The Multifarious Mr. Banks : from Botany Bay to Kew, the Natural Historian Who Shaped the World

[The Multifarious Mr. Banks] cover

Joseph Banks was indeed multifarious. Webster defines the term as “having or occurring in great varieties.” Garden lovers might know that Banks became famous after collecting plants on a round-the-world voyage with Captain Cook on the Endeavour in 1768-71, and that he developed and guided Kew Gardens for decades. Toby Musgrave does justice to these huge accomplishments. What he adds is the astonishing range of other ways that Banks influenced the horticultural world – and often other worlds – in late 18th and early 19th century England and beyond.

The book is organized chronologically through the account of Banks’s Endeavour voyage and a smaller one to Iceland, but then proceeds by subject through other areas of Banks’s activities.

Banks was very wealthy. He was endlessly curious. He apparently knew everyone of any importance in England and many others on the Continent and in America. He had an outgoing and friendly personality. James Boswell describes him as “an elephant, quite placid and gentle, allowing you to get upon his back or play with his proboscis,” (p. 187), as opposed to another world traveler (Scottish explorer James Bruce) who was “a tiger that growled whenever you approached him.”

Banks was also a firm believer in progress and in empire (which 21st century readers might be less enthusiastic about). Musgrave shows us Banks’s close relationship with King George III, that nemesis of the American Revolution. “Farmer George,” as the king was called, loved Kew Gardens and walked in it with Banks regularly. In Banks’s decades-long efforts finding new plants and acquiring them for Kew, he remained focused on how plants could be used as crops or resources to aid the empire.

Banks belonged to more that 70 clubs and societies. It’s hard to imagine how he did all this and still managed his own multiple properties, regularly updating them with new planting plans. The most prominent society activity for him was his position as president of the Royal Society, a title he held for 41½ years beginning in 1778. In all these activities Banks assisted other scientists in a multiplicity of areas, giving counsel, offering connections, and sometimes providing cash.

When England needed a new site for prisoners, after Georgia was no longer available due to American independence, Banks weighed in on proposing Botany Bay in Australia as an appropriate location. He also pulled strings and even arranged smuggling a prize breed of Merino sheep from Spain, to the benefit of Australia as well as England.

Through his connections and frequent correspondence with members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham (which included Erasmus Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Joseph Priestly), with a great many others, and through his own study, “Banks became an acknowledged expert in a wide range of subjects including agriculture, botanic gardens, canals, cartography, coinage, colonization, currency, drainage, earthquakes, economic botany, exploration, farming, leather tanning, Merino sheep, plant pathology, and even the plucking of geese” (p. 281). Multifarious indeed.

This is a real biography, based on copious research. Musgrave avoids fictional conversations and mostly stays away from suggesting what Banks “must have thought.” Fortunately, the author is not afraid to express an opinion, such as that Banks behaved very badly in breaking his engagement to Harriet Blosset. Mostly the story Musgrave tells is one of amazing positives, ending with his justified assessment of Banks as a “great and remarkable man”(p. 332).

Published in the Leaflet, November 2021, Volume 8, Issue 11.

Ponderosa : People, Fire, and the West’s Most Iconic Tree

[Ponderosa] cover

For many years, I would travel to eastern Washington for Thanksgiving. On these trips, I was always struck by the seemingly sudden appearance of ponderosa pine trees (Pinus ponderosa) when crossing the Spokane County line, after many miles of agricultural fields or grasslands. These stately trees created a park-like setting as they were well-spaced, with little undergrowth. It seemed idyllic.

Ponderosa: People, Fire, and the West’s Most Iconic Tree by Carl E. Fiedler and Stephen F. Arno helped me to understand this ecosystem better. These ponderosa-dominated forests are found in places of “climatic moderation,” typically sharing “boundaries with drier grasslands below and moister, mixed conifer forests above.”

Several of these forests can be found throughout the western United States. In addition to Spokane, other cities in Oregon, Nevada, northern Arizona, and even as far east as South Dakota have similar settings. Prior to Euro-American settlements, these were desirable places for indigenous peoples and for the animal life that often sustained them.

The recent story of the ponderosa pine is closely linked to the timber industry, starting about the time of the California gold rush in the mid-1800s, and ongoing to the present. The authors chronicle in great detail the evolving practices and debates about managing forest lands, especially fires. Should all fires be extinguished at all costs? Should fire be used as a tool? What are the best practices to prevent catastrophic damage to human settlements? These questions have been long debated, and this book’s history is useful in understanding the elements of this debate.

The end of the book includes descriptions of several prominent ponderosa forests listed by state. In Washington, this includes the White Pass Scenic Byway and, surprisingly, the area around Fort Lewis near Tacoma. Ponderosas generally don’t compete well with other conifers in the more humid, western side of the Cascades, but this may be a remnant from a warmer and drier time.

