Today, the weather is frosty with a few more inches of snow to add to the melting pile in my garden. Thus, it is the perfect time to think about June, when the robins and cardinals are singing high above and the tulip tree’s flowers are morphing from chlorophyll-rich green to yellow, with bees foraging in the blossoms. Bees like the big carpenter bee here (Xylocopa virginica).
I filmed that carpenter bee foraging in the flowers on June 9, 2017. Listen to that joyous avian chorus!
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All kinds of bees enjoy the nectar-rich flowers of tuliptree…. or do you prefer “tulip poplar”? Since it’s neither a tulip nor a poplar, let’s go with the Latin, Liriodendron tulipifera, one of our most beautiful and stately native North American trees. This is Augochlora pura, the pure-green sweat bee.
When Linnaeus gave this North American native tree its Latin binomial name in his 1753 Species Plantarum, he combined two Greek words for the genus: leiriŏn, meaning “lily”, and dӗndron, meaning “tree”. Then he added the specific epithet tulipifera, meaning “tulip-bearing” or “tulip-like”. So, a “lily tree” with “tulip-like” flowers – the poor thing, such a derivative identity! In fact, it is classed as Magnoliaceae where its height and size have earned its title as “the king of the Magnolia family”. You can see those magnolia traits in this close-up showing the spiral arrangement of the stamens and pistils on a conical receptacle. Unlike more recently-evolved angiosperms with distinctive sepals and petals, tuliptree flowers have whorled parts called tepals.
It is the tallest tree of the eastern forests of North America, with one specimen in a secret location in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina believed to hold the record at 190 feet (58 m). Though I haven’t seen the tree in the wild, its native range does extend into the Carolinian forests on the north shore of Lake Erie and southwest shore of Lake Huron in Ontario. But I did focus my lens high up into the flowering canopy of the 160-year old specimen at Princeton University, below, the tallest tree on campus at 135 feet (41 m) with a 16-foot (4.8 m) trunk circumference. As is typical for mature specimens, this tree had lost its lower branches.
When I was at New York Botanical Garden in spring 2012, I loved walking through the tuliptree allée there under the beautiful canopy of the trees planted more than a century ago according to the design of architect Calvert Vaux, who also worked on the landscape plan for Central Park with Frederick Law Olmsted.
In Toronto, the best specimens of tuliptree are in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, with some young enough to offer their flowering branches at a low enough level for me to observe them. A beautiful tree near the gates at Yonge Street features variegated leaves; in commerce this tree is called ‘Majestic Beauty’.
Research has shown that Liriodendron tulipifera it is one of the most nectar-rich species of trees, by a factor of hundreds of times more nectar volume than other species. The nectary area on the internal surface of the tepals, a special epidermis tissue called “nectarostomata”, is emblazoned with yellow and orange markings to attract pollinators. Colourful floral markings like this, aka “nectar guides”, are an evolutionary adaptation to act as a signal to insects and improve the chances of pollination. Scientists have shown that after a few days of secretion, so much protein-rich nectar is produced that it flows down into the base of the flower. Tuliptree is also a food plant for the caterpillars of the eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus).
Some years ago I wrote a story on urban beekeeping for Organic Gardening magazine, which has since been shut down. One of the beekeepers I interviewed, Linda Tillmann, seen in the story spread below, lives in Atlanta where the tree is a common forest species. As she told me: “In Atlanta bee season is limited by the tulip poplar bloom. Generally by the beginning of June our nectar flow is over, though bees also take nectar from holly, blackberry and others.”
Photos of Linda Tillmann and her bees by Gregory Miller, Atlanta
As the inflorescence ages and the central, spindle-shaped pistil elongates, the similarity to magnolias becomes even more obvious.
The leaves of tuliptree are unusually shaped – indeed, a little like the flowers of a stout tulip. Typically, they have four lobes, occasionally six. Lustrous and little bothered by insect predation or disease, they were praised by one of my favourite naturalists, Donald Culross Peattie in his book A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America. He wrote that there was something joyous :“in the fresh green of its leaves, which, being more or less pendulous on long slender stalks, are forever turning and rustling in the slightest breeze; this gives the tree an air of liveliness lightening its grandeur.”
In autumn, depending on conditions in the summer, tuliptree leaves turn gold, apricot or bronze….
…..and sometimes a mix of hues.
In early winter, you might see the aggregate winged fruits as they fall away from the central stalk. The seeds are eaten by birds and small animals. I will give my last words to Donald Peattie. “Even in winterthe tree is still not unadorned, for the axis of the cone remains, candelabrum fashion, erect on the bare twig when all the seeds have fallen. No wonder that in the gardens of France and England this is one of the most popular of all American species.”
Once upon a time, I had this quest to photograph Japanese cherry blossoms – sakura – in lots of beautiful places in the world. I travelled to Japan, of course, and managed to arrive during one of the earliest springs ever, foiling my desire to be there as the storied Somei-Yoshino cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) burst into blossom on bare, brown branches. We had to go north to the mountains of Takayama to find them.
In Kyoto, I visited the Imperial Palace and found Prunus ‘Ojochin’ at the gates. It means ‘large lantern”, and has been in Japanese literature since the 17th century.
At the Kyoto Botanical Garden, the late-season cherries were in bloom, but I had to get help in Toronto later to translate the labels. This is ‘Yōkihi’, honouring a concubine of an 8th century emperor of the T’ang Dynasty.
