Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society Volume 52 Number 3 Summer 1994 Cover: Sedutn pachyclados with Spider Wasp of the family Pomilidae by Cindy Nelson-Nold of Lakewood, Colorado All Material Copyright © 1994 North American Rock Garden Society Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society Features On the Track of Daphne Aabuscula, by Joan Means 163 Calochortus, Sensational Native American Tulips, by Claude Barr 169 Harmony with Nature, by Jaroslav Faiferlik 175 Pacific Treasures for the Temperate Fern Garden, by Sue Olsen 181 South African Journal, Karroo to the Drakensberg, by Panayoti Kelaidis 185 Troughs, a Few More Comments, by Waid Vanderpoel 205 Hypertufa Rocks, by Wayne Kittredge 210 What Do They Want?, by Bob Nold 213 Departments Seed Exchange 215 Awards 217 Plant Portrait 227 Books 228 Daphne arbuscula 162 Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society Vol. 52:3 On the Track of Daphne arbuscula by Joan Means ^A^hen they heard of our plans to Our trip was upcountry, to the rural join a botanic group visiting the Czech parts of these countries that few for• and Slovak Republics during the sum• eigners have visited. Farmland was mer of 1993, our friends had two ques• punctuated by small villages, their tions: "Are you sure you'll be safe?" houses surrounded by gardens con• and "Will you buy me one of those taining everything from Alberta yellow spring gentians that the Czechs spruce to chickens, their streets deco• grow so well?" rated with red floribunda roses—and But Czechoslovakia was not Bosnia by loudspeakers on poles. These origi• or even Miami. Although the country nally relayed government announce• divided its name and territory only six ments, but apparently they've been months before our visit, it was an ami• kept so that residents without cable divorce. Yes, sometimes we Walkmans can enjoy music while they crossed the border between these two work. Usually we stayed in small small Central European nations sever• towns with well-stocked state super• al times in a single day, and each time markets, private shops with rather we had to show our passports to bare shelves, old churches, beer halls, fuzzy-cheeked guards who wore arm• and medieval buildings in the process bands because their uniforms hadn't of restoration. We could easily have yet arrived. And, no, we couldn't buy spent our time sightseeing, but we'd Gentiana verna var. oschtenica. We joined a group from the New England didn't visit any nurseries, and we Wild flower Society in hopes of seeing didn't even visit rock gardens, except Daphne arbuscula in the wild. And we one owned by an abashed forest did find that enchanting miniature ranger—though in several cottage gar• shrub—but not until we'd seen a great dens we did see Trillium grandiflorum many other wonderful plants. growing under apricot trees just a few Happily, we were in the hands of E- feet away from carrots and leeks, not Tours, a Czech firm which is carving to mention Papaver somniferum, univer• out a niche in special-interest tours— sally grown to provide poppy seed for bird-watching, farm practices, wine delicious rolls and pastries. production, etc. For nearly three 163 weeks, starting in late June of 1993, we us to the stores.) As for young Borek, crisscrossed the Carpathian Moun• he spent his evenings switching our tains, and everywhere we were joined reservations from youth hostels to by local botanists and conservationists more "appropriate" quarters and per• ready to help us identify the plants we suading botanists that, no, our group were seeing. This was important, really couldn't manage eight-hour because it was too late in the year to treks over the peaks of the High locate many familiar alpines by their Tatras. His right-hand man was... flowers. Still, other small plants of great interest were in bloom, and they Frank—champion bus driver of the weren't all on the tops of tall peaks. Czech Republic (I couldn't possibly Indeed, because most of our group make this up). Because he was practic• was interested in ferns and orchids, ing for the international competition we had the pleasure of exploring to be held in Finland in August, Frank places most rock gardeners might tended to put the pedal to the metal have bypassed: fields where pink and on the straights, but he could wheel cream scabiosas bloomed along with his big bus over precipitous, rutted thyme and teucrium; magnificent lumber roads where I would have beech forests carpeted with Soldanella opted for a Jeep. Despite a penchant and Hepatica; limestone cliffs studded for flirting with pretty girls and break• with campanulas and, yes, Daphne ing into folk songs, this 30-something arbuscula. native Slovak was a mother hen, con• To fully appreciate our experience, stantly worrying about our comfort you must meet the tour's cast of char• and welfare. When, on the second full acters: day of the trip, my