested substantial personal capital in its ele- gant conservatory, order beds, and a catalogue of the collec- tion, but in 1811, when he could no longer afford to support it, the Elgin Botanic Garden ceased operations. Hosack continued to teach, however, and two distinguished lines of botanists descended from his star student, John Torrey (1796–1873), and Torrey’s student, (1810–1888). Torrey and Gray collaborated on the Flora of North America (1838–43), but soon thereafter Gray left for Harvard, where he became America’s most celebrated plant scientist and Charles Darwin’s strongest early supporter in the United States, thereby estab- lishing the New England branch of Hosack’s educational tree. The New York line of botanists following Hosack included other mid-nineteenth-century protégés of Torrey, many of whom joined together in the 1860s to create a learned society called the Torrey Botanical Club, whose members were for the most part associated with . It was at their meetings in the late 1880s that the idea for a new botanical garden – one with a scientific emphasis – was first formulated.

13 has focused more on the plants of the Western Hemisphere. A the new Bronx park system – as a possible site. Because of its herbarium. Torrey’s fine botanical library became the nucleus number of distinguished figures associated with the garden – highly picturesque terrain, its freshwater river in a rock-cut of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which currently contains , Henry Hurd Rusby, Henry A. Gleason, gorge, and its fifty acres of old-growth forest, Nathaniel Lord more than one million items, including books, journals, seed Bassett Maguire, William C. Steere, Sr., , and Britton fell in love with it. The New York Botanical Garden and nursery catalogues, architectural plans of glasshouses, – have perpetuated this tradition. Scientists had found its home. scientific reprints, and photographs, and his herbarium is part such as Patricia and Noel Holmgren, Scott Mori, and Dennis (1824–1895), the designer of along of the 7.2 million plant and fungi specimens that comprise Stevenson, and John Mickel are carrying it forward today, with Frederick Law Olmsted, laid out the garden’s first the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. identifying, documenting, and publishing the plants of North schematic design. Unfortunately, Vaux’s death interrupted the The New York Botanical Garden recently has undertaken a America and Latin America. Thus, Britton’s original vision of a work, which was subsequently taken up by Britton himself comprehensive, fifteen-year renewal that includes strategic botanical garden oriented towards the plants of the Americas with assistance from Samuel B. Parsons, Jr. (1844–1923) and planning, programmatic and financial expansion, capital has endured for more than a century. John Brinley (1861–1946). The Olmsted Brothers, the firm orig- development, and landscape restoration. During this period, inally founded by Olmsted, completed the layout of roads the private sector and the City and State of New York have Landscape and pathways in the early 1920s. made substantial investments in these initiatives and improve- In the 1870s and 1880s, following the example of New York’s ments. The educational programs and facilities for children Central Park, many cities started planning parks and park sys- Collections and adults have been expanded; the garden has built or tems. At the same time, social activists and urbanists in New From the beginning, the garden’s founders intended the col- restored fifty thousand square feet for the library and herbari- York City began to dream of new parks in outlying parts of the lections to be comprehensive and worldwide. They dedicated um; it has added molecular research to its agenda; and it has growing metropolis. In 1887 John Mullaly propagation and exhibition space in the conservatory to tropi- constructed a new twenty-eight-thousand-square-foot labora- (1835–1911), a journalist with the cal and desert plants and identified sites within the garden for tory and forty-five-thousand square feet of new glasshouses. New York Herald, published his a deciduous arboretum, for two large-scale conifer collections, In addition, it has restored many historic buildings, including influential book, The New Parks and for native plants, alpine plants, herbaceous perennials, the great Victorian-style conservatory and approximately a Beyond the Harlem: Nearly 4,000 , annuals, and . In the early years many plants, such Acres of Free Playground for the as the now-mature specimen trees in the Arthur and Janet People, in which he described Ross Conifer Arboretum, were grown from seeds collected in his vision for a chain the wild or from cuttings. Later, Beatrix Jones Farrand of parks in the Bronx, a bor- (1872–1959), Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869–1960), and other pro- ough that recently had been fessional designers were retained to create gardens within the incorporated into New York garden for the display of new collections. In 1949 Marian City. Extending from the old Cruger Coffin (1876–1957) designed a fifteen-acre landscape to Van Cortlandt estate in the house the collection of rare conifers amassed by Colonel R. H. north, this system of large-scale Montgomery. This collection recently was restored and parcels linked by wide parkways expanded under the supervision of Todd Forrest, the garden’s Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934) would run south to include vice president for horticulture and living collections, and is the historic properties now known as the Benenson Ornamental Conifers. of the Lorillard and Bronck families (the present sites of the Today there are a million plants growing throughout the Botanical Garden and the Bronx , respectively) and 250-acre National Historic Landmark site, representing eigh- continue eastward to Pelham Bay on Long Island Sound. teen thousand species or groups. The most significant collec- In 1884 the legislature of New York State adopted the tions are tropical ferns, cycads, New World succulents and Mullaly plan, and the resulting “emerald necklace” remains a palms, orchids, alpine plants, ornamental flowering trees, the significant part of New York City’s park system. When Britton, deciduous trees of the northeastern United States, and the encouraged by fellow members of the Torrey Botanical Club, conifers of the world. These collections are exhibited within a was searching for a suitable site for his American Kew, city landscape composed of venerable trees native to the site, officials offered the 250-acre Bronx Park – the central park in including notable white, red, and black oaks (Quercus alba, Q. rubra, and Q. niger) , tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera), black gums (Nyssa sylvatica), and sweet gums (Liquidamber styraciflua). In addition to the living collections, the New York Botanical Garden has major research collections in its library and

Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton 14 (1858–1934) hundred acres of landscape and living collections. Architects, tion of Floridian and non-native plant species Palm tree grove at the Fairchild landscape architects, and garden designers responsible for such as palms and cycads. Tropical Botanic Garden recent work include Beyer Blinder Belle; Cooper, Robertson & Fairchild and Phillips sought to entrance the Partners; Hugh Hardy; Polshek Partnership Architects; Lynden visitor with their joint vision of a tropical par- gone rampant expansion, Miller; Patrick Chassé; Shavaun Towers; and Laurie Olin. adise, resembling in this regard the Renaissance David Fairchild, who princes whose gardens and wunderkammmer – deplored the effects modern- Conclusion the cabinets of curiosities that prefigure the nat- ization was having on the In spite of new developments, the New York Botanical ural history museum – displayed botanical, native cultures with which Garden’s intellectual, urbanistic, and cultural goals remain ethnographic, and zoological specimens of an he was familiar through his unaltered. New York City’s role as an important center for exotic nature. Indeed, Fairchild established an far-flung , pre- scholarship and higher education in plant biology in the nine- ethnographic museum at the garden and often dicted its deleterious conse- teenth century continues in its universities and science cen- entertained his audience with demonstrations of quences at home. Today ters, and the New York Botanical Garden is a nexus for the his skill with a South