This book was published in 2015. The same authors teamed up for a book in 2020 about another iconic tree: Douglas Fir: The Story of the West’s Most Remarkable Tree. I recommend both for a better understanding of the history and ecology of the forest lands in the western North America.

Published in Leaflet for Scholars, November 2021, Volume 8, Issue 11.

The Cactus Family

Edward Anderson was for 30 years a biology professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla before finishing his career at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The Cactus Family is the culmination of his life’s work as, sadly, he died shortly after publication, but more importantly because it will be a long-time standard reference for these popular plants.

While not a gardener’s book–a chapter on cultivation is included but is by a different author–this provides a superb view of the remarkable diversity of cacti, well captured by excellent photographs, most by the author and many in situ. Highly recommend, too, are the chapters on ethnobotany and conservation of cacti, which illustrate how important these plants have been and continue to be throughout their range in North and South America.

Excerpted from the Summer 2012 Arboretum Bulletin.

Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

[Urban Forestry & Urban Greening] cover

One of the more popular periodical publications in the Miller Library is Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, a peer-reviewed, internationally-focused journal published 10 times per year. The publisher (Elsevier) describes the focus as “urban and peri-urban woody and non-woody vegetation and its use, planning, design, establishment and management.”

The editors accept submissions on a wide range of topics under the urban umbrella, including everything from the expected arboriculture and horticulture to urban planning and design, public health, and even environmental psychology. The intended audience includes academics but also policymakers and landscape professionals.

The current and upcoming issues demonstrate this breadth of topics. One report discusses stormwater infrastructure designs, showing that the preferences of professionals and laypeople are often quite different. Another article outlines the challenges of developing “an effective forest therapy program to manage academic stress in conservative societies,” using Malaysia as the model. Closer to home, researchers from the University of British Columbia study “urban green equity on the ground” using Portland (Oregon), Phoenix, and New York City as their models to compare.

Many of the articles are available to download from the journal’s website (linked from the Miller Library’s catalog entry); however, the library maintains a print collection dating from the release of volume 1 in 2002. Visit the library and browse through this impressive journal.

Published in Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2019

An Illustrated History of the Herbals

[book title] cover

While researching the oldest books in the Miller Library’s collection, I discovered a much more recent gem. An Illustrated History of the Herbals by Frank Anderson quickly became a valuable resource in my study of our rare books.

I say recent – but that is relative. Anderson’s book dates from 1977, when he was honorary curator of rare books and manuscripts for the New York Botanical Garden. Honorary, because this was his retirement career after many years working for the U.S. Postal Service. According to his obituary in the New York Times (August 20, 1994), he “had his first official link with the garden’s library in 1968 when he answered an ad seeking a ‘mature’ person to serve as book shelver.”

Although it was his second career, Anderson proved a talented student of ancient writings on botany. He was also a superb writer. I have read several other such histories; he often clarifies topics that I struggled to understand as presented by other authors. This is an easy book to read from cover to cover and along the way you’ll learn the history of plants and their uses from 70 to 1700 C.E.

He had great wit, too. In describing one book in the Miller collection: “The title page of the Theater of Plants, to use its English name, proclaims it as ‘An Herball of Large Extent.’ It is, for there are 1,755 folio sized pages…if a reader should happen to drop it on his foot he would be well advised to consult the passages on comfrey or other plants good for mending broken bones.”

Published in the Leaflet, Volume 6, Number 11, November 2019.

Legacy of Trees: Purposeful Wandering in Vancouver’s Stanley Park

“Legacy of Trees: Purposeful Wandering in Vancouver’s Stanley Park” has an unusual way of telling the story of a public park. The intent of author Nina Shoroplova in writing the book was to allow herself the “purposeful wandering” of the sub-title. She skillfully brings the reader along on this journey, using individual trees as markers and the focus in telling the natural and human history of this peninsula and the adjacent, densely populated city.

This makes for an engaging book to read, but a hard one to describe. While it is helpful if you are planning to explore the park, I recommend it more for reading as a narrative before going. I gained much understanding and appreciation for the indigenous and many immigrant nationalities that make up the city of today, as well as the importance of trees in all cultures.

Shoroplova gives much of the credit for the early history she recounts to Major James Skitt Matthews (1878-1970), who established the city archives and like herself was from Wales. She describes him as an “irascible Welshman who insisted on single-handedly seeking out and detailing the early stories of Vancouver.”

For more recent history, the author consulted with living experts, including interviewing Alleyne Cook, shortly before he died in his 90s. Cook designed and established the very popular Ted and Mary Grieg Rhododendron Garden, a 22-year project completed in the 1980s. Shoroplova skillfully weaves the story of bringing rhododendrons from the Grieg’s remote specialty nursery on Vancouver Island and incorporating them, along with complimentary flowering trees, into the existing landscape.

