Wild Flowers of North America

In the late 19^th century in western Canada there were two women who, while not sisters, had a lot in common. Much of their stories are found in “A Delicate Art: Artists, Wildflowers and Native Plants of the West” by Mary-Beth Laviolette.

Mary Schäffer Warren (1861-1939) and Mary Vaux Walcott (1860-1940) were both of Quaker families living in Philadelphia, arguably the center for science and culture in America at the time. They both developed strong interests in the natural world, and developed the skills to paint in watercolors the native plants they found.

They joined a trip of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences to the Rockies and Selkirk Mountains of eastern British Columbia and western Alberta in 1889, traveling together part of the way on the top of a box car! They brought this same adventuresome passion to hiking and exploring the peaks, returning every summer for many years.

The pathways of the two Marys eventually diverged. Mary Vaux Walcott continued visiting the region every summer, but typically in the company of her two brothers, who were interested in studying the glaciers. As the only daughter, at age 20 she was expected to look after her father and brothers after the death of her mother. As Laviolette writes, the three siblings had “many summers spent in the western alpine, and for Mary in particular a lifelong commitment of over forty years in the area. To come were the pleasures of mountain rambling and backcountry camping in addition to the study of wildflowers and, on an entirely different scale, glaciers.”

Walcott finally broke this pattern by getting married at age 54 to Charles Doolittle Walcott, who she met in the mountains, and who was the head of the Smithsonian Institution. Together, they intensified their study of native plants, resulting in the publication of the five-volume “North American Wild Flowers” from 1925-1929. The Miller Library has only volume five of this set, with 76 of the 400 original prints, but all are reproduced in the 1953 publication “Wild Flowers of America” and most are part of a splendid new (2022) collection by Pamela Henson, “Wild Flowers of North America.” These later publications are both in the library’s general collection.

While titles suggest a comprehensive collection of the native, flowering plants of the United States and Canada, the emphasis is on the places where the Walcotts’ explored. The Canadian mountains and foothills fill in for much of western America, including our state, while the other emphasis is the Atlantic seaboard. The southwest species are mostly missing, but these are still impressive works.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin, updated June 2023

The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science & Art

Sara Plummer Lemmon (1836-1923) was a transplanted easterner, moving from New York to California in her early 30s hoping to find a climate to improve her health. She settled in Santa Barbara, establishing a library and becoming interested in the native flora.

A decade later, she married John Gill (“JG”) Lemmon (1831-1908), a survivor of the notorious Andersonville prison in the Civil War, who had also moved to California for his health. Together they explored the mountains of Arizona, California, and Mexico, developing an important herbarium, now housed at the University of California, Berkeley. Sara was also a skilled botanical illustrator. Her and JG’s story is told in “The Forgotten Botanist” by Wynne Brown.

Sara was an advocate for having the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) named the state flower. Although first proposed to the state legislature in 1895 and passed by both houses nearly unanimously, two succeeding governors refused to sign the bill for unrelated political reasons, postponing enactment until 1903.

The joint headstone for JG and Sara in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery lists them as “partners in botany. Author Brown reflects, “The actual balance of that partnership between JG and the woman known to the world as ‘& wife’ is still—and probably always will be—up for question,” but she concludes that many future ecologists will “rely on the work of this determined couple.”

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Complete Writings of Kate Sessions in California Garden

Kate Sessions (1857-1940) was born in San Francisco, but lived her adult life in San Diego where she became a well-known nursery owner, florist, and promoter of native and other climate-appropriate plants in that city. In 2020, the San Diego Floral Association published a collection of four decades of her writings from the magazine California Garden. Her life is also captured in a book for children, “The Tree Lady”, about her efforts to beautify her adopted city.

While these articles may seem out of scope for Pacific Northwest readers, they capture a great deal of interesting garden history. This includes Sessions’ effort to encourage the planting of natives such as ceanothus, and using South African bulbs instead of trying to coax daffodils to bloom in the desert climate.

Sessions collaborated with several noted botanists of the time. She and Alice Eastwood increased both the horticultural and botanical knowledge of many plants, including being instrumental in the founding of the American Fuchsia Society. With T. S. Brandegee, Sessions traveled in 1900 to San Jose del Cabo, Mexico (four days by steamer) and then into the mountains (three days by burro) to collect seeds and plants of a newly discovered palm named after him, Brahea brandegeei. Her efforts ensured it is now well established in San Diego parks.

In her opening essay in the Floral Association publication, Nancy Carol Carter wrote, “Sessions intentionally stepped away from women’s work and into a male-dominated world of horticulture.” Having never married, “she enjoyed her personal autonomy and freedom from the household responsibilities generally expected of women at the time.”

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Alice Eastwood’s Wonderland: The Adventures of a Botanist

Alice Eastwood (1859-1953) had a challenging childhood. Born in Toronto, her mother died when she was only 6, admonishing Alice from her deathbed to look after two younger siblings. Her father struggled to have a viable career and keep the family together. At times, Eastwood was forced to stay with relatives or at a boarding school. It wasn’t until many years later the family reunited in Denver.

Despite these hardships, Eastwood was fortunate to have mentoring by different individuals who fostered her great love of plants. Exploring the native flora in the mountains of Colorado deepened that passion. Her story is told in a delightful, memoir-style book from 1955, “Alice Eastwood’s Wonderland: The Adventures of a Botanist,” by Carol Green Wilson (1892-1981).

In her early 30s, Eastwood traveled to California and met two other influential women of plants. The first was horticulturist Kate Sessions (1857-1940) in San Diego. Wilson describes their friendship, which lasted for fifty years, as one that “often drew Alice Eastwood from the cloisters of pure science to the practical field of horticulture.”

Continuing her journey to San Francisco, Eastwood intentionally visited the California Academy of Sciences to meet Katherine Brandegee (1844-1920) and her husband, Townshend Stith (T.S.) Brandegee (1843-1925). Their friendship was cemented by joint botanical excursions around the Bay Area.

The Brandegees eventually convinced Eastwood to become the joint curator of the botanical collection at the Academy. It was not easy to lure Eastwood away from her beloved Rockies, but the salary of $75/month, all of Katherine’s income, sealed the deal. Within two years, the Brandegees retired, leaving Eastwood as sole curator and head of botany for the Academy, a position she held until her own retirement over fifty years later.

While regarded as one of the supreme botanists in California’s history, Eastwood is probably most famous for her rescue efforts of the Academy’s herbarium collections threatened by the fires that followed the 1906 earthquake. Well before that fateful day, she had anticipated the dangers of fire and housed the most valuable herbarium specimens in an easily-accessible case. This allowed her, with the help of one chance volunteer, to lower nearly 1,500 collection items six stories using rope, strings, and her work apron! She continued her efforts to save Academy collections over the following days, even while losing her own home to the fires.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

Becoming a Gardener

First off, this book is a feast for the eyes. Big glossy photographs of Marron’s garden are combined with charming gouaches from the Copenhagen collective studio All the Way to Paris, plus an array of painting reproductions ranging from Beatrix Potter to Cy Twombly. The visual experience is rich.

Marron, with a background of success in business and journalism, assigned herself the task of learning to garden in eighteen months. She and her husband had bought a house in Connecticut, but she needed to put down literal as well as figurative roots to feel she belonged to this land. This book is an account of that journey.

An impressive amount of gardening research preceded and intertwined with the development of the garden itself. Marron includes memories of gardens in children’s books like “The Secret Garden” and the visit to the Luxembourg Garden in “Madeline.” As she read classic gardening books, she learned there are many kinds of gardeners, and they all have strong opinions, often differing with each other. From Alexander Pope’s idea of a “spirit of the place” she learned that she wanted her garden to echo its own surroundings. And after reading about famed gardens and recalling those she had visited, she realized she had to build something smaller and simpler than any of them.

In her learning process, Marron watched carefully to see how even cut flowers changed over a few days. She put aside her conviction that she did not have a green thumb and sought out hands-on mentors, who taught her what to do and that persistence and hard work can lead to gardening success for anyone. With a landscape architect she developed a plan and turned a 48 x 54-foot space into a walled garden.

One notable discovery from her research was that gardeners make mistakes, learn to accept them, and start over. She describes several of those she made, seeing them as part of the learning process.

In the section on “Building My Garden” Marron describes working to create a garden that fit her goal of relative simplicity and comfort in its surroundings. She struggled with fencing, replacing one design that turned out to look like “a corral fence from the Wild West” with a more pleasing one. She developed a layout with rectangular beds and wide paths. She spent many hours choosing flowers and vegetables and then deciding where to plant them. She considered color and scent, even choosing to paint cold frames “a happy yellow” and the door frames of the garage bay “bright grass green,” the same green Monet used for his own door and window frames.

In the middle of the project Marron’s husband died. Grieving, she came to learn how digging in the dirt can help heal pain. She describes five kinds of gardeners: “scene setters, plantspeople, colorists, collectors, and dirt gardeners” (p. 78). Dirt gardening was her choice. As she returned to dig in the garden after her loss, she felt connected to soil and roots.

At the back of the book Marron includes a list of “Literary Mentors in the Garden,” with a paragraph about each. A page of “Recommended Reading and Viewing” and a very thorough bibliography provide further research opportunities for those who aspire to the title of “gardener.” For herself, Marron still considers herself an “urban dweller,” but she attests to the power of her gardening project to make a major difference in her life.

Reviewed by Priscilla Grundy for The Leaflet, Volume 9, Issue 12 (December 2022).

The Perfect Specimen: The 20th Century Renown Botanist Ynés Mexἰa

Ynés Mexἰa (1870-1938) didn’t discover her career passion until later in life. The daughter of a Mexican diplomat father and an American mother, her childhood was difficult with her parent’s divorce and several moves throughout the eastern United States. She spent her 20s and 30s in Mexico living through two marriages, moving to San Francisco in her 40s, where she required years of medical care to recover following a mental and physical breakdown.

As part of her treatment, her doctor encouraged getting involved in hobbies. She discovered the Sierra Club, and eventually enrolled, at age 51, at the University of California, Berkeley. While not seeking a degree, she took courses on botany, including classes through the California Academy of Science where she met Alice Eastwood. Together, they joined on field botany trips into the mountains of California.

While this became a valuable collaboration, Mexἰa discovered that she most enjoyed exploring alone. Over a 13-year career that followed, she took many long trips to Mexico, throughout South America, and briefly to Alaska, collecting plants to press and later sell to many of the outstanding herbarium collections in the United States. The details of these travel are chronicled in the “The Perfect Specimen” by Durlynn Anema.

Mexἰa’s career, cut short by her death from cancer, was extremely productive, adding about 150,000 new specimens to American botany, including several new species. She was not bothered by rough conditions, and her knowledge of Spanish language and culture, and her ease in interactions with indigenous people, allowed her to explore remote areas for new plants.

Excerpted from Brian Thompson’s article in the Winter 2023 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin

The Wild Garden: Expanded Edition

Winter is a great time to read the classics of horticultural literature. Gardeners from decades or even centuries ago still have many lessons to share with us. One I recommend is “The Wild Garden” by William Robinson (1838-1935).

Born in Ireland, Robinson moved to England in his early 20s and stayed, eventually owning Gravetye Manor in Sussex where he practice his craft of gardening for nearly 50 years. He was a prolific writer, publishing several books, and founding an influential journal simply titled “The Garden.” He established many friendships with noted plants people in both Europe and North America.

“The Wild Garden” was first published in 1870. The Miller Library has a copy and unlike many other old books, it is not impressive. It is small, without illustrations, but the writing is inspired, taking direct aim opposing the practice of using large expanses of annuals in formal plantings, a practice that began earlier in that century.

Instead, Robinson extols the virtues of a garden filled with perennial plants, both woody and herbaceous. Planting in grass, or in other informal areas was encouraged. While this is widely accepted today, this book caused considerable controversy when first published.

“My object in the Wild Garden is now to show how we may have more of the varied beauty of hardy flowers than the most ardent admirer of the old style of garden ever dreams of, by naturalizing many beautiful plants of many regions of the earth.”

Beginning with the second edition, “The Wild Garden” was illustrated by the noted garden painter and designer Alfred Parsons (1847-1920), who was also a friend of Robinson and may have influenced the garden designs at Gravetye. New editions continued well into the 20^th century.

“The Wild Garden: Expanded Edition” (2009) reproduces the sumptuous 1895 fifth edition, with extra features, including an appendix updating plant nomenclature. Additional chapters are written by Rick Darke, a noted author and advocate for the conservation of old landscapes. His writing, and photographs of the revived Gravetye, are an excellent addition to this classic book.

Reviewed by Brian Thompson for Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Winter 2023

The Wild Garden

“The Wild Garden” (1994) reproduces the sumptuous 1895 fifth edition, includes an insightful introduction by landscape architect and historian Judith Tankard. Peter Herbert, who wrote the foreword, revived the gardens at Gravetye and describes the many plants survived the years of neglect following Robinson’s death. Noted 20^th century gardener and author Graham Stuart Thomas updated the plant nomenclature.

Reviewed by Brian Thompson for Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Winter 2023

Saunders’ Field Guide to Gladioli of South Africa

The stiff spikes of gladioli are a mainstay for florists and favored by home gardeners for the hundreds of named cultivars in almost every color. Lesser known is the large genus of Gladiolus in the Iridaceae family with about 300 species, thriving in a wide range of environmental settings.

While there are a handful of Eurasian species near the Mediterranean, and others that can be found in tropical Africa, the concentration of this genus is in South Africa. An extensive (almost 400 pages) new field guide, Saunders’ Field Guide to Gladioli of South Africa is remarkable in being focused on this single genus.

While a few of these species are of horticultural interest and will grow with care in our climate, I think the main attraction of this book is the breadth of variety in a flower that is very commonplace in horticulture, but otherwise not well known. For example, I am struck by how many of the species are scented, a trait unknown in cultivated glads.

The authors, Rod and Rachel Saunders, were killed near the end of their efforts to photograph all the native species of their country in flower, leaving Fiona Ross to complete the book with the help of many others. While a must for a botanically inclined visitor to South Africa, this field guide is fascinating just for its level of detail and the diverse beauty of its subjects.

An example is G. cardinalis that grows in the province of Western Cape. “The plants flower in midsummer, the driest time of the year. The corms are wedged into cracks in the rocks where they are protected. Corms and roots must be constantly wet, and have been found in very fast-flowing river…often found flowering together with Disa uniflora, an orchid of a similar colour; the two species share the same pollinator.”

Eight different photos accompany this description, showing the bright red flowers cascading off of a wet cliff wall. Surprisingly, a regional nursery carries this species, having found it to be hardy and amenable to garden culture. I’m eager to give it a try.

Reviewed by Brian Thompson for the Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 9, Issue 11 (November 2022).

Agaves: Species, Cultivars & Hybrids

When I visit desert gardens in conservatories, or in captivating places such as the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, I’m always drawn to the agaves. My favorite is Agave victoriae-reginae, a native of the Chihuahua Desert of Mexico that enchanted me the first time I visited my parents when they lived in Arizona. The precise white lines on the leaves look as though they were applied with a fine paintbrush.

On subsequent visits, I learned there are many other agaves with fascinating foliage patterns, forms, and textures. I also glimpsed the infrequent towering inflorescences; one final performance before the central plant dies, although often with offsets ready to carry on.

Agaves: Species, Cultivars & Hybrids is a new book in the Miller Library by Southern California authors Jeremy Spath and Jeff Moore. There are other books that discuss the botanical aspects of the genus, or uses by humans (tequila, anyone?) and animals. This instead is a horticultural review of the many forms emphasizing their aesthetic and cultural traits, beautifully illustrated in both nature and cultivation. Before you dismiss the possibility of growing these in Seattle, because it’s too cold, and especially too wet in the winter – think again.

Although primarily native to Mexico, several species are from high altitudes and with proper siting and protection from being waterlogged can make spectacular garden or container subjects in our area. An example is the story of Monte, an Agave montana plant growing in Portland, as told in an essay and photographed in the book by its owner, Lance Wright.

This species is from the eastern Sierra Madre Mountains in southern Chihuahua, where it receives significant rainfall, which may explain its ability to survive for 18 years in the ground in the Pacific Northwest. Like all in its genus, Monte gave one final farewell performance by blooming, but what a performance!

The first emergence of a bloom stalk was in late September, eventually reaching a flowering height of 15 feet the following spring. “The City came out on May 9 to do traffic control as crowds were standing in the street slowing traffic to take pictures.” If you want a media star in your garden, this is your plant!

Reviewed by Brian Thompson for The Leaflet, Volume 9, Issue 11 (November 2022).