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Page arnoldia 4 Wilderness Horticulture: Himalayan High- lands on the Hudson John Gwynne Volume 50 Number 1 Winter 1990 13 Landscaping for Realism: Simulating the Natural Habitats of Zoo Animals Arnoldia (ISBN 004-2633; USPS 866-100) is published Donald W. Jackson quarterly, m winter, spring, summer, and fall, by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. 22 An African Tropical Forest in Boston Matthew A. Thurlow Subscriptions are $20.00 per calendar year domestic, 24 The Arnold Arboretum in Winter: A Photo $25.00 per calendar year foreign, payable m advance. Single copies are $5.00. All remittances must be in Essay U.S. dollars, by check drawn on a U.S. bank, or by in- Istvdn Rdcz and Zsolt Debreczy ternational money order. Send subscription orders, remittances, change-of-address notices, and all other 30 Why Do Rhododendron Leaves Curl? subscription-related communications to: Helen G Erik Tallak Nilsen Shea, Circulation Manager, Amoldia, The Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 36 Kolomikta Kiwi 02130-3519. Telephone (617) 524-1718. Gary L. Koller Postmaster: Send address changes to: Amoldia, Circulation Manager The Arnold Arboretum 125 Arborway Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-3519. Copyright @ 1990, The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Front cover: A close-up of the male inflorescence of Salix gracilistyla at the Arnold Arboretum. Photo by Gary Mottau. Peter Del Tredici, Editor Inside front cover: Rhododendron Helen G. Shea, Circulation Manager yakusimanum curled up m response to the cold. Judith Leet, Copy Editor Back cover: Actmidia kolomikta m full variegation. Photographed at the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley, England, by Nan Smton. Arnoldia is set m Trump Mediaeval typeface and Inside back cover: Rhododendron yakusimanum in prmted by the Office of the University Publisher, the uncurled and curled state. Photos by Racz and Harvard Umversity. Debreczy. m Special Issue Zoo Horticulture: Plants and Animals Together at Last For most of this century, the term zoological behaviors and, if all goes well, will reproduce garden has seemed a misnomer, mocked by successfully. Indeed, habitat exhibits evolved frustrated animals pacing back and forth in partly out of public concern and, in some barren cages. Over the past twenty years, cases, outrage over the conditions endured by however, the reality of this grim image has many of the animals. slowly been eroding. New zoo design strate- A second force driving the evolution of gies have transformed animal enclosures into habitat exhibits is their powerful influence on "habitat exhibits" which combine plants with the way visitors perceive zoo animals. other naturalistic elements to simulate the Designers of habitat exhibits supplant the look and feel of "wild" nature. often depressing experience of viewing Horticulture has come of age in the field of animals in metal cages with that of being zoo management, as carefully crafted plant- immersed in a wild landscape, where barriers ings are seen as contributing both to the wel- between animals and the visitor are fare of the captive animals and to the minimized. In some exhibits, traditional roles enjoyment and education of visitors. This are reversed, and the visitor gets the feeling issue of Arnoldia displays a small sampling of being confined, while the animal roams of the creativity and skill that can be found free. in the modern zoological landscape. The net result of these changes is that the The creation of realistic habitat simulations visitor’s appreciation of the animals is in zoos serves two important purposes. It enhanced, and the link between animals, their recognizes, first, that in nature animals exist habitats, and conservation is permanently in specific environments and, second, that the etched on the mind of the viewer. At long last closer an enclosure can approximate the zoological gardens across the country are animal’s natural home, the greater the proba- beginning to live up to their names. bility the animal will exhibit more natural A field of small boulders used to protect grasses and wildflowers from the constant pressure of half-grown snow leopards at play. New York Zoological Society Photo. Wilderness Horticulture: Himalayan Highlands on the Hudson John Gwynne Plants are playing an increasingly important role in the "immersion" exhibits of leading zoos. Imagine searching for a glimpse of the elusive come across a flimsy rustic bridge of rope-tied snow leopard in the high Himalayan wilds. logs fitted between great boulders spanning a Your imagined trek would depart from main steep-sided mountain brook where ferns, roads to wander narrow uphill footpaths, past Ligularia, and candelabra primula grow in the thickets of wild magnolias and overarching moist soil. bamboo, through groves of fir and birch, and Terrific! A mother snow leopard with two up steep grassy meadows dotted with purple- cubs is spotted among the talus boulders of blue Geranium himalayense. Perhaps you’d the grassy slope. Crouching behind boulders, Millions of Amencans can now witness a snow leopard m the snow - a sight previously seen by only a few field scientists. New York Zoological Society Photo. 