Volume 2, Issue 11
Hidden Gems of the Miller Library, Part II:
works relating to Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717)
reviewed by Laura Blumhagen

In this ongoing series, Library staff share favorite finds from among the many diverse resources found here.

It began with a simple question from a library visitor: "What do you have on Merian?" The answer: we've collected a surprising array of useful and fascinating works on this early scientist and illustrator.

Besides Kim Todd's 2007 biography Chrysalis (published by Harcourt and pictured at left), the library has an impressively annotated 1998 catalogue of her work, a 1991 Dover reprint of all 154 engravings from her book on caterpillars, a catalogue of her St. Petersburg watercolors, and even a 2010 children's book, Summer Birds, which I look forward to featuring as part of a story program this coming spring. Several other more general works touch on Merian's legacy, including Amazing Rare Things by David Attenborough.

After a quick search of the online Garden Literature Index (available for use in the library), I found several journal articles, including a fascinating piece from the March 2009 edition of The Irish Garden on her life and work. In fact, The Botanical Artist (a quarterly publication of the American Society of Botanical Artists) just ran a story about Merian's work in Surinam in their June issue, available in print here at the library.

  Paintings and Prints by Molly Hashimoto

Seattle artist and teacher Molly Hashimoto explores the flora and fauna of the West, from both garden and wild habitats, in watercolors and block prints. This year's exhibit features all new work, including many birds, and prints of Western conifers of the coast and timberline plus watercolors of favorite flowers playfully painted from her own garden. Molly's work is published by Pomegranate as cards, calendars, puzzles and books; many of those items will be offered for sale with the prints and paintings.

Molly's work will be on display in the Miller Library November 5 through December 28. She invites you to an opening reception November 5 from 5 to 7pm.

Ask the Plant Answer Line:
How and when did Eastern gray squirrels arrive in the Pacific Northwest?
by Rebecca Alexander

I consulted the book Invasive Species in the Pacific Northwest (ed. by Boersma, Reichard and Van Buren; University of Washington Press, 2006), and there is a section on Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) and Fox squirrel (Sciurus niger). In both cases, the species were introduced to the West Coast around 1925, "primarily as pets and as charismatic lawn ornaments on estates and campuses." (There is no specific information about the University of Washington or the Arboretum.) The same information is mentioned on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife website.

This article mentions the introduction of squirrels in the Olmsted and Vaux-designed Central Park in New York City in 1877; since the Olmsted Brothers were designers of the Arboretum in Seattle, one could extrapolate that they suggested introducing the non-native squirrels here, too. Excerpt:

New York City was at the forefront of this development, inaugurating a second and ultimately much more consequential phase of squirrel introductions to urban areas, including, eventually, to cities such as Seattle and London, which were well outside the native range of the gray squirrel. (In some North American cities a behaviorally similar species, the fox squirrel [Sciurus niger], was introduced alongside or instead of the eastern gray squirrel.) In 1877, just a few years after the official completion of Central Park in accordance with Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's 1858 Greensward Plan, the staff of the Central Park Menagerie released a handful of gray squirrels, flying squirrels, and chipmunks in the Ramble, a wooded “wild garden” of about thirty-eight acres located roughly near the center of the park. The population of gray squirrels was supplemented the following year by an additional thirty pairs. By 1883, just six years after the first release, the park's gray squirrels had expanded in number and range to the point that the menagerie's director, William Conklin, told the press that he was considering a cull to reduce their impact on the park's trees, which the squirrels had stripped of leaves and small branches to make their nests.¹⁴

The article above cites this article from The Murrelet, Sep-Dec 1941, Exotic squirrels in the Seattle area, by Martha Flahaut. Flahaut states the the Northern gray squirrel "was originally imported about 1920 by the Seattle Park Board at the suggestion of the Director of the Woodland Park Zoo. Several pairs were brought from Minneapolis and liberated in the Park, with the idea that they would be more attractive to visitors than the shy, unobtrusive Douglas pine squirrel which is native. The original pairs were accustomed to city life and soon established themselves in Woodland Park and vicinity. Since that time the colony has multiplied rapidly, and has spread out in a radius of at least three miles." The author mentions the possibility that the species "has spread farther south along the shore of Lake Washington" as well. No doubt about that!

New to the Library October 2015