American blow pipe. Miami, like other large cities, work of this consortium of institutions. The 1880s movement Like Fairchild, who chronicled his discoveries has an increasing number of that resulted in the creation of the Bronx’s system of linked and contributions to economic botany and orna- citizens whose lives are parks is still alive and has become Bronx Green-Up, a New mental horticulture in The World Was My Garden: divorced from the natural York Botanical Garden-sponsored pro- Travels of a Plant Explorer (New York: Charles world; they have not seen a gram. Thus, within the constellation of world-famous cultural Scribner’s Sons, 1938), the curators of the earliest growing pineapple or banana institutions created during the Gilded Age, the New York European botanical gardens watched in awe as plant, never stood in the Botanical Garden continues to play its role both in the life of the world of natural history expanded with shade of a native woodland New York City and the rest of the world. – Gregory Long, each crate of new specimens that arrived from canopy, or watched a hum- President and CEO, New York Botanical Garden the frontiers of exploration. Today, however, mingbird. Their plight, © 2006 The New York Botanical Garden we watch via satellite television and video as the which may be described as botanical world contracts and is increasingly burned, grazed, bioilliteracy, is not one that is restricted to poor urban neigh- or ploughed into oblivion. This places an enormous responsi- borhoods. While botanical gardens in northern latitudes must protect palms bility on all botanical gardens. Seen in this light, parrots provide a useful parable. Accord- and other tropical plants in conservatories, in ’s warm cli- The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden believes that in the ing to legend, the eighteenth-century German scientist Baron mate many tropical species can flourish outdoors. The agricultural twenty-first century it should serve as more than a series of (1769–1859) was traveling on the scientist and plant explorer David Fairchild, who made the collec- scenes of luxuriant vegetation and collections of interesting Orinoco River in Venezuela when he encountered a Carib tion and study of tropical plants his life work, eventually settled in specimens; it also must engage in issues related to the loss Indian tribe. Humboldt noticed that their pet parrots were Florida where he grew species that he had previously gathered in of global biodiversity as many species near extinction and speaking a dialect different from that of their owners. The the wild. Mike Maunder explains how Fairchild’s passion has been environments undergo profound ecological collapse. The gar- Indians explained that the birds had belonged to the Maypure perpetuated in the garden outside Miami that is named for him. den therefore has made the strategic decision to support con- tribe, whom they recently had exterminated during a tribal servation in the field and in the country of origin. This has conflict. The parrots were the last remaining speakers of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden resulted in a number of changes in policy and administration. Maypure, the unwitting and ornamental custodians of a lan- ocated in Florida’s subtropical Coral Gables, the Fairchild has become an arena for interpretation and debate, guage they could neither understand nor conserve. The impli- Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, named after David and its research agenda has shifted from one that is merely cations for botanical gardens that are perceived primarily as Fairchild (1869–1954), plant explorer for the U.S. academically interesting to one that addresses issues of species places of exotic plant display are clear: How do they avoid Department of Agriculture, was opened in 1938 to pro- and preservation. Its research team now works with becoming like Humboldt’s parrots, squawking an incompre- vide the residents of Miami and neighboring resort partners in South America, the Caribbean, East Africa, and hensible rhetoric about conserving almost extinct species Ltowns a glimpse of the flora of distant and exotic landscapes. Madagascar, and it mounts exhibits that interpret the botani- when what their visitors experience is a vision of paradise? As a result, visitors to the eighty-three-acre garden today cal diversity and environmental issues of those regions. This dilemma was the focus of recent strategic revisions at enjoy one of the world’s largest collections of tropical plants. In addition, the garden is attempting to address problems Fairchild. Following discussions with staff, volunteers, donors, Designed by William Lyman Phillips (1885–1966), a pioneer in its own community. In the 1930s, before Miami had under- and board members, Fairchild determined to be more than a of tropical who had been a student and pretty parrot cage, a garden intended simply for viewing tropi- then partner of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., its landscape fea- cal vegetation. First, it sought to define the role of a botanical tures lakes, lagoons, and broad vistas as a frame for a combina- garden in a city where most people were born elsewhere and where the prevailing cultural influences are from Latin

15 America and the Caribbean. Second, it sought to identify how References Hunt, John Dixon, ed. “The Botanic Garden” issue, Studies in the a botanical garden tackles environmental education and Web sites for botanical gardens discussed in this issue of Site/Lines History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 25:2 (April–June 2005). Pisa Botanical Garden: www.dsb.unipi.it/hbp stewardship in a city with as many poor and culturally diverse Jackson, Faith Reyher . Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture: residents as Miami. Third, recognizing that species and Hortus Botanicus Leiden: www.hortus.leidenuniv.nl William Lyman Phillips in Florida. Gainesville. University Press of habitats cannot be saved within the confines of a botanical Florida. 1997. garden, it sought to understand how the garden could truly Chelsea Physic Garden: www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk Kohlmaier, Georg, and BarnaVon Sartory. Houses of Glass, A play an effective role in preventing the further extinction Cambridge University Botanic Garden: www.botanic.cam.ac.uk Nineteenth-Century Building Type. Translated by John C, Haevey. of plant species elsewhere. United States Botanic Garden: Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1986. Defining its duty to confront the biodiversity crisis and www.nationalgarden.org/national_garden.html bioilliteracy dilemma does not mean that Fairchild should Long, Gregory, and Anne Skillion, eds. The New York Botanical Garden. neglect its original mission to provide visitors with an experi- New York Botanical Garden: www.nybg.org New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2006. ence of delight, wonder, and fascination. After all, how many Fairchild : www.ftg.org Minelli, Alessandro. The Botanical Garden of Padua 1545–1995. Venice: people come to Fairchild to seek an understanding of the peri- Marsilio Editori, 1995. Books and Periodicals anth structure of the Melastomataceae or to discuss the impli- O’Malley, Therese. Art and Science in American Landscape Architecture: Casid. Jill H. Sowing Empire: Landscape and Colonization. cations of climate change? They do come to enjoy shaded The National Mall, Washington D.C, 1791-1852. Ph.D. dissertation, Twin Cities: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. walks and to admire orchids, hibiscus, tropical water lilies, and University of Pennsylvania, 1989. the occasional flowering of the giant Arum. Garden officials Ceo, Rocco and Joanna Lombard. Historic Landscapes of Florida. Miami: Prest, John M. The Garden of Eden: The Botanic Garden and the Re- have therefore worked to increase the number and abundance The Deering Foundation and University of Miami School of Creation of Paradise. New Haven and London: Press, Architecture, 2001. of flowers, to create a sense of welcome, and to host art and 1981. music events in the garden. These efforts have broadened the Desmond, Ray. Kew: The History of the Royal Botanic Gardens. London: Rix, Martyn, ed. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Volume 23, 2006, pp 1–144. attraction of the garden to a wider range of communities The Havill Press with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1995. and cultures. Ruggles, D. Fairchild. Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces Fallen, Anne-Catherine. A Botanic Garden for the Nation: The United At the same time, festivals centered around orchids, but- of Islamic Spain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, States Botanic Garden. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing terflies, and mangos serve as a means of promoting an under- 2000. Office, (forthcoming 2007). standing of ecological issues and concepts. In addition, to Schiebinger, Londa, and Claudia Swan, eds. Colonial Botany: Science, Fairchild, David. The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer. develop a sense of individual responsibility for all landscapes, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. Philadelphia: New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938. whether or not they are endangered, the Fairchild Challenge – University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. an environmental education outreach program for middle Garbari, Fabio, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, and Alessandro Tosi. Giardino Solit, Karen D. History of the United States Botanic Garden, 1816–1991. schools and high schools – was created. Schools participate in dei Semplici – Garden of Simples. Pisa: Edizioni Plus, 2002. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993. such diverse course options as the fine arts, website design, —. L’Orto Botanico di Pisa. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2005. gardening, science, habitat restoration, community service, Soderstrom, Mary. Recreating Eden: A Natural . creative writing, photography, environmental debate, and eth- Gager, C. Stuart. “Botanic Garden” in The Standard Cyclopedia Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2001. of Horticulture by , Vol. I, pp. 526–532. New York: nobotany. In 2006 an estimated 16,500 students from sixty- Spary, E. C. Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History From Old Regime to The Macmillan Company, 1935. three schools took part in the Fairchild Challenge. Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Harvey, John. Medieval Gardens. Beaverton, Oregon: Timber Press, 1981. Every botanical garden is a combination of historical and Veendorp, H., and L. G. M. Baas Becking. Hortus Academicus contemporary influences. While Fairchild is a relatively new Hedrick, U. P. A History of Horticulture in America to 1860, with an Lugduno-Batavus 1587–1937. Leiden: Rijksherbarium/Hortus Botanicus, garden, it has undergone a series of dramatic cultural changes. addendum of books published from 1861–1920 by Elisabeth 1938, reprint 1990. It has listened to Baron von Humboldt’s parrots and taken Woodburn. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1988. Walters, S.M. and Stow, A.E. Darwin’s Mentor: John Stevens Henslow. note. Like many other botanical gardens, it is developing a Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. new institutional culture that is both socially relevant and cul- turally audacious. Although the mission of the Fairchild —. The Shaping of Cambridge Botany. Cambridge: Cambridge Tropical Botanic Garden is increasingly focused on combating University Press, 1981. species extinction and overcoming bioilliteracy, the twenty- first century garden – the public face for Fairchild’s mission – is still true to David Fairchild’s original vision of a tropical wunderkammer, a garden of revelation and enchantment. – Mike Maunder, Director, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

16 Kim Tripp renaissance in several ways: leading her staff in creating The the general public. About her colleagues, she says, “It is hum- New York Botanical Garden Forest Management Plan and The bling and a privilege, working closely with people who have New York Botanical Garden Collections Master Plan, establishing such an array of talent and such commitment.” With regard to a new program of museum exhibitions and flower shows, and the garden’s visitors, she maintains, “We’re really happy that im Tripp, recently appointed to the newly created reinterpreting the garden’s collections with new signage people want to come here for beauty, pleasure, and to learn position of Director of the Botanical Garden at the and guidebooks. She has recently overseen several major con- about the importance of plants in the world.” New York Botanical Garden, has been helping struction projects, including the Nolen for prop- For her the New York Botanical Garden doesn’t stop at its shape its planning, policies, programs, and physical agation and research, the horticultural rejuvenation and perimeter fence. She oversees Bronx Green-up, the garden’s character for the past six years. Her doctorate in interpretation of the forty-acre Arthur and Janet Ross Conifer outreach program, which supports two hundred gardens in Khorticultural science, a visionary passion wedded to good Arboretum of mature pines, spruces, and firs, and the restora- the Bronx with its “Hortmobile” of roving advisors who help management skills, and the ability to collaborate productively tion of the fifteen acres containing the garden’s collection communities create and maintain gardens on abandoned with others, however, do not alone explain her enthusiasm of rare cultivated conifers, now known as the Benenson Orna- property in their neighborhoods. “What is great,” she says, “is for the job. mental Conifers. to see children learn how to grow plants and adults take “I grew on Eastern Long Island,” she explains, “and I think This last project, the largest complete restoration of an responsibility for these gardens, which really are much needed that beautiful landscape – its reflective light, expansive fields, individual section that the garden has ever undertaken, outdoor community centers.” and long sandy beaches – was imprinted on me. I saw it as involved revealing vegetation-impacted Fordham gneiss rock Returning to the subject of the garden’s landscape, Dr. a portrait of itself, a living painting of layered wetlands and outcrops, importing boulders to give additional structural Tripp acknowledges the challenge that, like all landscapes, it is woodlands. You internalize that kind of thing. It gives you a character to the landscape, integrating new specimens with in a constant state of transformation. Good day-to-day man- sensibility. In addition, growing up in a town where my family surviving members of the earlier conifer collection, and har- agement is critical, along with continuing restoration and thought about community as more than an artifact of history, monizing the redesign with the adjacent swath of mature periodic rejuvenation with new ideas and new plantings. She as something that should be lived in, helped me understand native woodland that the garden allows to remain in a general- sees landscape mutability as an opportunity for experimenta- the importance of space as layered by time, and how all of it – ly natural state. “Think of the garden as a multi-layered tapes- tion and education. For instance, she has recently been work- homes, yards, streets, parks – is interconnected. Honoring try with fifty plant collections woven into its historic ing with the public Lynden Miller to the space where you live and taking responsibility for it gives landscape,” Dr. Tripp urges. “Or think of it as a museum with reconstruct a mixed flower border laid out by the early twenti- you an emotional connection to place that affects you the galleries. We have to create a flow that carries the visitor eth-century landscape designer Ellen Biddle Shipman. “We rest of your life.” through several specialized areas without losing the continuity found Shipman’s plans and notes in the library, but we didn’t Helping her mother garden in Sag Harbor encouraged of the garden’s landscape as a whole.” She continues, “Our think it necessary to try to replicate what she had done even if Dr. Tripp’s interest in plant science, which she furthered as a collections are not just horticultural either; indoors we have we could have obtained the exact same plants that she used. student at , where she earned B.S. and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library with more than a million books Lynden and I discussed how the climate has been changing M.S. degrees. At North Carolina State University and journals plus other over the past couple of decades and decided to grow what have she received a Ph.D. and served as postdoctoral materials, including botani- traditionally been classified as half-hardy plants here – myrtle, associate with J. C. Raulston while holding the