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

A Passion for Clematis: Celebrating 50 years of the Rogerson Clematis Collection

Brewster Rogerson (1921-2015) spent most of his academic career teaching English at Kansas State University. The purchase of four clematis plants began the focus of the latter part of his life, leading after retirement to his move to Oregon for a climate more conducive to his favorite genus.

His efforts to develop a comprehensive collection is recounted in “A Passion for Clematis” by the Friends of the Rogerson Clematis Collection. Now grown at the Luscher Farm, owned by the City of Lake Oswego, Oregon, this assemblage is one of the newer horticultural treasures to visit in the Pacific Northwest.

The garden is divided into many sections, all highlighted in this short book. These include heirlooms more than hundred years old, species and cultivars from different regions of the world, and Rogerson’s favorite selections. If one is overwhelmed by these choices, a beginner’s garden demonstrates several easy, widely available selections.

Rogerson’s comments in a letter to another avid collector will resonate with many gardeners: “Being no botanist by training, and only a rather clumsy gardener, I find I need to pick up everything I can from every clematis grower, big or little, I can find, and so far I’ve done pretty well.”

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style

One tool that librarians use to organize books is the subject headings in catalog entries. For “Cultivated: The Elements of Floral Style,” the single subject heading term as provided by the Library of Congress is “flower arrangement.” While this choice is technically correct, this new book by Victoria, BC author and photographer Christin Geall is also a memoir, and explores deeper matters than most books with the same heading.

The author describes herself as like a magpie; she is drawn to many different topics. Fortunately, she is skilled at combining those interests around the central subject of this book, and rarely strays off topic. For example, gardening is very important to her and she encourages flower arrangers to grow their own material. However, this is not a how-to book on gardening. Instead, she recommends you find such a book, and then suggests some choices.

I learned many practical tips from reading “Cultivated,” including keeping a photographic record as part of your study. A chapter on history provides insights from the baroque, the rococo, and the styles of other periods and places. But resonant to me was Geall’s philosophical perspective shaped by the homestead she owned in her 20s on a tiny British Columbia island six hours from Vancouver. During this time, she also visited Findhorn, a self-described ecovillage in Scotland known initially for applying spiritual principles to grow robust gardens.

She uses the lessons learned from all these experiences (including training in horticulture at Kew Gardens) to guide the purpose of her flower arrangements. She encourages the reader to draw on all of life’s experiences. “This book is both an aesthetic and personal inquiry–an exploration of history, culture, the senses, and my own understanding, which I hope might serve as tools for interpreting and appreciating floral designs in new ways.”

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Yungcautnguuq nunam qainga tamarmi = All the land’s surface is medicine : edible and medicinal plants of southwest Alaska

For 15 years, the Elisabeth C. Miller Library has been hosting an exhibit by the Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists every spring. These artists keep alive a tradition of many centuries by creating scientifically accurate portrayals of the flowers, leaves, seeds, and other parts of plants, often with more detail and accuracy than a photograph.

One of the local, participating artist is Sharon Birzer. Recently, she illustrated many of the native plants of southwest Alaska, published in “Yungcautnguuq nunam qainga tamarmi = All the Land’s Surface is Medicine.” This new book is written by a consortium of experts in cultural anthropology, ethnobotany, and the Yup’ik language, and is based on a 20-year oral history project to preserve the stories of elders and their traditional way of life.

The book is divided equally into two parts. The first is a catalog of the native plants used for food or medicine, organized by the time of harvest and starting with the plants that define the spring after long, cold winters. One example is Mertensia maritima or Neqnirliaraat, literally “best-tasting things,” a plant I grow in my garden. Although not widely used, “one Nelson Island woman reported collecting them before they flowered, cooking the stems briefly, and eating them with seal oil.”

The traditional tales of the plants and the land where they grow are collected in the second half of the book. Quoting many of the elders, these entries are in English on the left page, and in Yup’ik on the right. This includes “mouse foods,” caches of plants parts harvested and stored by voles and lemmings before the onset of winter, and an important source of food for humans.

Winner of the 2022 Annual Literature Award from the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries.

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Floret Farm’s Discovering Dahlias: A Guide to Growing and Arranging Magnificent Blooms

We have several books on dahlias in the Miller Library collection, but none provide as much photographic detail on the different forms and the methods of growing, especially the harvesting, storing, and dividing of dahlia tubers as “Floret Farm’s Discovering Dahlias.” This how-to section also has a demonstration of hybridizing and creating your own dahlia varieties.

As to be expected from Floret Farm, the use of dahlia flowers in arrangements is the heart of the book. This includes a catalog of recommended varieties, divided by color. These emphasize subtle differences. For example, pink, coral, raspberry, peach, and blush each have a separate entry.

Excerpted from the Fall 2021 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin