I say “fuchsia,” you say “mauve.” I say “cotton candy,” you say “pink.” Little can leave a horticulturist scrounging in the glossary of color terms as desperately (and as fruitlessly) as a collection of ten or fifteen rhododendrons (Rhododendron spp.) in full flower, not to mention a collection with almost one hundred unique selections like […]
At the grocery store, it’s easy to take fresh blueberries for granted. Packed within plastic cases, the jewel-like fruits are available year-round, almost without question. But a collection of blueberries at the Arnold Arboretum—that is to say, highbush blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum), which are now flowering—provides a reminder of the not-so-distant time when blueberries were just […]
Now begins the season when we all flock in sweeping formations towards flowering cherries (Prunus) in the Bradley Rosaceous Collection—in fact, the Arboretum spotlights the genus with a Collections Up Close event on Sunday, April 29. Already the Fuji cherry (Prunus incisa forma serrata, accession 172-95*B) prominently situated along Meadow Road is as irresistible as […]
Cryptic flowers are often responsible for our sneezes. In Massachusetts, we have annual ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) to blame as one of the worst offenders. The small spikes of green flowers are so inconspicuous and drab, however, that it seems generations have attributed their runny noses in late summer and fall to more flamboyant suspects, like […]
An interesting byproduct of planting related species side by side is that pollinating insects can become unwitting hybridizers. Such was certainly the case with one of the Arboretum’s most famous introductions, Hamamelis × intermedia ‘Arnold Promise’. A beautiful and vigorous witch hazel, ‘Arnold Promise’ was named to honor the place where it began, a happy […]
The willow (Salix) collection is perhaps not the showiest of the Arboretum’s plant collections, but in late winter and early spring it provides vital rays of hope after a long cold season (okay, this winter has been pretty mild, but just think back to how you were feeling last March). Willows, which are primarily dioecious […]
In 1861, Dr. George Rogers Hall of Rhode Island sent the first shipment of living plants from Japan to New England. Consigned to Harvard historian and horticulturist Francis Parkman, the plants were cultivated with great success in his garden in Jamaica Plain. Hall returned from Yokohama a year later, bringing more plants with him. Some […]
The discovery and introduction of Picea glauca var. albertiana f. conica is a remarkable example of horticultural discovery as happenstance. In 1904, staff members Alfred Rehder and John G. Jack took a stroll while waiting at a train station near Lake Laggan, Alberta, and noticed some unusual dwarf spruces growing nearby. They speculated that a […]
pinetum [noun]: a plantation of pine trees; especially: a scientific collection of living coniferous trees The section of the Arboretum roughly west of Valley Road and north of Hemlock Hill Road is known as the Conifer Collection; it holds many accessions of conifers including pines (Pinus), spruces (Picea), firs (Abies), junipers (Juniperus), yews (Taxus), and […]
Plants on planet Earth have no literal resemblance to the distant fiery gas balls we call stars, but certain plant parts can resemble the multi-pointed decorative shapes that humans have used for centuries to depict stars. Those starry qualities also show up in plant names such as star magnolia (Magnolia stellata; stella is the Latin […]
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