Monkey Pod Tree

I mentioned Albizia saman in last week's post about Asplenium and then promised to comment more on this lovely tree in the future. Well, that time is now.


First of all, what a beauty, eh? I am *in love* with the elegant, almost overreaching canopy. The form is so striking and, as common as this tree is in Oahu, I think I will always equate monkey pod tree with my wanderings on this trip.



Not that Albizia saman is native to the Hawaiian islands, it's instead native to Central and South America, distributed between Mexico and Brazil. Indeed, due to the region's geologic history, Hawaii is fairly sparse in terms of native plants. More often that not, the plants that are most popular here are native to other areas and were planted by colonists or passers-through. (Somewhat relevant to this information, in last week's post about breadfruit my friend Matthew asked if Artocarpus was endemic to Hawaii and it's not. It's native to the Malay peninsula and the surrounding islands.)



Here above is another shot of the tree pictured at the top of this post. You can gauge from the Monstera leaves below how big this trunk is. I'd say its diameter was probably around 9-10'. A woman at the Waimea Botanical Garden says the arborists speculate this specimen is over 200 years old. In that case it is quite like the "Samán de Güere" a Venezuelan national treasure and landmark. That specimen was originally recorded by Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist and one of the founders of biogeography, in his trip to South America between 1799 and 1804. You can see an old print of this Venezuelan icon here. Unfortunately, there's scant information about this tree online, in English (and my Spanish is pretty shoddy these days).



I know I'm quite smitten with a new species when I have a ton of photos of the feature I like so much (in this case, the branching habit) and one cursory shot of another key characteristic (in this case, the leaves). In fact, I was relieved to find I had even one picture of the species' pinnately compound leaves. Knowing that the leaves are pinnately compound, you could hazard a guess that Albizia is a member of the pea or legume family, and you'd be right. Technically these days, you'd say it is a member of the Fabaceae family, though Leguminosae is still commonly used and considered acceptable. In either case, Fabaceae trees have similar leaves and pea-pod like fruits. Other species of this family which we have previously discussed are Gleditsia, Robinia, Sophora, Lupinus, Cercis and Cladrastis.



Finally, on a very unscientific note, every time I look at this photo, I can hear Meryl Streep saying in her Danish accent "I had a farm in Africa." Indeed, monkey pod tree is related to Albizia amara, a tree that is found in the dry scrublands between Sudan and South Africa.

Artocarpus atilis

Here in Waimea Valley Botanical Garden, we now visit the breadfruit tree, or Artocarpus atilis. I saw this tree elsewhere in Honolulu and was always struck by the huge feathery leaves. With such big leaves (check out the bottom pic, my foot's about 8" long so the leaf must be close to 20") you'd expect a coarser texture in the canopy but the deep narrow leaf sinuses soften the whole look.


Sadly, this member of the mulberry (Moraceae) family was not in fruit, as I would have loved trying it out. It's called breadfruit, obviously enough, because the plant is very, very starchy. It's about a quarter carbs and the rest is water. Because of it's starchiness, it's often baked or fried.



Breadfruit is also a very high-fruiting tree, producing impressive fruit yields. In fact, Captain William Bligh and his infamous Bounty crew was tasked with harvesting breadfruit from Tahiti so the British could cultivate it in the Caribbean. They aimed to do so because the plant would be a fast and cheap source of food for British slaves. Ugh.

Artocarpus is literally Greek for breadfruit. Artos means bread and carpus means fruit or body.

Anne Frank and the Horsechestnut

Being an avid plantswoman, friends and family send me LOTS of articles and links about trees. I welcome them all and read most of them.

Last April, my sister sent me this brief article in the Times about the horsechestnut tree which resides behind the annex where Anne Frank, her family, the van Pels family and Dr. Pfeffer hid from the Nazis. The Anne Frank Center in New York City, literally three blocks from my office, was preparing to award ten horsechestnut saplings - progeny from the very tree Anne Frank gazed upon - to various institutions in the United States.

Anne Frank's story and diary resonated strongly with me as a young person, and when I saw a, well, a branch between plants and her story, I was motivated to reach out to the Anne Frank Center and volunteer any services they may need.

