HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF THE GRAY HERBARIUM Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from BHL-SIL-FEDLINK https://archive.org/details/arnoldia60arno • f “ i: 1 (I I The Magazine df th§^noh GRAY Delicatissimum (1891) Purpureum Grandiflorum (1886) Rhododendron catawbiense US AUG 0 9 2000 OHAY amoidia Volume 60 Number 1 2000 Page 2 Mary Gibson Henry, Plantswoman Arnoldia (ISSN 004-2633; USPS 866-100) is Extraordinaire published quarterly by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Second-class postage paid at Mary Harrison Boston, Massachusetts. 13 Flowering Plants and Their Pollinators at Subscriptions are $20.00 per calendar year domestic, the $25.00 foreign, payable in advance. Single copies of Arnold Arboretum most issues are $5.00; the exceptions are 58/4-59/1 David Giblin (Metasequoia After Fifty Years) and 54/4 (A Source- book of Cultivar Names), which are $10.00. Remit- 20 A Fresh Look at a Traditional Favorite: tances may be made in U.S. dollars, by check drawn Rhododendrons on a U.S. bank; by international money order,- or Richard Brooks by Visa or Mastercard. Send orders, remittances, change-of-address notices, and all other subscription- related communications to; Circulation Manager, 27 Rhododendrons, from The Bulletin of Arnoldia, The Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Popular Information, 1934 Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts 02130-3500. Edgar Anderson Telephone 617/524-1718; facsimile 617/524-1418; e-mail [email protected]. 19 In Pursuit of Ironclads Postmaster: Send address changes to Karen Madsen Arnoldia Circulation Manager The Arnold Arboretum Front cover: Rhododendron 'Big Deal' photographed 125 Arborway by Dick Brooks. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-3500 Karen Madsen, Editor Inside covers: Watercolor drawings of petals from Andy Winther, Designer "ironclad" hybrid rhododendrons and their common parent. Rhododendron catawbiense. The hybrids are Editorial Committee among the oldest rhododendrons in the Arboretum Phyllis Andersen (year planted is in parenthesis), all were imported Ellen S. Bennett from England. Painted by C. H. L. Gebfert as a guide Robert E. Cook to identification by color, 1931. Archives of the Peter Del Tredici Arnold Arboretum. Gary Roller Stephen A. Spongberg Back cover: Hand-colored photograph of rhododen- Kim E. Tripp drons at 'Wellesley', where H. H. Hunnewell Copyright © 2000. The President and Fellows of conducted many of the early hardiness trials. Harvard College Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. Mary Gibson Henry, Plantswoman Extraordinaire Mary Harrison n the eighteenth century the amateur was a familiar breed of botanist, especially in Colonial I America. lohn Bartram, who was to become the king's botanist in 1765, learned his art through expe- rience in the field and by corresponding with horti- culturists and botanists on both sides of the Atlantic, lane Golden, sometimes referred to as America's first woman botanist, learned from her father and the hooks he procured for her, and through correspon- dence with botanists who admired her ability to rec- ognize unusual species around her home in New York State. In the twentieth century the tradition continued and was represented especially well by Mary Gibson Henry. Mary Henry was born in 1884 at her grandparents' house near Jenkinstown, Pennsylvania, to Susan Worrell Pepper and lohn Howard Gibson. Her mother's family were Quakers who had come from England with William Penn and taken part in the founding of Philadelphia. Horticulture was a tradi- tional pursuit on both sides of the family. George Pepper, a great-grandfather, had been a member of the first Council of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 1828, and her Gibson grandfather, a keen plantsman, had his own greenhouse. Her father enjoyed hunting and camping, and contributed to her interest in the natural world. The home of Mary's family was in the center of Philadelphia and had no garden, but before her father's death in 1894, the family often visited Moosehead Lake in Maine. There, under her father's influence, her familiarity with the countryside devel- oped. She became especially interested in native plants, and her first acquaintanceship with twin- Mary Gibson Henry (second from left) photographed in the ballroont of her grandparents’ house, ‘Maybrook’. in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. To her left is her daughter fosephine deNemours Henry, and at her right is her aunt Mary Klett Gibson. At the far right is her daughter Mary Gibson Henry Davis. i Mary Gibson Henry 3 RESEARCH BOTANICAL FOR FOUNDATION HENRY THE OF COURTESY PHOTOS, ALL 4 Arnoldia 60/1 flower (Linnaea borealis), a dwarf evergreen distant places—Trees and Shrubs from a nursery shrub, awakened in her "not only a love for and in Tunbridge Wells, England; Coolidge Rare appreciation of the absolute perfection of the Plant Gardens (1923) from a California nursery; flower itself, hut also for the dark, silent forest Himalayan and Indigenous Plants, Bulbs, that shelters such treasures." Many years later Seeds (1927) from a nursery in Bengal, India. (1932) she came upon this plant again, in north- Seed lists came from the U.S. Department of ern British Columbia, growing "in damp, shady Agriculture's Office of Foreign Plant Introduc- woods, in lower altitudes and on hare, bleak, tions, and from the Royal Botanic Garden, stony mountain tops up to 6000 feet." Edinburgh, which she had visited in 1923. (Fol- Mary attended the Agnes Irwin School in lowing that visit Mrs. Henry initiated a corre- Philadelphia for six years,- when she left in 1902, spondence with the R.B.G.'s Regius Keeper, her formal education ended. In the years follow- William Wright-Smith, that lasted until he died ing school she visited the Grand Canyon and in 1956. Indeed, Wright-Smith was among the the Colorado Rockies, and on a trip to Europe earliest of several mentors to whom she looked she climbed Mont Blanc with her brother and for professional advice.) several guides. In 1926 the Henrys bought Gladwyne, a run- In 1909 she married John Norman Henry, a down farm of ninety hilly acres twelve miles physician who later became Philadelphia's from the center of Philadelphia, where they director of public health as well as president of hoped to combine the functions of their Phila- the General Alumni Society of the University of delphia and Maryland homes. As the Henrys' Pennsylvania. The couple first lived in Philadel- architect described it, a greenhouse was built phia where Mrs. Henry had "a nice backyard . with a house attached. Planting must have and a tiny greenhouse." In 1915 they acquired a begun immediately, for a 1928 inventory of large farm in Maryland with a view to building the Gladwyne garden records over 200 shrubs a home there. The plan was abandoned when and plants, with multiple varieties of several World War I interfered and Dr. Henry volun- species—seven Cornus florida and three Hama- teered for duty overseas. Nevertheless, long melis vernalis, for example. Mrs. Henry's inter- summers spent in existing bungalows on the est in diversity within a single species was property allowed Mrs. Henry to develop a large later reflected in her passion for collecting kitchen garden, acquire some exotic ornamen- and hybridizing and an unflagging pursuit tals, and experiment with native rock plants. of particular colors and dimensions. By 1931 In addition to gardening in Maryland, she there were some 850 trees and shrubs in her gar- cultivated orchids in the Philadelphia green- den, some of them new Asiatic finds acquired house, and in 1924 she published an essay on from the collectors Forrest, Wilson, Rock, the subiect in Garden Magazine. She read Farrer, and Ward. widely in horticulture and botany, and it was Another of Mrs. Henry's early mentors was her reading during this period that first devel- Francis Pennell, curator of botany at the Acad- oped her interest in wild plants of the southeast- emy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, from ern United States. Two books were of special whom she sought help with identification. significance to her, Manual of the Southeastern When she expressed an interest in collecting Flora by 1. K. Small and The Travels of William wild plants for her garden, it was he who urged Bartram, which she found an "unending source her to collect herbarium specimens along with of inspiration." the plants and schooled her in how to document Time to indulge horticultural interests was her finds. limited, however, for Mrs. Henry quickly In part, Mrs. Henry attributed her desire to became the mother of five children, the young- collect to William Bartram. His glowing descrip- est of whom died at the age of six. Although tion of Rhododendron speciosum flammeum basically confined to home during the twenties, (now R. speciosum] had fired her desire to she continued to expand her knowledge about acquire a specimen, and when her search in plants by studying nursery catalogs, often from commercial outlets and botanical gardens Mary Gibson Henry 5 RESEARCH Henry was also accompanied by her daughter Josephine, a skilled photog- BOTANICAL rapher who took color photographs of plants later used by Mrs. Henry in her lectures. FOR On her first trip to the Southeast she ION ' covered 2,000 miles and on that and later trips collected seven color varia- FOUNDA tions of Rhododendron speciosum. Later expeditions were made along HENRY the Atlantic Coastal Plain, on the THE Piedmont Plateau, in Appalachia, and OF in the mountains of east Tennessee ESY and Alabama. Mrs. Henry planted her I finds at Gladwyne and sent herbarium COUR specimens to the Academy of Natural History in Philadelphia and the Royal HENRY Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. Experience quickly taught her that JOSEPHINE "rare and beautiful plants can be found in places that are difficult of access. Often one has to shove one's self through or wriggle under briars, with awkward results to clothing .