Prunus ‘Asano’ was found in 1926 in a garden in the village of Kami-Yoshida by England’s Collingwood ‘Cherry’ Ingram, a renowned collector of Japanese cherries. Its flowers resemble little chrysanthemums.
‘Hirano-nioi’ (like all cherries with “nioi” in the name) is fragrant.
‘Kirin’ was named for a fiery, dragon-like beast.
‘Ichihara-tora-no-o’, below, means “tiger’s tail”. As Wybe Kuitert says in his book Japanese Flowering Cherries, “With a little imagination, once can see a perfect bigger-than-life size tiger’s tail of cherry blossom in it.”
At Saihoji, the moss temple in Kyoto, a double-flowered cherry leaned over the formal path, contrasting nicely with a tall, magenta azalea behind it.
We visited Gion to watch Miyako Odori, the traditional springtime dance of the country. Naturally, cherry blossoms feature prominently.
In Japan, I found all kinds of pretty cherry blossom confections, including sakura-mochi rice cake and little sakura-adorned crepes.
When I visit London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in early spring, I always make a point of searching out the Japanese cherry trees. This is a view of the Japanese garden Chokushi-mon (Gateway of the Imperial Messesnger) with a flowering bough of Prunus serrulata ‘Tai-haku’, “the great white cherry”.
‘Hokusai’ was selected by Cherry Ingram in 1925 and named for the woodblock artist Hokusai.
Hokusai, of course, painted many scenes of Japanese life, including the ancient tradition of hanami or cherry blossom watching. This is ‘Mount Fuji Seen Through Cherry Blossoms”.
‘Takasago’ is part of an old collection of Japanese cherries at Kew. It was originally collected by Robert Fortune, and was once known as Prunus x sieboldii or Von Siebold’s cherry.
In Ireland, I found a lovely white-flowered Japanese cherry at Mount Stewart House near Belfast.
Holland isn’t all spring bulbs. The Keukenhof Garden in Lisse has a number of Japanese cherry trees amidst the brilliant tulips and daffodils.
Monet’s beautiful garden at Giverny, France, features a few Japanese cherries. In the Clos Normand flower garden, Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’ (meaning “heaven’s river”, i.e. the Milky Way) shows off its typical fastigiate growth and double, pale-pink flowers.
In the Japanese-inspired garden at Giverny (Monet had a large collection of Japanese art), Prunusserrulata ‘Kanzan’ adds a rosy note beside a stream.
And at Paris’s Jardin des Plantes, Prunus serrulata ‘Kanzan’ (aka ‘Sekiyama’) makes ebullient bouquets outside the Natural History Museum……
….. while forming a flowery underplanting for the Eiffel Tower, below. Many catalogues and articles call this bubblegum-pink cherry by an obsolete name ‘Kwanzan’, but its proper name is ‘Kanzan’, which means “border mountain”. The alternative name ‘Sekiyama’ literally means seki=border + yama=mountain and is in a Japanese plant guide dated 1681. It is the most popular cherry in western countries.
At New York Botanical Garden, I found the unusual green-flowered Japanese cherry ‘Gyoiko’. The name means “coloured court-robes” and references the hues of the costumes worn by the women in the ancient Japanese imperial court.
Someday, I’ll return to New York Botanical to properly photograph the cherries in their collection on Cherry Hill. Here is dependable old ‘Kanzan’ fronting a lovely drift of naturalized daffodils.
….. and later found my way to wonderful Filoli Garden in Menlo Park, where the weeping Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula’ was in beautiful bloom.
Washington D.C. is renowned for its National Cherry Blossom Festival, and I was lucky enough to have my flight from North Carolina to Toronto via Washington cancelled in the capitol one spring and made a mad dash for the Tidal Basin, where Somei-Yoshino cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) lined the shore……
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I then headed to Dumbarton Oaks, a favourite historic garden in Georgetown designed by Beatrix Farrand. Here I found lovely weeping cherries near the swimming pool…
….. and a pale-pink cloud of sakura on “cherry hill”.
If you visit Vancouver in early spring, you will be enchanted by the cloud-like Japanese cherry blossoms lining the avenues and adorning the parks. This is the boathouse at Stanley Park.
One spring, I found this handsome specimen of Prunus serrulata ‘Taki-Nioi’ overlooking the pond at Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia. It is an appropriate situation for this tree, whose Japanese name means “fragrant waterfall”.
Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden featured Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula’ looking lovely in a bed of Oriental poppies.
Closer to home, the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario has a good collection of Japanese cherries. This is Prunus x yedoensis ‘Akebono’, bred in 1925 by the W.B. Clarke Nursery of California.
Here is a closer look. Isn’t it lovely?
Prunus ‘Pandora’ is a hybrid of Prunus x yedoensis and Prunus ‘Beni Higan Sakura’….
……that was bred by Waterer Sons and Crisp prior to 1939. Here’s a closer look.
The dwarf, weeping variety Prunus x yedoensis ‘Ivensii’ was introduced by England’s Hillier Nurseries before 1929.
Prunus ‘Accolade’ is a 1952 hybrid of Sargent’s cherry (Prunus sargentii) and Prunus x subhirtella from England’s Knapp Hill Nurseries. While very hardy, an extremely cold winter will often kill the flower buds.
