“Designing with Palms” by Jason Dewees is by a San Francisco based author, who profiles garden motifs evoked by palms across the country. For instance, Chamaerops humilis suggests a Mediterranean garrigue, an ecosystem with low shrubs, including rosemary and lavender, like one might find in a Seattle landscape.
While the author’s examples do not include a garden in the Pacific Northwest, those in temperate areas do give guidance for those who wish to try these iconic plants in our climate. I found the Riverbanks Botanical Garden in Columbia, South Carolina especially instructive, perhaps because Jenks Farmer, a Master of Science graduate from the Center for Urban Horticulture in 1993, had a major role in its design.
Dewees is well aware of the practical side of a garden with palms. His copious species notes include hardiness ratings – fined tuned to the exact minimum temperature – and many cultural and aesthetic tips. On caring for Trachycarpus fortunei: “Give them an updated look by pruning off the gorilla-hairy leafbases to reveal their smooth, ringed trunks…or leave them natural and tuck epiphytes such as bromeliads, orchids, and ferns among the fibrous leafbases.”
Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2019
![[Flora of Middle Earth] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/floraofmiddle-earth.jpg)
Why would the Miller Library add a book about the flora of a legendary place? Until I was given a personal copy of Flora of Middle-Earth, it was not an obvious addition to our collection. Written by botanist Walter S. Judd and richly illustrated by artist Graham A. Judd, this American father and son have created a beautiful book, featuring botanical woodblock illustrations – but it is very much more.
The authors write in their introduction, “It is obvious from even a cursory reading of The Lord of the Rings that the book was written by a person who was botanically knowledgeable—but more than that—a writer who really loved plants!” J. R. R. Tolkien also made this last point very clear in his non-fiction writings. He developed many languages and customs for his created peoples of Middle-Earth – why wouldn’t he develop this world’s plant lore, too?
Most of the plants in Tolkien’s legendarium can be found in his native Great Britain, but even the best botanists will not find majestic mallorn trees or the delicate elanor and niphredil flowers that bloom beneath them, as in the land of Lothlórien. However, in some ways you just might. Based on Tolkien’s writings about his fiction, Walter Judd has deduced that the niphredil is based on the common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), while elanor is akin to pimpernels, in the genus Anagallis.
Herein lies the value of this book to the average botanist or gardener. Tolkien’s lore is closely tied to his British heritage; he essentially created the ancient mythology that his country mostly lacked. The authors carefully, and in great detail, combine both natural and legendary history, to enrich the plant-loving reader’s appreciation of both.
This is a book to savor when you’re inside by the fire, waiting for winter to be over. So put on your old “Frodo Lives!” t-shirt and begin reading!
Published in the January 2019 Leaflet, Volume 6 Issue 1.
![[Flora of the Pacific Northwest] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/floraofthePacificNorthwestfull.jpg)
For Pacific Northwest botanists of all levels, the one-volume book informally known as “Hitchcock” has been standard equipment since its publication in 1973. This work, Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual by C. Leo Hitchcock and Arthur Cronquist, was intended as a field version of the five-volume flora Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, written by the same authors with two additional botanists and two illustrators from 1955-1969.
“No scholarly endeavors are immune to the advancing frontiers of knowledge.” This quote is from the introduction of the new, second edition of the one-volume Flora, expanded by a team of four editors with two new illustrators. Changes in taxonomy, especially from molecular studies, plus newly described taxa and the establishment of non-native species (which this flora includes) have created a long overdue need for an update.
Like the first edition, this book attempts to be comprehensive in its presentation of species, subspecies, and varieties throughout Washington, most of Oregon and Idaho, the western part of Montana, and southern British Columbia. The first edition introduced the new (at the time) idea of embedding the species descriptions and illustrations within the taxonomic keys. This proved to be a good decision. It has remained a best-seller for University of Washington Press for the last four decades.
At 882 pages (the first edition had 730), it is perhaps a bit hefty for field work, but this is a must for your work desk. The Miller Library has a lending copy of the new edition, and keeps non-circulating copies of both editions and the earlier volumes of Vascular Plants. Be sure to take a look at this new standard for our regional botany!
Published in the January 2019 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 6, Issue 1.
Bea Howe captures much of the story of writer Jane Webb Loudon in “Lady with Green Fingers,” especially the practical nature of her advice for both garden culture and design, and her “fresh and entirely unsentimental approach to flowers and plants.”
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.
![[book title] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/AbernethyForest.jpg)
Ron Summers writes about a very different ecological history in Abernethy Forest: The History and Ecology of an Old Scottish Pinewood (2018). This is an effort to understand and protect a barely surviving old ecosystem, mostly destroyed by centuries of human activities. This small subject, about 38 square kilometers, or just a bit bigger than Mercer Island, includes the fast-flowing River Spey and Loch Garten, which at 47 hectares is about half the size of Green Lake.