cal illustrations. Then there mahonias, camellias, the sorts of plants you find in Virginia position of curator of conifers at the J. C. Raulston is the Steere Herbarium with and North Carolina. We think we can have a beautiful border Arboretum. Additional postdoctoral work at the over 7.2 million dried plant similar to the one Shipman planted while being experimental of and specimens.” at the same time – exactly Shipman’s original interest. That the directorship of the Botanic Garden of Smith Although her education way we’ll see what thrives and what we’ll be able to incorporate College prepared her to become the New York prepared her to be a research into our regional plant vocabulary.” Botanical Garden’s vice president for Horticulture scientist, Dr. Tripp clearly If the test of good leadership is the ability to attract talent- and Living Collections. enjoys the complexity and ed individuals, give them the freedom to innovate within the Dr. Tripp’s tenure at the New York Botanical diversity of her job as an bounds of an organization’s overall mission, and then promote Garden coincides with the implementation administrator and interact- them to positions of increased responsibility, President of President Gregory Long’s vision for the institu- ing with staff, donors, scien- Gregory Long is to be applauded for nurturing Kim Tripp’s tion’s mission: to further research excellence tists, board members, and exceedingly productive career and appointing her director of in botanical science, to build its educational pro- the New York Botanical Garden, a position she will fill with grams, and to restore the 250-acre landscape as a ability and distinction. – EBR combined horticultural showcase and public space. She has been instrumental in the garden’s current

17 Exhibitions is perhaps best remembered Siebold (1796–1866), the Books vation by Robert Fortune species, whether natural or for introducing the tulip to German-born physician who (1812–1880). cultivated, invariably are the Netherlands, convinced introduced Western medi- At the moment I am indicated in ‘Roman type.’) the Dutch East India Com- cine to Japan and catalogued looking through The Random You don’t have to be a Dutch Watercolors: The pany to bring back speci- Japanese flora and fauna, The Naming of Names: The House Book of Perennials, gardener to find botanical Great Age of the Leiden mens from its overseas trad- represented some of the ear- Search for Order in the which both describes and Latin useful. Field guides Botanical Garden ing posts and colonies. liest and finest botanical World of Plants illustrates with color photo- provide helpful information William D. Rondina and Plants from South Africa, illustrations ever created. By Anna Pavord graphs 1,250 plants. If I accompanied by illustrations Giovanni Foroni Lofaro Java, and elsewhere were The title of the exhibition (New York: Bloomsbury want to plant the lovely bell- – often colored line drawings Gallery at the New York transported to Leiden and was, however, somewhat mis- Publishing, 2005). shaped campanula, I can or photographs – for the nat- Botanical Garden then painted and drawn leading since watercolors choose and probably buy uralist or curious hiker. In April 8–July 9, 2006 from life in situ. In time the made up only a very small Browsing one or more Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Dutch West India Company percentage of the works on through plant of several Guide to Wildflowers of Dutch Watercolors: The Great followed suit, sending back view and most were in fact encyclopedias members Northeastern and Northcentral Age of the Leiden Botanical specimens and drawings colored engravings. The lim- and garden of the family North America, I find that the Garden was that rare gem of from Brazil, Suriname (for- ited gallery space requiring catalogs or Campanu- pretty violet-blue harebell I an exhibition that tells the merly Dutch Guiana), and tight installation of works in visiting botan- laceae. If I have seen in meadows and story of a place through an North America. Thus, the vitrines was perhaps the ical gardens have a rock on rocky alpine slopes is exquisite collection of art exhibition illustrated flora greatest problem facing the and nurseries, garden I may called Campanula objects – in this case, a care- and fauna from all over the curators, limiting the one can see want Cam- rotundifolia. Even though the fully chosen selection of globe. amount of accompanying many varieties panula carpat- small roundish basal leaves woodcuts, drawings, hand- Albertus Seba, an early- textual exposition. This of offerings, ica, which, that give it its name wither colored engravings, litho- eighteenth-century space limitation also meant each carrying as its name early and are not usually graphs, and watercolors. All apothecary in Amsterdam, that photographs of the a binomial, or suggests, was apparent, I can identify it by of these works were created commissioned numerous Hortus Botanicus Leiden two-name, discovered its wiry, hairlike stems and in or collected by the Hortus depictions of the objects in were not part of the exhibi- Latin label in the linear leaves, which match Botanicus Leiden, the botan- his extraordinary cabinet of tion, a great pity as a sense comprising a particular Carpathian mountains of those described and depicted ical garden established in curiosities, a vast collection of the size of the gemlike plant’s genus, or family Poland, Czechoslovakia, in the Peterson guide. 1587 in that historic Dutch of plant and speci- Clusius garden within it – no name, and an epithet, a char- Romania, and western The precise and systemat- city as part of its newly mens from around the larger than a volleyball court acterizing secondary name . Or, I might want ic nomenclature that groups founded university (page 6). world, and these were pub- and now reconstructed in denoting its species. This instead C. persicifolia,so all plants into commonly While the Hortus lished as copperplate engrav- fascinating detail (page 7) – epithet may refer to a plant’s named because its leaves held categories, employing Botanicus was first created ings in his four-volume would have been both distinguishing physical char- resemble those of a peach Latin, the enduring language for the use of the university’s Thesaurus. Among those on enlightening and surprising acterisitics: for instance, tree. Its natural habitat, of Western society since medical students, it quickly display from this extraordi- considering that it was the Pinus rigida for the upright unlike that of the alpine C. antiquity, is generally credit- became one of the most nary work were, most home to more than a thou- pitch pine native to eastern carpatica, consists of mead- ed to the great Swedish prominent botanical gardens notably, a highly disturbing, sand plant specimens new to North America or alba, the ows, open woods, and forest botanist Carolus Linnaeus. in Europe through the bril- but beautifully calligraphic Western horticulture. species name given to many edges across most of Europe, Whether Japanese, French, or liance and avid plant collect- illustration (see cover) of – Justin Spring white-flowered plants. It may from Belgium and Holland Brazilian, when botanists ing of its first prefect, a snake entwining an ivyleaf also denote the plant collec- eastward through central and plant specialists around Carolus Clusius Clusius, who morning-glory (ipomoea tor who discovered it in the and southern Russia and the world today communi- hederacea). wild. For instance, one northwestern . Should cate, they use binomial Latin The works in this exhibi- species of is I wish to have a particular and know that they are tion, which also included the called fortunei because it white cultivar–that is, a signifying the same plant. later work of Philipp von was first brought into culti- hybrid variety – I might pick C. persicifolia ‘Hampstead White.’ (A plant’s Latin bino- mial is always italicized while varieties of that 18 Binomial Latin remains the Until the sixth century CE trekked in search of the rari- enly attributes the famous she maintains that the ency- strain to make sense of the system of naming plants herbals were without ties described in ancient letter of Pliny the Younger clopedic elder Pliny was natural world. Eventually, it newly discovered in the wild, illustrations. The first plant treatises; the graves and (62–c.115 CE), in which he merely a “credulous compil- was necessary to transcend and with classical studies portraits are found in a memorials of eminent and describes his garden at er [and] not even a serious the Aristotelian system that departments on the decline, magnificent parchment obscure persons she has vis- Laurentum, to his uncle, her researcher.” posited a stable universe in it may be fair to say that the manuscript simply called ited; and, of course, the anti-hero , Her prose is overwrought which all things are know- survival of Latin as a living “Juliana’s book” after its numerous libraries where whom she calls “a Roman and often redundant. The able. Nevertheless, even for language is due in no small patron, the eastern Roman she has poured through pre- Gradgrind” (“Facts, facts, same ideas and sometimes contemporary open-ended part to botanists. But this empress Juliana Anicia. Like cious volumes, deciphering facts were what he consumed virtually the same sentences natural science, a system of system – and even the word many other herbals from their meaning and the accu- and regurgitated in vast pop up in several places. classification such as the one “botany,” which did not antiquity through the racy of their illustrations. quantities”). Compounding However, Pavord does make and his pupils pio- gain currency until the eigh- Renaissance, Juliana’s book is However, in employing the error, Pavord conflates an important point: first- neered remains necessary. teenth century – rests upon based on ,a this spirited, first-person the younger Pliny’s descrip- hand field observation and For and those the struggle since ancient treatise written around narrative, Pavord adopts an tion of his Laurentine gar- scientific investigation of who came after him, the first Greek times to classify plants 77 CE by the Greek doctor often irritatingly opinionat- den with the picture he plants were slow in coming. order of business was simply in a meaningful way. Pedanios Dioscorides. ed stance. With a large draws in a separate letter of Such was the reverence of to figure out a method Today it is hard to The quest for a proper degree of journalistic an entirely different villa later herbal writers for of differentiating one class remember that the main rea- classification system by license, she plays favorites, garden he owned in Tuscany. Theophrastus (c. 372–287 of plants from another son for classifying plants was Dioscorides and other pre- extravagantly praising one About this garden the BCE) and his successor and then universalizing this originally medical. Herbals, Linnaean botanists and the person while denigrating younger Pliny writes of an Dioscorides that even in the identification system by handbooks identifying their parallel evolution of the another. Readers may wince open riding ground sur- Renaissance – the Age of means of a language that use by doctors and apothe- botanical illustration from a at some of her chapter titles: rounded by ivy-clad plane Discovery – as hitherto transcended parochial caries, were the first written formulaic to a naturalistic “Pliny the Plagiarist” deals trees linked together by unknown plants were being tongues. Should plants be texts . The primary and scientifically observed with the great natural histo- vines, a shady outer ring of sent back to Europe from the categorized according to leaf role of herbals was to image is the story Anna rian Pliny the Elder (23–79 laurels, and grass lawns sepa- Americas and China, human- structure, seed and fruit describe plants as materia Pavord has chosen to tell in CE), and “The Long-Nosed rated by “box shrubs clipped ist scholars were chiefly writ- character, growth habit, or medica, and apothecary The Naming of Names: The Nit-Picker” refers to Pier into innumerable shapes, ing glosses on ancient texts. some other common indica- recipes are included in many Search for Order in the World Andrea Mattioli (1501–1577), some being letters which Thus, knowledge was passed tor that would logically old herbals. Initially written of Plants. Doing justice to the who “just continued to spell the gardener’s name or on mainly as received infor- divide them into families on parchment and later on images in the rare books that hoover up new plants for his master’s.” From this mation. and species? The basic dif- papyrus (the discovery of this are its subject, Pavord’s book further, ever-expanding edi- Pavord leaps to the conclu- Pavord’s principal hero is ferentiation between trees, important practical use of an is handsomely produced and tions” of his 1565 herbal, sion that Pliny’s garden of Theophrastus, and he figures shrubs, and herbs (long Egyptian sedge changed the contains 159 full-page illus- Commentarii in libros sex box topiary, grass lawns, and prominently throughout The called simples) was the pri- form of books from scrolls trations, the bulk of which Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbi. ivy-clad plane trees is ances- Naming of Names. This early mary and obvious place to to bound volumes), herbals are of plants depicted in Pavord accuses Mattioli of tral to “a garden style re-cre- naturalist taught at the begin. But without under- were transmitted as manu- herbals dating from the time appropriating without ated over and over again Lyceum, which his teacher standing, as Linnaeus did, scripts with, as one may of Juliana’s book until the acknowledgment the work of through the centuries that Aristotle founded in 335 BCE. how sexual means of repro- imagine, multiplying errors end of the seventeenth cen- one of her heroes, Andrea followed [down to the pre- He was, by her reckoning, duction distinguished one until the invention of print- tury. Crammed with facts Cesalpino (1519–1603), the sent day in which] the vine- “the first in the long list of plant from another, many ing in the middle of the and based on an astonishing Italian plantsman who covered pergola has become men who fought to find the attempts reached dead ends. fifteenth century. Then amount of research, her text served as curator of the the hallmark of the kind of order they believed must Only much later would it books created on paper – a strives for drama, with botanical garden at Pisa. property most likely to find exist in the dizzying variety be possible to banish hearsay second-century CE Chinese Pavord herself as protago- Scholars also may cringe its way onto the glossy pages of the natural world.” From and superstition from invention that was not nist. She tells us of the at her breezy style. Worse, of House and Garden maga- our post-Darwinian, secular, humanity’s relationship to adopted in Europe until the remote regions she has they will be dismayed at the zine.” With unintentional scientific perspective, it is plants, thereby avoiding printing press made its use confusion she betrays in the irony in light of the above, difficult to realize how hard inevitable – became textually course of her voluminous, Theophrastus and other men and pictorially uniform. though sometimes overhasty, of great minds once had to research as when she mistak- 19 their erroneous medical Henry Shaw’s Victorian leaving home in 1819 to seek culture. In 1859 he founded Gurney, superintendent their Picturesque and natu- applications and liberating Landscapes: The Missouri new markets for his father’s the Missouri Botanical of the Missouri Botanical ralistic aesthetics. He sought doctors and apothecaries Botanical Garden business, he settled in New Garden, turning over 79 Garden – remind us that the advice of men of science, from the wiles of herb and Tower Grove Park Orleans where he set up a acres of his grounds to that Shaw’s botanical garden and including German-born women who gathered their By Carol Grove hardware business. institution. The remaining park were the products of botanist supply of roots and tubers. (Boston: University of He subsequently relocated 289 acres of his estate was many minds and hands. (1809–1884) and Harvard pro- By tracing the two-thousand- Massachusetts Press and to rapidly growing St. Louis deeded to the city of St. And yet Grove makes fessor Asa Gray (1810–1888), year effort to find a universal Amherst: Library of where tools and utensils Louis in 1868 as Tower Grove clear that one visionary man whose Manual of Botany long system of classification and American Landscape History, were in great demand by Park. According to Grove was in charge. She identifies remained the standard refer- the application of a scientific 2005) both newcomers and frontier these combined bequests the sources of Shaw’s ideas ence work in the field. method to their study, emigrants heading west on were meant to fulfill Shaw’s in books, journals, travel, and Beyond these influences, he Pavord makes us