When it does bloom, its pale pink, semi-double flowers are enchanting and….
…. often emerge adventitiously from small shoots on the trunk.
‘Accolade’ also has excellent autumn colour (as does parent Prunus sargentii), as shown here at Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Mount Pleasant Cemetery also features a number of Japanese cherries, including Prunus serrulata ‘Ama-no-gawa’….
…. and Prunus x subhirtella ‘Pendula Rosea Plena’, the double-flowered weeping cherry.
Toronto’s High Park is renowned for its hillside allée of Somei-Yoshino Japanese cherry trees (Prunus x yedoensis)….
…. which always bear a closer inspection — sometimes even under a dusting of snow!
Beyond Japanese cherry trees, I look for arrangements featuring cherry blossoms, like this lovely Mother’s Day bouquet from Toronto’s Horticultural Design.
Sometimes, I even made my own arrangements, borrowing sake cups and filling them with sakura! This is the hardy and popular ‘Kanzan’, aka ‘Sekiyama’.
One year, I patiently stemmed the flowers to create a carpet of cherry blossoms.
But there was a reason why I wrote this blog on this particular day. It’s my memorial for Notre Dame Cathedral and its fallen spire. No longer will Parisians walking along the Seine glimpse that towering lead pinnacle above les fleurs de cerisier japonais…..
And even if people come back in springtime to sit under the blossoms by the sandbox in the playground on the Ile de la Cité …..
…. they will glance up and feel the enormous void left behind by this tragic inferno. France is already promising to rebuild Notre Dame, seeking funds from people throughout the world. Perhaps one day the cherry blossoms will frame the view of a sparkling new spire. Let us hope.
NOTE: I would like to acknowledge Wybe Kuitert and his vast depth of knowledge on all things Japanese flowering cherry. If you’re a serious student, you will enjoy his 1999 monograph Japanese Flowering Cherries, which is now out of print but available used.
When we arrived in New Zealand in early January, my knowledge of the country extended to the Wikipedia entry I read on the flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, much of which was skewed to the back-and-forth of modern politics. In other words, I didn’t know much at all – and in the post-Christmas rush to get away on a long trip, I thought that much research was fine. Fortunately, it would only be a matter of days before my understanding of the place began to expand.
For the Māori, who were the first humans to inhabit the country when their forebears arrived from eastern Polynesia around 1280, a date determined by archaeologists from a 1964 dig on the Coromandel Peninsula near present-day Auckland, which revealed the fishing lure, below, made of a tropical black-lipped pearl shell from East Polynesia and brought here in a waka (canoe) during settlement……..
…..”New Zealand” isn’t the name they gave the country. Instead, they called it Aotearoa, “land of the long white cloud”. It is the name that I first saw in the exhibit below, at the Auckland Museum, on our first day of touring.
Interestingly, that exhibit of the Chinese immigrants who came to seek their fortune in the country beginning in the late 19th century featured a display case, below, devoted to the kauri gum industry, built on the exudate of the giant kauri trees (Agathis australis) that once formed large tracts of forest in New Zealand. A visit to one of those forests was on our itinerary on this fourth day of the American Horticultural Society’s “Gardens, Wine & Wilderness Tour” – and you will find it further down in this blog!
We were now in the Bay of Islands region of the North Island in the seaside town of Paihia. On the map below, you can see it in the upper right. This part of New Zealand is arguably the warmest, being closest to the equator. Over the next few weeks, we would travel to Fiordland in the far southwest of the South Island, which is closest to the Antarctic and therefore has the coldest winters.
On our arrival the afternoon before, we’d walked along the beach…..
….where many small offshore islands give the region its name……
….on our way to take a short ferry trip to the town of Russell across the bay for dinner. On the pier, we watched as fishermen brought in a giant blue marlin, estimated to be 375 pounds (170 kg).
It was only when we returned after dinner that we noticed the big marlin sculpture at the ferry dock dedicated to the American novelist Zane Grey (1872-1939), who’d put Paihia on the world travel map for its abundant game fishing when he built the Zane Grey Sporting Club on nearby Urupukapuka Island in the Bay of Islands. He also penned a book called Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, about fishing in New Zealand.
Hongi Hika and the Missionaries
Today’s tour day began with lovely birdsong outside our window in the lush courtyard garden of the Scenic Hotel.
After breakfast we set off with our special guide for the day, Kena Alexander, our Māori culture specialist. He taught us the traditional greeting, “Kia ora”, which means roughly “be well”. He also told us about the Māori alphabet, which contains 15 letters: 10 consonants (including 2 two-letter diagraphs) and 5 vowels. They are a, e, h, i, k, m, n, ng, o, p, r, t, u, w, wh.
Soon we arrived at Kororipo Heritage Park, the site of important 19th century interaction between northern Māoris and early European visitors.
By the time Captain James Cook visited the Bay of Islands on voyages in 1770 and 1777, Māori had been in the region for almost four centuries. But it was Hongi Hika (below middle), the fierce rangatira (chief) of the Kororipo Pā (a pā is a fortified village) in the Kerikeri Inlet who arranged for the protection of the pākehā (Europeans) who wanted to establish a mission here. In 1814, along with another chief, his brother-in-law Waikato, below left, he accompanied English missionary Thomas Kendall, below right, to Sydney Australia. Here, while studying agricultural methods and inviting Samuel Marsden to establish a mission at Pa Kororipo, he would also buy the muskets and ammunition that would trigger the Musket Wars of the next three decades and cement his reputation as the most fierce of the Māori rangatiras. Six years later, he would travel to England, where King George IV would present him with mail that he later wore into battle.