While small, Abernethy includes “the largest of the remaining fragments of the pine forest that once extended across Highland Scotland” and is “incredibly rare in Britain and therefore precious for nature conservation and science.” It is also beautiful, as I have discovered over several visits in the last 20 years, and supports some fascinating animals, including the Capercaillie (the largest member of the grouse family), three species of crossbills that are well-suited for extracting the seeds of pinecones, and the Scottish wildcat, described as resembling a robust domestic tabby.
Published in the December 2018 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 12.
![[book title] cover](https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/graphix/Mannahatta.jpg)
What did the island of Manhattan look like on that day, just over 400 years ago (1609) when it was “discovered” by Henry Hudson? Very different from today. It was a rich place with forests, streams, wetlands, and even some hills. Wildlife was abundant, with nearly 400 species of vertebrates likely and another 200 possible. Vascular plant species may have numbered nearly 1,200.
It was also the home to the Lenape people who gave the island its name: Mannahatta. Eric Sanderson headed a decade-long project to try to describe the likely nature of the island before the arrival of Europeans. That project is described in Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (2009). He claims that if found today, the island would likely be designated as a national park, but instead, “extraordinary cultural diversity has replaced extraordinary biodiversity.”
Published in the December 2018 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 12.
It was on a visit to the United States that Alice Lounsberry (1873-1949) of Boston, some 25 years younger, introduced herself to Australian painter Ellis Rowan. Lounsberry convinced Rowan to travel with her for two years, providing illustrations for three books she wrote on native plants: “A Guide to the Wild Flowers” (1899), “A Guide to Trees” (1900), and “Southern Wild Flowers and Trees” (1901).
At the turn of the 20th century, it was an adventure, especially for two women, to be exploring the rural parts of the southeast. In “Southern Wild Flower and Trees,” Lounsberry writes “Mrs. Rowan and I travelled in many parts of the south, exercising always our best blandishments to get the people of the section to talk with us. Through the mountainous region we drove from cabin to cabin, and nowhere could we have met with greater kindness and hospitality.” The illustrations include plates in color, many black and white diagrams, and some delightful vignettes, typically showing native plants in the context of a larger landscape.
They were a good team. Lounsberry provided detailed botanic structure along with engaging observations of her subjects and their natural history, while Rowan’s artwork found a new audience. Together, their books were very popular.
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin
Ellis Rowan (1848-1922) was an Australian painter, specializing in wildflowers in all parts of that country at a time when the native flora was not well-known by European settlers. She was not trained as a botanist, which made her work of limited use in that field. However, the exuberance and abundance (at least 3,000 survive) of her paintings made her very popular. She typically combined flowers with leaves and stems into bouquets, and worked quickly, being able to paint in watercolors and gouache without initial pencil underlay.
In “Flower Paintings of Ellis Rowan,” Helen Hewson wrote that her images “evoke the particular quality of the beauty of the Australian bush, a beauty which is vivid, yet also elusive and vulnerable.” Hewson notes the limitations of Rowan’s work for botanists, but recognizes that “her work is so accurate that the specialist can identify a large proportion of the subjects with considerable reliability.”
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin
Women botanical artists have made many contributions to horticulture and botany. One of these was Wendy Walsh (1915-2014). English by birth, she also lived in Japan and the United States before settling in Ireland in 1958 at the age of 43. She lived and worked there the rest of her long life, providing illustrations for 33 books, many on Irish gardening and native plants.
Her masterpieces were “An Irish Florilegium,” published in 1983, followed by “An Irish Florilegium II” in 1987. Each contains beautifully printed copies of 48 watercolor paintings that she drew from nature. Roughly, a third of these plants are native to Ireland, while an Irish botanist or plant collector introduced another third. The rest celebrate the cultivars developed by the many fine nurseries and plant hybridizers of that nation.
E. Charles Nelson, a taxonomist with the National Botanic Gardens Glasnevin in Dublin, wrote the extensive plant notes to both volumes and the introduction to the second. Although he was 36 years younger, he and Walsh became fast friends after meeting at the beginning of this project. Their collaboration led to several more books, including three in the Miller Library.
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin
Brent Elliott, retired librarian and historian of the Royal Horticultural Society, declared that Frances Perry’s writing showed “evidence of reading both broader and deeper than that of most garden writers of the time.”
An example of this historical awareness is her book “Beautiful Leaved Plants.” Perry describes 64 house and conservatory plants, popular in the mid-20th century, but chose to illustrate her selections with images by Benjamin Fawcett (1808-1893). Fawcett was a botanical illustrator who used wood engravings, an unusual technique for the time that is particularly effective in capturing the brilliance and subtlety of foliage. The technique is described in a supplemental chapter by Raymond Desmond.
Excerpted from the Winter 2019 Arboretum Bulletin