5 The Himalayan Highlands exhibit has room for people to read graphic messages about conservation. the cats are almost perfectly camouflaged, Asia. Together, they moved mountains of soil tails slowly twitching, as a scarlet-chested and scree, planted thickets of bamboo and tragopan pheasant works its way down the twenty-five-foot firs, and even sculpted rocky hillside, pecking at wind-scattered grass seeds. outcrops and a great fallen tree of steel, con- Just such an experience formed the basis for crete, and epoxy to match the site’s geology the design of a new type of ecological exhibi- and woodlands. Named "Himalayan High- tion recently created, not in the mountain lands the exhibition at the Bronx Zoo offered wilds of Nepal or China, but in an oak wood the opportunity to build a sanctuary for snow in New York City. Here a determined team of leopards, red pandas, white-naped cranes, and zoologists, field scientists, exhibition Temminck’s tragopans. The design team also designers, landscape architects, horticul- purposely created a dynamic place where visi- turists, sculptors, welders, and graphics tors are encouraged to learn about wilderness, specialists-all employed by the New York about the importance of plant-animal inter- Zoological Society-joined efforts to build a actions, and of the urgent need for special con- place that captures the feeling of montane servation efforts. 6 Potential for Public Education ways, so that visitors would feel immersed in While conceiving of Himalayan Highlands as the same environment as the animals. a naturalistic place for animals, the design Without having to read, they would see a team also recognized the potential to enhance snow leopard teaching her cubs or a crane the visitor’s appreciation of wild places and probing for tubers along a pond edge, and they wild species. The challenge was to transcend would be able to learn how this bit of nature typical zoo formulas, which concentrate on works. Unlike traditional zoo design where exhibiting animals within containments that the manmade dominates, here the intent was are clearly manmade (buildings, architectural to recreate a wild environment worth explor- moats, fences, faux rock cliffs) and that deal ing, worth learning about, and worth with the animals’ natural ecology only preserving. second-hand by means of signs or explana- The primary educational goal for tions by docents. Himalayan Highlands was to impart an over- Himalayan Highlands was to be different, all affective message-to get people to care. a place that would try to create the primary Educational graphics were carefully designed experience of a trek across an Asian hillside. to provide a subtle yet important sublayer of While transporting an actual mountain slope interpretation; for example, a replica of a intact would have been optimal, the more weathered ibex skull encourages people to practical challenge was to recreate enough read a small sign discussing leopard diets. similar elements, combined in appropriate Messages deal with plants, habitats, animal Visitors wander through a simulated wilderness landscape in the Himalayan Highlands exhibit. 7 ecology, and conservation; and a concentrated insured that such manmade elements as effort was involved in their writing, fabrica- structural poles were hidden by rocks or tion, and siting so that they seem to fit into plants, or disguised within the rustic vernacu- the landscape. lar architecture of Nepal. Authentic cultural details were used to reinforce the sense of with Bulldozers Sculpting place: prayer flags marked exhibit entrances, Because zoo biology mandates a barrier a pile of prayer stones were placed along the between animals and visitors, it was decided public path, and architectural details were to separate the two by giving most of the painted by a Nepalese artist. When setting woodlands to the animals and by restricting boulders to support rustic bridges, skilled people to a winding path that leads around New York masons were asked to transcend rocks and plantings to several viewing struc- their usual professional neatness by building tures. So in one place a wood ramp was walls in a haphazard and unsound-looking designed to bring people up to a viewing deck fashion with no mortar showing, a detail that that cantilevers toward the woodland treetops helps achieve the look of nature reclaiming favored by red pandas for their daytime roost- human efforts. ing. In another spot, a blind of rough poles was Special efforts were made to bring in many built in a wild-looking, ten-foot-tall thicket of tons of topsoil and talus and to regrade the giant Miscanthus grass providing an open site-where possible around existing trees- view into a marshy pond for the cranes. to create a rough undulating topography and In another location, the rustic underside of multiple microclimates for new plant com- a Nepalese bridge provided the model for a munities.

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