Hongi Hika liked to say he was born in 1772 (though later research proved him wrong by a few years), the same year that French Explorer Marion Du Fresne was killed and cannibalized, along with 26 of his men, in Te Hue Bay in the eastern part of Bay of Islands. The French sailors’ crime in the eyes of the Ngāpuhi iwi (tribe), who were their hosts, was their insistence, despite being warned, on using large nets to fish a beach on which the bodies of tribal ancestors had once washed up, a beach their descendants considered sacred. Three decades later, Hongi Hika used muskets to wage war against competing tribes in the area, after which they would follow the custom of eating their slain enemies, thus absorbing their manu or prestige, while the missionaries under his protection could only look on in disapproval. The practice was not new to the pākehā. In 1769 Captain James Cook and Joseph Banks aboard the Endeavor had witnessed it and Cook waxed philosophical on the topic in his journal. As the New Zealand government’s website notes: “He is credited with showing forbearance, restraint and a depth of understanding (he had a more moderate view of cannibalism, for example, than most of his crew) that put initial relations between Māori and Europeans on a sound footing, despite episodes of bloodshed on the first and second voyages”.
In January 1826, Hongi Hika was shot in battle on the banks of the Hokianga River. His injury meant he could no longer lead his iwi. In 1827, he was visited by Augustus Earle, who was the draughtsman aboard the HMS Beagle. Along with the young naturalist Charles Darwin, Earle was visiting the Bay of Islands, making beautiful paintings of the scenes he found, such as Hongi Hika, below, bedecked in white feathers and sitting with members of his tribe as he received the pākehā visitors. He would die in March 1828.
Today, the Kerikeri Mission Station consists of two buildings. The first, Kemp House (below), is New Zealand’s oldest building, erected in 1822.
A large jacaranda tree was in full bloom beside the house…..
…and on the other side was its historic garden, where we chatted with the volunteer working there.
The Stone Store, the country’s oldest stone building, was built in 1835. Interestingly, it was once a kauri-gum trading post…..
….. and it was now time to leave Kerikeri and head inland to see the iconic trees from which that gum was harvested.
In the Kauri Forest
Half an hour later, we arrived at the protected Puketi Forest to do the short Manginangina Kauri Walk. The 20,000-hectare (49,420 acre) Puketi-Omahuta forest is one of the best examples of the sub-tropical rainforest of the North Island.
Our guide Kena remained outside. He shared with us that his own family tribe had not been defeated in the New Zealand Wars (see the Waitangi treaty later in this blog) and had not ceded sovereignty over the lands in which the forest resides. Since they continue to be engaged in a legal action with the government, he does not enter the disputed land.
Boardwalks threaded their way under the towering trees in this sub-tropical forest…..
….. where tree ferns and nīkau palms share the understory.
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Look at these wonderful trees! In perfect conditions, their ghostly, pale trunks can achieve a massive girth. New Zealand’s largest tree is the kauri known as Tāne Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest, estimated to be 1,250-2,500 years old. Although its height 45.2 m (148 ft) is fairly modest, its 15.4 m (50 ft) girth and massive volume makes it the third largest conifer on the planet, after California’s sequoiadendrons and sequoias.
The kauri (Agathis australis) is endemic to the northern part of the North Island, i.e. north of 38°S. A conifer, it is in the Araucacieae family and distantly related to the Norfolk pine and monkey puzzle tree. Its straight bole made it valuable to the early Europeans as ship spars and masts, and it’s estimated that logging beginning in 1820 had by 1900 reduced the kauri population, originally 12,000 square kilometres, by 90-percent. Today, only 3-percent of the original forests remain. The government finally banned commerical kauri logging in 1985. As New Zealanders became aware of the great losses that had been inflicted, protected forests like Waipoua (1952) and Puketi were set aside, resulting in spectacular scenes like the one below, which I captured on our short visit to Puketi.
Among the many epiphytic plants is “perching lily” or kowharawhara (Astelia solandri) – the sole member of the genus that has this aerial habit.
In this forest, fallen kauris become part of the undergrowth……
…..however, there are kauri swamps in Northland where the anaerobic qualities of peat bogs and ancient salt marshes have preserved massive trunks that toppled eons ago – some carbon-dated to more than 50,000 years – often still bearing their attached green leaves. Sometimes referred to as “sub-fossil” kauri, they generated a swamp-extraction kauri timber industry beginning in the 1980s, sometimes by unscrupulous players, that saw wood selling for up to $10,000 per cubic metre, mainly to China. But these ancient kauris have also become a valuable aid to scientists, their annual growth rings a barcode of climate change over a vast number of years.
Apart from logging and swamp extraction, the kauri became most famous in colonial New Zealand for its gum, used and exported at the time for floor varnish and linoleum. Though the kauri is evergreen, like all rainforest trees the leaves shed periodically, accumulating at the base of the tree and eventually forming some 2 metres (6 feet) of soil there. As the tree exudes sap, it crystallizes, slowly forms chunks, then falls to the ground, becoming buried in the soil. As I mentioned at the top of this blog, gum harvesting generated a kind of boom that saw some 20,000 gum-diggers working the Northland forests and swamps by 1890: mostly Maori, Chinese, Malaysian and Yugoslav. Climbing a kauri tree to cut it and cause the tree to exude the gum was a special skill. And digging the swamps for fossilized gum was the worst kind of labour.
But it was lucrative: by 1918, the New Zealand kauri gum industry had exported product worth the staggering sum of £18,224,107.
In the Te Papa Museum in Wellington a few weeks later, I would see a spectacular sample of kauri gem embedded with insects. The oldest kauri gum, found in coal deposits, is some 50 million years old.
Today, seeing sap dripping at the base of a kauri tree is often a sign of kauri dieback disease. Visitors to the protected forests are requested to stay on the walkways, since the villain is a soil-borne organism, an oomycete (Phytophthora agathidicida) that causes root rot, defoliation and death. There is no known control. I saw such a tree at Puketi, its lower trunk riddled with cankers dripping with sap.
Our short, lovely stop at Puketi over, we were soon back on the road with Kena to pay a visit to his own tribe’s marae.
Visit to a Māori Marae
As we drove, I noted out the bus window dairy cattle grazing where a native brown sedge (Carex sp.) had popped up in the green forage. It reminded me of what our horticulture tour guide Panayoti Kelaidis, outreach director at Denver Botanic Gardens, had said to us: “New Zealand’s hills should be brown, not green.” Before cattle were imported for New Zealand’s thriving dairy industry, there were no green pastures; that changed with the concomitant use of green Eurasian grasses for animal forage.
After arriving at Kena’s marae, a rectangular plot of cleared land that is traditionally a meeting place providing social or spiritual needs to the Māori, we were called inside the beautiful wharenui (communal house), below, to participate in a traditional greeting ceremony or pōwhiri. We removed our shoes and entered, the women and men sitting in separate sections while we listened to the readings and to a speech from the elder. Photos were not permitted during the protocol, but it was a very moving ceremony, as we joined our Māori hosts in observing a silent remembrance of our own ancestors. At the culmination, Kena and his wife sang a song to us, and we in turn sang back to them (well, we had rehearsed Home on the Range and sounded quite good, I thought.)
The official ceremony now over, Kena pointed out the features of the wharenui, which we were free to photograph. The building interior represents the bosom of a beloved ancestor or spiritual figure. The carved ceiling ridge-beam or tāhuhu represents the backbone, while the painted rafters or heke represent the ribs.
The stunning designs on the heke, below, are traditional kōwhaiwhai. The symbolism is specific to each tribe’s environment, lineage and history, and might incorporate the koru (fern crozier), ngaru tai (ocean waves), fish or birds.
Carved wood figures called poutokomanawa appear on supporting posts. With their flashing eyes made of puau shell from sea snails, they represent tribal ancestors.
Kena happily answered our questions after the ceremony, then it was time to head back to our hotel to rest up before our next Māori cultural experience later that day.
As we drove, Kena pointed out a hilltop pā adjacent to the highway, one of many that can still be seen in Northland. So interesting to see these landforms and imagine how they functioned as self-contained villages hundreds of years ago.
An Evening at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds
On February 6, 1840, representatives of the British government and a group of northern Māori chieftains met at this lovely spot overlooking the Bay of Islands in Paihia…..
… to sign The Treaty of Waitangi. Copies of the treaty were then carried around New Zealand and ultimately signed by more than 500 chiefs, including 13 women. The British wanted the opportunity to acquire land; the Māoris wanted protection from the French. As it says on Wikipedia: “The text of the Treaty includes a preamble and three articles. It is bilingual, with the Māori text translated from the English. Article one of the English text cedes “all rights and powers of sovereignty” to the Crown. Article two establishes the continued ownership of the Māori over their lands, and establishes the exclusive right of pre-emption of the Crown. Article three gives Māori people full rights and protections as British subjects. However, the English text and the Māori text differ, particularly in relation to the meaning of having and ceding sovereignty. These discrepancies led to disagreements in the decades following the signing, eventually culminating in the New Zealand Wars.”
Though the treaty was considered by many to be the founding document of New Zealand, it did not form part of the law until 1975, when the Treaty of Waitangi Act was signed, establishing a permanent Waitangi Tribunal to investigate breaches of the original treaty and make recommendations (without the power of enforcement) on claims brought by Māori. In 1999, to speed up the process for negotiating settlements associated with breaches of the treaty, the government changed the process so claimants could go directly to the Office of Treaty Settlements without engaging in the tribunal process. (Wikipedia) Nonetheless, the treaty is still celebrated on February 6th which is the annual Waitangi Day holiday.
Since one of my long-time photographic projects has been creating a comprehensive collection of honey bee images, I was delighted to find a few manuka blossoms (Leptospermum scoparium) still hanging on at the treaty grounds. They turned out to be the only floweringn examples I found in all New Zealand of this famous shrub, which produces the most expensive honey in the world). And best of all, there were honey bees nectaring on the blooms.
There was also harakeke or New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), which has a starring role in Māori ethnobotany, its fibres having been used in traditional kākahu (cloaks), kete (containers) and whāriki (mats). Not to mention, of course, the popularity of its vibrant hybrids as colourful foliage plants in warmer parts of the world.