aware of In Henry the Santa Fe “twin missions of [public] conversation. She dwells gained an appreciation of art the great adventure in the Shaw’s Victorian . Here recreation and education.” on the formative influence from connoisseurs of land- naming of plants. Her story Landscapes: The Shaw amassed Because this is a book of a number of great English scape painting and drawing. is one that is fraught with Missouri a considerable about these two , particularly the Grove demonstrates that, the attrition of knowledge Botanical fortune, landscapes and not a biogra- Royal Botanic Gardens at because of his keen interest though book burnings, war, Garden and enabling him phy, we do not learn of Kew and Chatsworth in in botany and plant collect- and other kinds of loss. Tower Grove to retire in Shaw’s views on the Civil Derbyshire, where, as head ing, Shaw quite naturally Breaking with the slavish Park Carol 1839 in order War or slavery (although gardener for the sixth Duke favored Loudon’s Garden- reliance on the received wis- Grove under- to return to Grove notes that he owned of Devonshire, Joseph esque design aesthetic in dom of ancient authorities, scores the his boyhood eleven slaves, perhaps for Paxton achieved some of the which each tree and shrub artists – notably Leonardo da English her- interest – a more than a decade). We do finest work of his productive was given ample room to Vinci and Albrecht Dürer – itage and tastes fascination for learn how one of America’s career. For Shaw’s general grow into a healthy individ- and seventeenth-century of her trans- plants – that great botanical gardens was views on the aesthetics of ual specimen. At the same scientists such as planted he had conceived by Shaw and landscape and garden time, he combined this (1627–1705) set plant knowl- subject, the acquired at developed under his direc- design, Grove confirms the Gardeneque approach with edge on its present course botanist and Mill Hill, a tion. With ample illustra- influence of William Gilpin, that of the Picturesque so by adopting close personal philanthropist Henry Shaw boarding school north of tions – plans, renderings, Uvedale Price, and Richard that, seen from a distance, observation and indepen- (1800–1889). A naturalized London. Coincidentally, the paintings, horticultural Payne Knight, the principal his landscape compositions dent scientific analysis. For American citizen since 1843, site of that school had been advertisements, and pho- theorists of the Picturesque retained a parklike character. making us aware of the Shaw spent his early once occupied by the home tographs – the book depicts in England, as well as that While this middle course in necessity for a universally childhood in Sheffield, an of the noted Quaker horti- the physical development of of the renowned practitioner landscape design might recognized system of plant industrial town in South culturist Peter Collinson the Missouri Botanical of Picturesque landscape serve the interests of both classification and of the Yorkshire, where he was (1694–1768). As Grove relates Garden, Tower Grove Park, design, Humphry Repton science and art, Grove notes arduous process by which born to middle-class parents the story of Collinson’s and several related struc- and John Claudius Loudon, that Shaw’s deepest concern knowledge is acquired and of apparently unequal social exchanges of seeds with the tures, including the charm- champion of the Garden- was for “the public and the transmitted through the standing. Although there Philadelphia botanist John ing cast iron gazebos that esque, the style in which the art of gardening,” hence his centuries, we may want to were manufacturing inter- Bartram (1699–1777), we are ornament the park. In por- display of specimen plants desire to share his estate and overlook some of the flaws ests on both sides of the reminded of the sort of traits of Shaw, we can detect was a priority. his passion with the citizens in Pavord’s galloping and family, his father, a producer Anglo-American connections traces of pride, shrewdness, Grove also touches on the of St. Louis. sometimes confusing narra- of grates, fire-irons, and that Shaw would build upon benevolence, and possibly broader influence of Ralph Not long after his death tive. Her story is in the end a other kinds of heating over the course of his life- amusement. Other portraits Waldo Emerson, Henry in 1889, changes in Shaw’s fascinating one. – EBR equipment, was thought to time. – of workmen, students, and David Thoreau, and Charles layout of the Missouri have “married up.” Shaw In 1851 Shaw engaged colleagues such as James Darwin. In addition, Shaw Botanical Garden were initi- This review first appeared in himself never married. After architect George L. Barnett shared the social concerns of ated by the botanist William The New Criterion, Volume 24, to design Tower Grove, his Andrew Jackson Downing Number 8, April 2006 mansion and estate, where and Frederick Law Olmsted he was able to pursue his without entirely adhering to passion for botany and horti- 20 Trelease (1857–1945), who suc- spective context in which to waned after World War I as Woodside are considered his skill in integrating land- ings with their landscape ceeded him as director. consider Grove’s important modernism, with its firm Arts and Crafts architectural scape architecture and archi- surroundings. The wisteria From 1896 through 1905, the story of Shaw’s personal embrace of industrial tech- masterpieces today, exempli- tecture. covering the building and Olmsted firm (initially and philanthropic gifts by nology, became a counter- fying the best qualities of During the Arts and entwining the trellis struc- Olmsted, Olmsted, and Eliot) providing St. Louis with movement, its influence regional building traditions, Crafts period landscape ture, for example, brings worked on a master plan two major attractions, the continued to reverberate superb workmanship, and design was considered an nature to the building, while that would have given the now world-famous Missouri within the sphere of interna- sensitive integration of essential component of the richly painted poly- garden a much more natu- Botanical Garden and tional design. Both of these house and landscape. The building, and while England chrome interiors harking ralistic treatment than Shaw Tower Grove, the epitome of exhibitions made clear that movement’s principles of abounds in examples of back to Pugin emphasize the intended. In the end the gar- an American Victorian park. the Arts and Crafts simplicity, utility, and expert houses and gardens con- rustic exposed wood beams – den became a collection of – Melanie L. Simo Movement not only pro- craftsmanship appealed to ceived as one – the work of craft architecture bowing to several special gardens and duced beautiful objects – younger American architects Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll nature. is perhaps best known today Maybeck’s Landscapes: ceramics, metalwork, textiles, searching for an alternative immediately comes to mind Harris’s study, which grew for its Climatron, a geodesic Drawing in Nature book arts, and furniture, to to the dominant Beaux-Arts – the United States produced out of the author’s 1989 mas- dome built in the 1950s to by Dianne Harris name a few – but attracted a style. Like Wright, many of fewer comparable examples. ter’s thesis at the University contain a representation of a (San Francisco: William considerable number of these architects distanced Landscape planning for of California, Berkeley, is tropical rainforest. Stout/Berkeley Design highly individualistic themselves from the interna- American craftsman houses based primarily on the col- Although I read an early Books, 2004) designers. William Morris, C. tional architectural main- generally was uninspired. lection of Maybeck’s draw- draft of a portion of this R. Ashbee, Charles Rennie stream by embracing a Exceptions include Wright’s ings and sketches in the book, I was not involved in Interest in Mackintosh, reverence for natural materi- visions for his early houses, university’s Environmental its evolution, which has the Arts and C. F. A. Voysey, als. as captured in Marion Design Library. A recognized resulted in a lucid, scholarly Crafts M. H. Baillie Bernard Ralph Maybeck Mahoney’s exquisite render- scholar in landscape history, work, handsomely produced Movement Scott, Edwin (1862–1957) stands out as one ings that set his houses with- she is currently associate and enhanced by Carol surged when Lutyens, and of the best American archi- in dreamy