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William Bartram's Evening Primrose and Seeds from Alabama

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William Bartram's Evening Primrose and Seeds from Alabama The A NewsletterTraveller of the Bartram Trail Conference Fall, 2008 An Update from Bartram’s Garden: William Bartram’s Evening Primrose and Seeds from Alabama Joel T. Fry We have had equal success with Ala- bama seeds collected on the east side of Mobile Bay at D’Olive Creek in Daphne. Joel Fry is Curator of Bartram’s Garden, lo- cated on the property of John and William We expected many would take more than Bartram in Philadelphia. He collected seeds one cold season to germinate, but most and plants from the Tensaw Delta in Alabama came up this spring, at least in small num- while attending the 2007 Bartram Trail Con- bers. We have small plants of Alabama ference. Here is his report… supplejack, wild olive, red bay, Carolina laurelcherry, and perennial saltmarsh as- e have had surprising good luck ter, which has even begun flowering. It with both plants and seeds from turns out this same saltmarsh aster had AlabamaW at Bartram’s Garden this year. been collected by John Bartram “on the As noted in the spring 2008 issue of The beech of cape may” New Jersey, probably Traveller, a plant of William Bartram’s October 10, 1741. John Bartram’s speci- “most pompous and brilliant herbaceous men was sent to his first patron and sur- plant,” the golden evening-primrose or vives in Lord Peter’s Hortus Siccus at the Oenothera grandiflora, was brought from Sutro Library in San Francisco. The Ala- near Stockton, Alabama to Bartram’s bama supplejack or rattan vine is about a Garden in Philadelphia. The root quite foot high and beginning to twine around happily survived the winter and has been things. growing immense all summer. There are Most of these plants are in a single now probably a dozen stems, five to six William Bartram’s “most pompous and bril- raised nursery bed in a sheltered spot and feet tall. In spite of the luxuriant growth, liant herbaceous plant” Oenothera grandiflora the seeds survived the northern winter only in the last week of August has it be- blooming at Bartram’s Garden on the morning of with a light mulch of saltmarsh hay. In the gun to form flower buds, with the first September 5, 2008. same bed next year we hope to see some opening on August 27th. With the stock germination of yaupon, odorless bayberry of developing buds, it looks like it will waste places in the city of Philadelphia and farkleberry, and perhaps more exam- soon be flowering in abundance. since late June and most are almost done ples of the same species that came up this I’m not sure if the rather late bloom time flowering for the year. There is certainly a year. is natural for this species, or the result of family resemblance between the common We also have a nice crop of halberdleaf drought from mid-summer onward, or re- species and William Bartram’s giant eve- rosemallow from seed from the Tensaw peated attacks by Japanese beetles. During ning primrose, but the Alabama plant is River. This is something that might have July it was possible to pull handfuls of bee- much larger and the flowers much larger, once been found as a rare plant in Phila- tles off the plant daily. The plant survived lighter yellow, and perhaps stronger scent- delphia marshes, but is more often seen in the period with riddled leaves, but contin- ed. What we are most hoping is that it will the Southeast. John and William Bartram ued to grow. The common evening prim- produce a lot of seed so we can be sure to definitely encountered it in Virginia and ❖ rose, Oenothera biennis, has been bloom- continue William’s evening primrose here the Carolinas. ing elsewhere at the garden and in weedy in future, and distribute some seed. 1 Mark Dion Installation Meet Your Fellow Bartram Opens at Bartram’s Garden Trail Conference Members John Ray ohn Ray is a physicist. He understands general relativity, does computer simu- lations,J taught at three universities, pub- lished about 150 peer-reviewed papers, and directed Ph.D. dissertations. If you are looking for him, however, don’t expect to see him hunched over a keyboard, or crunching numbers, or scrawling symbols on a chalkboard. You are more likely to find his six foot, four inch frame hauling an axe through a for- est. Once a student of gravity, John now struggles against its tug as he maintains the Bartram Trail in the northernmost Mark Dion examines a few of the thousands of objects he collected on his journey. reaches of Georgia. Aaron Igler/Greenhouse Media This Indiana boy, with a Ph.D. from Ohio University, spent thirty-three years artram’s Garden in Philadelphia grain of popular culture, to challenge on the faculty of Clemson University be- opened Mark Dion’s Travels of perception and