But we were at the Treaty Grounds to participate in an evening of traditional Maori activities: the enactment of a wero or warrior challenge as part of the pōwhiri welcome, then a musical concert by the performance group, followed by a traditional hangi dinner. We watched as our meal was prepared in the modern version of a pit oven, which would traditionally have been dug in the ground using heated stones to cook, instead of gas..
Under banana leaves, there were layered meats and fish, as well as kumara (sweet potatoes) and more. But it still had some cooking to do while we continued with our program….
…taking a walk through Waitangi’s beautiful bush to observe our own traditional ‘chieftain for a day’, Denver Botanic Garden’s Panayoti Kelaidis, engage in a traditional wero, or warrior challenge.
Another of our guests, Ciril, engaged in a further challenge in front of the Waitangi Treaty House. Fortunately, both Panayoti and Ciril passed the challenge and were welcomed; they then offered speeches of thanks to our Māori hosts. (And even the fact that you know the performers do this several times a week for hundreds of tourists doesn’t diminish the solemnity or the significance of the reenactments).
Although I didn’t visit the actual Treaty House, which was home from 1833-40 to James Busby, the first representative of the British Crown, we were welcomed into Te Whare Rūnanga (the House of Assembly), which was opened on February 6, 1940 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the treaty. Although similar in design to Kena Alexander’s wharenui, this building was intended to unite all Māori of Aotearoa and contains carvings and folklore from tribes throughout the country.
Below is a photo of Sir Āpirana Ngata, a longtime Labour politician (then retired) and organizer of the 1940 centennial, leading a haka. (And if you are unfamiliar with the spine-tingling Māori haka, you must watch the New Zealand All Blacks performing a haka before their 2011 World Cup rugby final against the French national team.)
Finally, it was time to enjoy a concert of traditional Māori music and dance, courtesy of the Te Pito Whenua performance group. What fun to have a front row seat to watch these talented artists with their beautiful tattoos….
…..and wonderful routines….
…. including the traditional Polynesian poi dance, featuring fancy acrobatic work with those poi balls.
As we departed the concert to enjoy the hangi buffet, Doug and I posed for a fun moment with the performers. As ‘touristy’ as it was, it also made me feel that the entire day — from the shores of Kerikeri Inlet to the kauri forest to Kena’s marae to this light moment on these historic grounds — had immensely enriched my understanding of and affection for this beautiful country, Aotearoa. Kia ora.
Every five years, for the past forty years, I’ve accompanied my husband to his class reunion at Princeton University in New Jersey. In the early years, the kids came with us. As they got older, they would promptly escape and run around campus looking for class tents that had better rock bands than ours. As they got a lot older, they stopped coming, but now that we have grandchildren, there’s a chance we’ll look like some of the families who bring babes in strollers to march in the famous “P-rade” on Saturday afternoon, the classes wending through campus in order of age toward the sports field finale.
But one of my own favourite pastimes during my Princeton stays has been strolling the campus (considered one of the top 5 most beautiful in the U.S.) gazing at the trees and gardens. Earlier this month, I visited the beautiful gardens of Prospect House, redesigned in the last decade by Linden Miller and Ronda Brands of New York to focus on perennials and shrubs, rather than the annual bedding plants that had once made up the landscape here. Built in the 1850s in the Italianate style as a private home and deeded to the university in 1878 along with a 35-acre parcel of land, Prospect served as the home of Princeton University’s presidents from 1878 to 1968. Today it houses the Faculty Club and is used for receptions.
The fountain refreshes a tiny Reunions visitor.
The borders in June are lovely, with peonies, catmint, irises and baptisia….
…. and the rhododendrons are spectacular.
I’ve been here in August as well when summer-flowering perennials such as echinacea, swamp hibiscus and Joe Pye weed are in bloom.
And on the other side of Prospect is a tall, native tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) that’s estimated to be 160 years old.
I loved this drawing of the tulip poplar’s flowers in Princeton’s Little Book of Trees (art by Heather Lovett, text by James Consolloy. The book is a downloadable .pdf available via a search.)
As we roamed campus, we found some of the wonderful new buildings framed by young trees that will in time be as stately as the American elms for which the campus was famous. Here is a much younger tulip poplar framing the entrance to the Frick Chemistry building (Hopkins Architects of London with Payette Associates of Boston, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates of Brooklyn, N.Y., landscape architect, May 2005).
Here’s another look at the Frick through silver maple (or possibly the hybrid Freeman maple).
Below is the fabulous new Lewis Science Library (2008), designed by Frank Gehry with his characteristic, curvilinear stainless-steel facade. I gazed up at this soaring wall through native honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), but if I’d known that there was a grove of sassafras under another wall, I’d have been there in a jiffy!
One of the fun parts about Reunions weekend is the chance to listen to panel discussions on all kinds of topics. For example, we went into the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, which is flanked by an allée of columnar oaks (Quercus sp.)…..
….. to listen to a fascinating, multifaceted discussion on “The Future of Tech”.
Panel for “The Next Big Thing in Tech”, Princeton Reunions 2017 (left to right): Moderator Ruby Lee, Forrest G. Hamrick Prof. of Electrical Engineering; Julio Gomez ’82, Financial Services Technology Strategist; Joe Kochan ’02, Co-Founder and COO, US Ignite; Marco Matos ’07, Product Manager; Facebook; Julia Macalaster ’12, Head of Strategy, Def Method; Ryan Shea ’12, Co-founder, Blockstack.