interest in orchids had been so dampened by a down• Paul—our American leader, is a lec• pour that I returned to the bus, Frank turer on wildflowers who told E-Tours took one look at my soggy jeans and he was bringing his "botany students" said, "You take off." I'm past the age to study the flora. Naturally the that excites general male interest, but, Czechs expected a group of young not knowing him well, I declined, adults, so you can imagine the con• although he made his intentions clear• sternation felt by er by offering me a dry pair of his own sweat pants. Borek—a 27-year-old Czech with a degree in forestry, who served as the Finally, there was the bus—large for E-Tours agent and as our interpreter. our small group, washed daily by Though urbane and charming, he Frank, it was equipped with a small clearly was surprised when he first refrigerator to keep bottles of the mag• saw... nificent local beer and the execrable local soft drinks cold. It did not, how• The 16 Students—most of us well past ever, have a toilet. "Why can't you use retirement age. At least two were nature, as we do?" asked young clearly along just for the ride, one Borek. Beech forests are markedly recovering from a hip operation, and deficient in underbrush, so we cam• another an octogenarian unable to paigned for less exposed facilities. No walk without a cane. (Give us an hour doubt Borek will tell his grandchildren for shopping in a little town, though, about the day he escorted a dozen and these two would beat the rest of American ladies to a public loo 164 Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society Vol. 52:3 because, having failed to get us to a vation land, they are carefully cut by bank during the unpredictable work• scythe to preserve late-ripening seed. I ing hours, he was the only one with especially remember, in damp mead• coins in the right currency. ows, red and pink orchids (Dactylo- rhiza majalis and Platanthera chlorantha) Natural functions aside, pollution is mixed with spikes of Gladiolus imbrica- a major problem in both countries. To tus, underplanted by the leaves of keep rural populations employed, the Colchicum autumnale and Primula veris. communists scattered factories every• Drier fields were colorful with tall, where—even tiny towns had at least purple salvias and yellow verbascums, one high-rise block of apartments for the pink cluster-heads of Dianthus workers. As a result, most rivers are carthusianum, and cream Scabiosa full of industrial chemicals, not to ochroleuca, among too many others to mention sewage. In short, they are mention. Nearly every open place where the USA was 30 years ago. Still, boasted a trio of ubiquitous campanu• we were struck by environmental las: lavender C. persicifolia, purple C. efforts that don't require large capital glomerata, and mauve C. patula. Less outlays. Forests are selectively cut or well known, the third is a short-lived clear cut only in very narrow bands; charmer with up-facing bells. Shadier landfills are promptly capped with a spots at the edge of woodlands were layer of earth; even when they have rich with yellow and purple aconites, tractors, farmers use horse-drawn Campanula trachelium, the attractive machinery and hand labor to reduce white buttercups of Ranunculus plan- erosion on steep slopes. Most impres• tanifolius (longer stemmed than its sive, as land is returned to private cousin, R. aconitifolius), Lilium marta- ownership, and it becomes clear that gon (we saw only one white one), and the heirs don't want to farm, small lO'-tall spikes of Delphinium elatum conservation groups are buying up (Foerster cultivars are available in tracts to save them from development. Germany). The white plumes of Many of the glorious meadows and Aruncus Sylvester filled the narrow cuts woodlands we visited, especially in made by selective timbering. Even the the Czech Republic, were in the hands forest floors were gardens: there were of these miniature nature conservan• ferns, of course, but also Paris quadrifo- cies. lia (a trillium relative), Asarum europeum growing mixed with Hepatica As mountains go, most of the nobilis and lily-of-the-valley, Con- Carpathians are small potatoes, just vallaria majalis. low, wooded hills, which east of the Danube sweep in a great half-moon Confusingly, the small plants trea• from Hungary to Poland to the sured by rock gardeners often showed Ukraine. Composed of limestone that up among border plants. Adonis ver- in some places has been carved by nalis and the alpine thistle, Carlina streams into spectacular caves, gorges, acaulis, nestled among tall campanulas and pinnacles—usually crowned by in dry meadows; encrusted saxifrages the ruin of a castle—they boast a flora covered limy outcrops only inches that seems to owe as much to cen• from the tall spires of Digitalis grandi- turies of farming and timbering as to flora; and a mat of 6" stems bearing geographical location.