convention. Appropri- fore retiring to the town of Central, South WilliamB Bartram—Reconsidered in June. ating archaeological and other scientific Carolina. Along the way, he spotted a his- The installation features modern-day methods of collecting, ordering, and torical marker sign that told of William natural and man-made items collected exhibiting objects, Dion creates works Bartram’s passage through the piedmont and catalogued by Dion and his team that question the distinctions between of the Palmetto State. When he learned more about Bartram, John tried to hike as they retraced some of Bartram’s jour- ‘objective’ (‘rational’) scientific meth- ods and ‘subjective’ (‘irrational’) influ- the Bartram trail in Georgia. After get- neys across southeastern America that ting lost several times, he discussed the ences. His works have appeared at the were featured in Bartram’s Travels. trail with the Forest Service ranger in “Most people don’t realize that Wil- Museum of Modern Art in New York, Clayton, Georgia. The ranger talked John liam Bartram was the first true Ameri- the Tate Museum in London, Carn- and his hiking partner, Malcolm Skove, can travel writer,” said Dion. “He was egie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and into writing a hiking guide for the trail. also a great artist, drawing natural ob- other museums and galleries around the Within a year, they had completed the jects and wildlife, an avid adventurer, world. Dion has also been an artist-in- guide. During that time, the pair hiked and a progressive naturalist. All these residence at the Museum of Natural the Bartram several times and started do- things drew me to his work and to find- History in London. ing maintenance. He continues to travel ing what Bartram would have found if Dion began his journey in Novem- the 3-hour round trip from his home to he had taken his journey in 2008 instead ber 2007. Working with groups of col- spend between 50 and 100 days a year maintaining the trail. Occasionally, a few of 1773.” leagues, he completed fifty separate excursions in April 2008. More than people join him on these outings. As a re- Mark Dion is a well-known con- sult, serious and casual hikers can locate 10,000 items made their way into his temporary artist and sculptor. His work the trail and find their way along its well- examines the ways in which dominant containers. Among them are bugs, kept track. ideologies and public institutions shape plants, dolls, tools, chess pieces and John has written four trail guides: Geor- our understanding of history, knowl- shot glasses. They came from eleven flea gia Bartram Trail, North Carolina Bar- edge, and the natural world. The job of markets, twenty-two junk stores, thirty- tram Trail, Appletree Group Camp Trails, the artist, he says, is to go against the continued on page 4 continued on page 9 2 New Look and New Information for www.bartramtrail.org By Brad Sanders he Bartram Trail Conference web site will take on a new look in Oc- tober.T Already the number two Google hit for William Bartram, coming right after the Wikipedia entry, the site will offer new features and more informa- tion. Among the major additions are the final sections of Bartram Heritage, which I have scanned and will make available online. Bartram Heritage was published in 1979 by the Bartram Trail Conference, under contract with the United States Department of the Inte- rior. Scores of researchers and dozens of institutions participated in creating this report on the feasibility of a Bartram National Scenic Trail. The commit- tee reported on primary and secondary Bartram heritage sites, and wrote about the life and legacy of William Bartram. The Heritage report is out of print and has been hard to obtain for some years now. Making the complete Bartram Heri- tage available online has been a goal of the Bartram Trail Conference and this fall that goal will be realized. What is involved in completing the final two sections of Bartram Heritage is to scan the pages, then use OmniPage to con- cause GoLive has been supplanted by will allow for more timely addition of vert the images to text. I clean up the Dreamweaver as the preferred author- news and events. errors that OmniPage makes, which are ing program for web designers, I had amazingly few, and place the text in new to spend a few weeks learning the new Check out the web site (www.bartram. pages. The maps are scanned and linked software. While that has required me org) in late October and see for yourself. ❖ to the text pages. to move the older files to the new for- A new section on the site will fea- mat, it has allowed the use of Cascad- ture images of Bartram Trail historical ing Style Sheets to make the web site Brad Sanders teaches graphic design at Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, Georgia.
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