landscapes. professor of landscape archi- Betsch’s elegant, understated the Los Ernest tects of the period. His work, Educated at the École des tecture and architecture at photography. Grove’s text is Angeles Gimson are located primarily in the San Beaux-Arts at the end of the the University of framed by contributions County among the Francisco Bay Area, is nineteenth century, Maybeck Urbana-Champaign. The from others. The preface by Museum of leading admirably covered in Sally B. became one of the origina- first section of her book Robin Karson, executive Art and the designers Woodbridge’s excellent book, tors of the Bay Regional summarizes Maybeck’s edu- director of the Library of Victoria and associated Bernard Maybeck: Visionary Style. He practiced between cation, influences, and American Landscape History, Albert with the Architect (New York: Abbeville 1892 and 1940, the golden relationship to northern highlights Shaw’s indepen- Museum in movement in Press, 1992), and Robert years of California architec- California design history, dence from Olmstedian aims London Britain. Craig’s Bernard Maybeck at ture and design, when Julia and the second provides and design preferences. In mounted In America, Principia College: The Art and Morgan, Irving Gill, the detailed analyses of specific the foreword, Peter H. Raven, two major where the Craft of Building (Layton, Greene brothers, Willis Polk, projects. A particular virtue director of the Missouri traveling exhibitions that movement took on a more : Gibbs Smith, 2004). and others brought West of this slim volume is the Botanical Garden, dwells on appeared in several United craft-oriented approach, the Dianne Harris’s new book, Coast architecture to nation- inclusion of Maybeck’s the alliance between the States cities from 2004 into names that immediately Maybeck’s Landscapes: al attention. Maybeck’s watercolor and pastel sketch- botanical garden and the 2006. The movement, which spring to mind are Frank Drawing in Nature extends 1916 First Church of Christ, es, most executed on brown University of Washington began in England during the Lloyd Wright, Gustav their scholarship with a wel- Scientist in Berkeley remains kraft. The gnarled oaks, villa School of Botany, which latter part of the nineteenth Stickley, and the Greene come discussion of an often his most celebrated work gardens, fountains, and other Shaw endowed. In the infor- century, was a response to brothers. The 1907 Blacker overlooked aspect of the (see Edward Bosley, First classically inspired architec- mative afterword, John Karel the ills of industrialization. and 1908 Gamble houses in architect’s design approach: Church of Christ, Scientist, tural ornament in some of touches on later develop- Although its prominence Pasadena by Greene & Berkeley [London: Phaidon, the watercolor renderings ments in Tower Grove Park, Greene as well as Charles 1994]). In many ways this including its designation as Sumner Greene’s 1911 pool church is emblematic of the a National Historic Land- garden at Green Gables in Arts and Crafts Movement’s mark in 1989. Together these ideal of integrating build- pieces provide a multi-per- 21 are reminiscent of Maxfield period. From these early create mood and atmosphere Calendar respectful, experientially Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Parrish’s famous illustra- influences, he went on to in his projects, often select- rewarding, and a source of 6:30 p.m. tions, such as those for Edith develop his own California ing plants with purple and personal delight. Tony Hiss Wharton’s Italian Villas and style. Maybeck’s love of the pink tones to complement To register: Call the Two Addresses for Their Gardens (1904). They Berkeley hills emerges in his the natural and stained Nature and Place: A Series Continuing Education New Yorkers to Call Home: reveal the extent to which he best work, particularly in his woods of his structures. In of Conversations with Department of the The H2O Landscape valued the site and its sur- venture with Charles Keeler the original planting scheme Elizabeth Barlow Rogers New York Botanical Garden: Tony Hiss will present the rounding landscape even and the Hillside Club in for the First Church of A lecture series co-spon- (718) 817-8747 startling findings behind his more than the building. envisioning Berkeley as a Christ, Scientist, Maybeck sored by the New York most recent book, H2O: Harris assumes the read- garden city (though not in included not only purple- Botanical Garden, the Location: New-York Highlands to Ocean, which er’s familiarity with May- the English sense of the flowering wisteria and pur- New-York Historical Society, Historical Society, Central show that despite four hun- beck’s key works, such as the term as applied to new town ple lantana but also pink and the Foundation Park West at 77th Street dred years of nonstop Palace of Fine Arts; the First planning). Cherokee roses (Rosa for Landscape Studies General admission: growth in the New York City Church of Christ, Scientist; Harris discusses cherokeansis), rose trees Nature and human beings Individual programs, $25 area, so much spectacular the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Maybeck’s use of color, a ( scoparium), exist in a perpetual bond, the (members, students, natural land and water sur- Memorial Gymnasium for subject often overlooked in and Clematis montana. outcome of which is never educators, seniors $23) vive that everyone here has Women; and others. The other studies of architects In conclusion, Harris asks predictable. The confidence Complete series, $90 two addresses: a street projects selected for inclu- and garden designers. He whether we should think of in the technological mastery (members, students, address and a place in the sion in Maybeck’s Landscapes often used clipped evergreen Maybeck as a landscape of nature that was so preva- educators, seniors $81) larger landscape. range from these major hedges, the stalwart of many architect as well as an archi- lent in the first two-thirds of works to the delightful 1909 English Arts and Crafts gar- tect. Perhaps, she says, for Tony Hiss has written the last century is seriously Tuesday, January 9, 2007 Leon Roos Residence in San dens, to define a garden’s “after all, he clearly regarded thirteen books, including the questioned by many people 6:30 p.m. Francisco. This half-tim- edge and anchor the build- the two as constituent parts award-winning The today since nature can defy bered Arts and Crafts house, ing to the soil. Ideally suited of the greater whole.” Rick Darke Experience of Place (New York: the engineer with unexpect- for which Maybeck also to the California climate, Maybeck’s Landscapes, A Gardener’s Conversations Random House, 1991). ed and often cataclysmic designed the furnishings, pergolas and trellises – which is beautifully designed with the Woods He was a staff writer at The destruction. At the same includes a storybook front Maybeck’s two signature and filled with insightful Rick Darke will reflect upon New Yorker for more than time, nature still inspires us garden and a large vegetable devices – extended the analyses, provides an excel- three decades of woodland three decades and lives in with a sense of wonder that garden at the rear of the expression of the building’s lent launch to the series on observation and interaction with his wife and calls us to its defense in the property. The detailed plant- structural system outdoors. modern landscape masters and on how this exchange teenage son. face of our own destructive- ing plan for the vegetable Vines were allowed to hang edited by Marc Treib. Future has influenced the eyes, ears, ness of the land and Earth’s garden, employing the typi- down in front of windows to volumes will include The and heart of a naturalist- Tuesday, March 6, 2007 biological richness. For land- cal geometric configuration further connect exterior with Donnell and Eckbo Gardens: turned-gardener. 