Another day, I treated myself to a front-row seat at “The Writer’s Craft”.
Panel for “The Writer’s Craft”, Princeton Reunions 2017 (left to right): Moderator Christina Lazaridi ’92, Lecturer in Creative Writing; Ellen Chances ’72, Prof. of Slavic Languages & Literatures; Lisa K. Gornick ’77, Novelist; Alan Deutschman ’87, author; Cate Holahan ’02 author.
But generally, I prefer to stay outdoors and a tree tour of campus is a perfect way to do that. This year I walked with a large crowd behind Merc Morris ’72, below in white jacket, who has been giving these tours for years now. It’s my second tour with Merc.
He pointed out the towering white ashes (Fraxinus americana) on Cannon Green which are slowly succumbing to emerald ash borer. This one is in front of West College, about to be renamed to honour long-time Princeton Professor Emerita of creative writing, Toni Morrison.
The older magnolias, like this one against Alexander Hall, were planted in the 1920s by Princeton’s consulting landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. (More on her later).
We just missed the gorgeous flowers of yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea), growing in front of Murray-Dodge.
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Merc points out this huge dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) near Prospect House, planted in 1948. He relates why it is particularly happy in this spot, since the university arranged to divert a segment of its rainwater drainage toward its roots.
We head to the front of the university (total 500 acres) and I see the Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa) in shimmering flower next to Stanhope Hall. This Asian species is a replacement for the native flowering dogwoods (Cornus florida) that were once planted on the Ivy League campuses, but mostly succumbed to anthracnose.
Speaking of Ivy League, here’s the wall of East Pyne, one of the older dormitory buildings. That vine clinging tenaciously to the stone is Boston ivy, (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) and many people associate it with the origins of the term “Ivy League”.
Finally, we’re standing near Princeton’s main drag, Nassau Street, looking back at Nassau Hall. Already preparing for next week’s graduation, it was built in 1756 and at the time it was the largest academic building in the American Colonies. During the Revolutionary War, it was occupied by both British and American forces and suffered damage during 1777’s Battle of Princeton. For a few months in 1783, Princeton served as the capital of the new United States and Nassau Hall hosted its government. But we’re here in the original campus yard to look at the tall American elms (Ulmus americana), survivors of the cataclysmic Dutch elm disease that ravaged the tall native trees in the mid-20th century.
As we prepare to head next door to Maclean House, Merc gives us a little introduction to the historic trees we’ll see there.
Here is beautiful Maclean House (1756) and the oldest trees on Princeton’s campus, the “buttonwood” or American sycamore trees (Platanus occidentalis) planted in 1766. Though they often lose their first leaves to anthracnose, as in this photo, they put out a second crop of leaves in summer. The sycamores are also called the Stamp Act trees, because their planting coincided with the repeal of the Stamp Act, which had been instituted by Britain in 1765 and required a tax on every piece of printed paper used by American colonists.
And here’s the page on the sycamores in the Little Trees book.
On Saturday afternoon, we gather for one of the long traditions for reunions weekend, the annual P-rade. Keeping in mind that some 25,000 people arrive on campus for the weekend, it’s a very long procession, beginning with the oldest alum from the 1940s, now driven in golf carts, to the youngest. And yes, that is my husband doing the back and forth ‘locomotive’ cheer, which he loves. He played hockey more than 55 years ago for Princeton (while getting his Economics degree). I hear they had skates then…..
After the P-rade winds up on the athletic field, we walk towards Nassau Street heading back to our digs for a nap before dinner. Look at this chestnut (Castanea sp.) in front of the spectacular Lewis-Sigler Institute (and Carl Icahn Lab) for Integrative Genomics (architect Rafael Viñoly).
I see an elegant katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) against the Moffett Lab.
And I’ve been sampling ripe serviceberries (Amelanchier sp.) all weekend outside our own reunion tent, so I test a few from this big shrub growing in front of the Frist Campus Center.
And another little taste of Reunions are the spectacular Saturday night fireworks. This is what I saw from the Boathouse on Lake Carnegie – my video being the 4 minute condensation of what was at least a 15-minute show.
On our final morning in Princeton, our kind hostess (and my husband’s lovely cousin) Rachel Gray Studebaker drives me to the Princeton Graduate College, with its enclosed garden designed in 1913-14 by Beatrix Farrand. I was determined to try to get here before our flight home after reading the cover story on Farrand in her Princeton magazine.
And I am not disappointed. It is stunning….
…and blessedly empty after the reunion celebrants have departed. Though the plants have been updated since her 30-year tenure here as Consulting Landscape Architect from 1915 to the mid-1940s, the sense of formal sanctuary is still very much hers. (Here’s a reprint of an article she wrote for the Princeton Alumni Weekly.)
While preparing to pack and head back to Toronto, I pass the ‘Lucerna’ begonia in Rachel’s kitchen that is fondly referred to as “Einstein’s begonia”. Cuttings of it have been passed from hand to hand in Princeton since he grew it himself in the house on Mercer Street and our cousin, who worked as assistant to the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study for many years, is the proud recipient of this one.
And another lovely Princeton reunion, replete with trees, gardens and famous begonias, comes to an end.
On my frequent visits ‘home’ to Vancouver, I always make a point of visiting the UBC Botanical Garden. I spent time on the campus about a million years ago, but my sensibilities were not garden-related at the time, given I was in my late teens. But 50 years later, it’s become for me a vital part of the leafy paradise that sits at the edge of the Salish Sea, those bay-and-cove inland waters of the Pacific Ocean.
As you enter in spring, you’ll be tempted by the lovely little gift shop, but leave that until you depart. But do note the educational displays featuring plants from the garden, like redvein enkianthus (Enkianthus campanulatus), below.
Move into the garden proper, and you’ll soon see a lovely pond surrounded by Persicaria bistorta and various rodgersias.
There are Himalayan blue poppies (Meconopsis baileyi), of course…
…and they love growing near primroses (P. veris).
This is gorgeous ‘Hensol Violet’ blue poppy with its purplish cast.
I adore being under the towering hemlocks and red cedars. It takes me back to my British Columbia childhood.
In this forest, native sword ferns are plentiful, and amidst the fallen logs, you can see the small rhododendron specimens newly planted.
If you’re feeling brave, you can pay extra to walk the educational Greenheart Tree Walk, alone or with a guide for the scheduled, daily tours.
There’s nothing like being up in the canopy with the birds. I heard a great horned owl when I was there last week.
The spectacular forest here is second growth, with considerable cutting done in the 1930s. Nevertheless, there are 500-600 year old Douglas firs, like the famous eagle-perching tree, below, with its bald eagle aboard.
May is when the Asian Garden shines, with its vast collection of camellias……
….and magnolias, including common star magnolia (M. stellata), below, but many rare and endangered species, such as early-blooming and critically-endangered Magnolia zenii, as well.
There are myriad rhododendrons, such as R. rigidum arched over the path, below…..
…and the tiny R. senghkuense, lovingly planted in the bark of a fallen red cedar, which approximates its preferred substrate….
….and numerous other rhodos, including those in my montage, below.
The David C. Lam Asian Garden is renowned internationally for its collection of 130 maples, the second most significant collection in the world. Among them are the rugged, hardy Manchurian maple, Acer mandschuricum…..
….Acer pauciflorum, below….
…Acer japonicum ‘O-isami’, below…..
…the lovely fullmoon maple Acer shirasawanum ‘Palmatifolium’, below….
…Acer elegantulum, below….
…and Siebold’s maple, Acer sieboldianum, below, among many, many others.
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There are hundreds of other flowering shrubs and trees, like Asian spicebush (Lindera erythrocarpa)….
…the enchanting Chinese styrax-parasol tree (Melliodendron xylocarpum)…..
….with its delightful umbella-shaped blooms. It’s one of my favourite small trees.
There are Asian lindens like Tilia intonsa from Taiwan…..
…and rare hornbeams, like the monkey-tail hornbeam Carpinus fangiana, below….
…and mountain ashes such as Sorbus meliosmifolia….
…the Chinese yellowhorn (Xanthoceras sorbifolium)….
…. and the wondrous Rehderodendron macrocarpum, now threatened because of logging in southwest China.
I love the way this Chinese horse chestnut, Aesculus assamica growing beneath a massive native B.C. hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), symobolizes the successful marriage of the second-growth forest here with the Asian flora within it.
Though you’re in a mature forest full of towering British Columbia conifers, you’ll also find some Asian species, like the Chinese plum yew, Cephalotaxus sinensis, below.
There are fairly common viburnums, like Viburnum davidii, V. henryi, and the cinnamon-leaved viburnum, V. cinnamomifolium, below…..
…and rarer ones, like Viburnum chingii.
And this pale-yellow weigela (W. middendorffiana) is a rare beauty from Japan and northern China.
…and I think this pink deutzia (Deutzia calycosa) that grows at elevation in Sichuan – where it’s called 大萼溲疏 or “da e sou shu” – is delightful.
Look at beautiful Ludlow’s peony (Paeonia ludlowii), below. In Tibet, they call it lumaidao meaning “God’s flower”.
I spend my time turning labels around so I can record the names to match my photos later….
….like this evergreen vine from Japan and Korea, Stauntonia hexaphylla.
Here is the pink form of Clematis montana scrambling up an evergreen in the forest.
Paths through the garden commemorate the work of many storied plant explorers who collected throughout Asia.
Here is a collection of some of the historic names – all leading somewhere in the garden and helping to map the species. The signpost “Straley” honours the late Gerald Straley, who was Curator of Collections at UBC until his untimely death in 1998.
The sign below honours the late David C. Lam garden curator and plant explorer Peter Wharton, who sadly passed away in 2008. These days, when he’s not in the garden, curator Andy Hill can be found on the slopes of Chinese or Vietnamese mountains plant-hunting with the likes of Dan Hinkley of Washington, or with Douglas Justice, Associate Director of Horticulture & Collections at UBC Botanical.
If you still have the energy after traversing all the bark mulch paths in the David Lam garden, do take the tunnel under Marine Drive and head over to the sunny side of the street where you’ll find the Garry Oak garden, the alpine garden, and the beautiful British Columbia Native Plant Garden. And if you see my pal, curator Ben Stormes, there – be sure to say hello!