6:30 p.m. scape designers especially, of an English Arts and Crafts interior. Harris even goes so Modern California Master- nature is an indispensable Rick Darke is president of Tim Davis garden, reflects the archi- far as to treat Maybeck’s works and The Houses of partner. This series will take Rick Darke, LLC, an inde- The American Parkway: tect’s early fascination with planter boxes as a serious Joseph Esherick by Marc Treib the form of four talks on the pendent consulting firm Past, Present and Future English cottage gardens and design component. He and Creating the Public nature of good place-mak- focused on landscape ethics, Parkways combine recre- his knowledge of Jekyll, placed them on the top of Garden: The Suburban Parks of ing, each to be followed by a photography, and contextual ation, transportation, and William Robinson, and other the tall free-standing Robert Royston by Reuben conversation between the design. His work has been natural resource protection important theorists of the columns at the Palace of Rainey and J.C. Miller. – guest speaker and Elizabeth featured on National Public in landscapes specifically Fine Arts in San Francisco, Judith B. Tankard Barlow Rogers, president of Radio and is reflected in designed to promote the on the terrace at the Hearst the Foundation for Land- his many books, including enjoyment of scenery in gymnasium, and along scape Studies. These conver- the award-winning The motion. This conversation extended horizontal struc- sations will explore how to American Woodland Garden: with Tim Davis will trace the tural members of some of plan and design landscapes Capturing the Spirit of the evolution of the American his houses. He used color to of different kinds and at Deciduous Forest. parkway, discuss contempo- different scales that synthe- rary management concerns, size art and nature in ways and speculate on future 22 that are environmentally prospects. Tim Davis is the lead Contributors historian for the National Park Service’s Park Historic Structures and Cultural Landscapes Program. His Nina Antonetti, Ph.D., is an Si.M.A. (Museums and Maunder is chair of the Melanie Simo is a historian Pollock and currently is writ- writings on parkways and assistant professor in the Collections System of the World Conservation Union’s of art and landscape who has ing a biography of Samuel other aspects of the new landscape studies pro- Pisan Athenaeum). He is the Plant Conservation held teaching positions at M. Steward, which will be American landscape have gram at Smith College author of many books and Committee and is a director the Harvard Design School, published by Farrar, Straus appeared in numerous jour- in Northampton, Massachu- papers on Mediterranean of the American Public the Rhode Island School of and Giroux. An exhibition nals and in the prize-win- setts. As a landscape and flora and has co-authored Garden Association (APGA). Design, and Carnegie- on the five-hundred-year ning volume America’s architectural historian, Gardens of Simples, a text on Mellon University. She is the history of the tulip in art, John Parker is director National Park Roads & Antonetti has held research the history, people, and roles author of several books on which Spring is curating, of the University Botanic Parkways: Drawings from positions at the Center for of Pisa Botanical Garden landscape history, including will open at AXA Gallery in Garden, curator of the the Historic American the Advanced Study in the over the centuries (Pisa: Pisa Loudon & the Landscape, From New York City in March 2008 Herbarium, and professor of Engineering Record Visuals Arts at the National University Press, 2002). Country Seat to Metropolis, before traveling to museums Plant Cytogenetics at the (: John’s Hopkins Gallery of Art and the He is deeply involved in 1783–1843 (New Haven: Yale throughout the United University of Cambridge. He Press, 2004). Victoria and Albert Museum investigating the relation- University Press, 1989), States. He is a dedicated is a director of the National in London. ships between art and Invisible Gardens: Search for amateur gardener at his Institute for Agricultural Tuesday, April 10, 2007 science, with particular focus Modernism in the American weekend home in Bridge- Rosie Atkins worked on the Botany and an honorary 6:30 p.m. on sixteenth- through Landscape with Peter Walker hampton, New York. London Sunday Times news- research fellow at the Natural eighteenth-century botanical (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Carol Franklin paper from 1968 until 1982, History Museum in London, Judith B. Tankard, a landscape iconography. MIT Press, 1996), Forest & Nature in the City leaving to become the gar- having previously served historian, teaches at the Garden: Traces of Wildness in a Carol Franklin, a landscape dening correspondent of Gregory Long has spent thir- as a trustee of Royal Botanic Landscape Institute of Modernizing Land, 1897–1949 architect, reflects on how the newly launched TODAY ty-five years in the manage- Gardens, Kew, and as a Harvard University’s Arnold (Charlottesville: University of existing and future park sys- newspaper. In 1993 she ment of cultural institutions council member of the Royal Arboretum. Her latest Virginia Press, 2003), and tems based on rivers and launched Gardens Illustrated in New York City. In 1989 Horticultural Society. His book, Gardens of the Arts and Literature of Place: Dwelling their tributaries protect magazine, now owned after seven years with the research concerns the genet- Crafts Movement (New York: on the Land Before Earth Day regions, cities, and neighbor- by BBC publications and dis- New York Public Library, he ics of plant populations as Harry N. Abrams, 2004), 1970 (Charlottesville: Univer- hoods from the worst effects tributed worldwide. In was made president and well as the origins of the was reviewed in Viewpoints sity of Virginia Press, 2005). of urban sprawl: destruction March 2002 Atkins left her chief executive officer of the modern theory of evolution. (Spring/Summer, 2005), of natural areas, a general position as editor of Gardens New York Botanical Garden Justin Spring is a biographer, the predecessor journal to Holly H. Shimizu is the exec- loss of urban character, and Illustrated to become curator where he has presided over a art historian, and curator. Site/Lines. utive director of the United homogenization of the sub- of the Chelsea Physic period of unprecedented His biography of painter and States Botanic Garden in Gerda van Uffelen is the urban landscape. Garden. She is a Fellow of growth and development. critic Fairfield Porter (New Washington, D.C. She has collection manager of the the Linnean Society, serves Haven: Yale University Press, Carol Franklin is a found- Mike Maunder, Ph.D., is had a rich and varied career Hortus Botanicus Leiden. on the Horticultural Board 2000) recently was hailed as ing member of Andropogon executive director of the in public horticulture that She studied fern spores and and the “superb” by the New York Associates, Ltd., a firm that Fairchild Tropical Botanic includes work in many parts has been published on ferns. Committee of the Royal Review of Books. He also has has pioneered the rediscov- Garden in Coral Gables, of the world. Shimizu recog- She is now responsible for Horticultural Society, and is published works on artists ery and celebration of place. Florida. He is a fourth-gen- nizes that the U.S. Botanic the administration of all a trustee of Gardening for Paul Cadmus, Wolf Kahn, She currently is finishing a eration horticulturist with Garden’s location on the plants in the garden and laid the Disabled. Edward Hopper, and Jackson book on a park system in the degrees in plant taxonomy National Mall mandates this out the new systematic dramatic gorge of Philadel- Fabio Garbari is professor of and conservation genetics. institution’s responsibility to garden. She also is involved phia’s Wissahickon Valley Systematic Botany at Pisa educate and inspire people in research concerning and the suburban country- University, director of the about the critical importance the early years of the garden. side directly abutting it. Botanical Gardens and of plants in our lives. Museum of the Department of Biology, and president of

23 Foundation e ok Y10024 NY York, New Street 81st West 7

Volume ii, Number i for Fall 2006 LandscapeStudies Publisher: Foundation for Landscape Studies Board of Directors: Dominique Browning Jay E. Cantor Larry Condon Robin Karson Nancy Newcomb Therese O’Malley Reuben M. Rainey Frederic Rich, Chairman Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Margaret Sullivan

Editor: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Assistant Editors: Thomas Reynolds Margaret Sullivan Copy Editor: Denice Anderson Design: Skeggs Design Contributors: Nina Antonetti Rosie Atkins Fabio Garbari Gregory Long Mike Maunder John Parker Holly H. Shimizu Melanie Simo Justin Spring Judith B. Tankard Gerda van Uffelen

For more information about the Foundation for Landscape Studies visit www.foundation- forlandscapestudies.org, or contact [email protected]

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