Using experience I acquired from writing and reviewing RFPs for the City Planning Department and the Wildlife Conservation Society, I worked with Yvonne Simons and other staff at the Center in preparing a Request for Proposals that would be sent to institutions interested in obtaining a tree. I also was a member of the committee that reviewed the proposals and ultimately selected the institutions which will receive the saplings.

You can read an article in today's New York Times about the selected institutions here.

All of the proposals were touching and selection was difficult. Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas will receive a tree, as will the Southern Cayuga Central School District in upstate New York. The thought that schoolchildren -- Anne's would-be peers -- will care for these trees is profoundly moving to me. Boston will receive a tree because a little girl heard about the RFP and wrote a letter to the mayor. It's another story about how a young person is capable of making a meaningful contribution to his or her society, despite their youth, inexperience or in Anne's case, the bigotry or hatred of their times.

And of course, the fact that these trees are revered and sought-after demonstrates how important nature is to us, emotionally. Perhaps Anne puts it best:

“From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind.” She adds, “When I looked outside right into the depth of nature and God...then I was happy, really happy.”

Vaux Le Vicomte, Continued

As promised, here's more about Vaux le Vicomte. Let's start with a shot from the top of the chateau's dome.


Le Nôtre took advantage of the natural change in grade and two nearby rivers to create a garden that is rich with water and seems to get bigger, and unfold in front of you, as you progress through the landscape. He amplified the natural slope by dropping grades even more as one advances closer to the grotto at the end of the central path.


Of course, when you first view the garden from the chateau, you don't realize the grade drops at all. The gravel paths appear to be a continuous, flat band extending towards the grotto, but in reality the paths step down.


Take a look two photos up -- see the grotto at the end of the central axis? It looks like it's at the same elevation of the chateau, right? But, progressing along the axis, you realize the grotto is much lower.


Even here you haven't really understood that a canal is present in the landscape. You see water, but assume it's another pool. That's because the canal widens into a square-shaped form when it is in front of the grotto. On either side of the grotto, the canal is narrower and thus not visible in the photo above.



The canal is a kilometer wide and is basically a constructed river. A brook fills the canal on one side and on the other, water spills over a weir and connects to a natural steam. (Sidenote: in order to out-do his work at Vaux le Vicomte, Le Nôtre made the Grand Canal at Versailles a mile long. Since the site for Versailles had been selected not by Le Nôtre but by Louis XIV, Le Nôtre had considerably more trouble routing water through those gardens and the Grand Canal.)



Beyond the grotto, a green pasture cuts a swath through a forest of linden and horsechestnut (though this was all farmland or fill when the gardens were first built). A statue of Hercules stands in the centerline. You can imagine how massive this sculpture is, when you consider it's visible as a faint dot in your first view from the Chateau steps. (Full disclosure: I was running late so I never made it to the statue's base though you can see a shot of it here.)


And on your return to the building, a final piece of magic: Heading back to the Chateau, as you leave the canal behind you, you approach a body of water called the "Great Water Mirror." Here, you are more than 400 meters away from the Chateau and are at a considerably lower elevation. Yet, Le Nôtre (mathematician that he was) knew the water would be able to reflect the Chateau as if it were adjacent to the building. If you saw the picture below, you'd never assume the water was nearly a half kilometer away from the structure.


This is probably my longest blog post, ever. Hopefully it made sense to someone who hasn't visited this amazing place. I definitely recommend you visit, though check the website first as getting there is complicated. You take the SNCF train to Melun and on weekends and holidays you can get a shuttle bus to the Chateau. But, if you are a bad planner (ahem, like me), you are stuck taking a taxi for about 15 Euros each way, which is a bit pricey (damn exchange rate).

...Then again, when you consider the colossal scale of this magnificent place, the years of planning and construction, the almost-obsessive attention to detail and the two hundred plus years of upkeep, it only seems fair that one is a touch extravagant when planning one's arrival and departure!

Andre Le Notre

Before Olmsted, before Capability Brown, there was André Le Nôtre.




Le Nôtre was born in 1613 and continued a strong family tradition of gardening. His father and grandfather -- and later André himself -- were charged with caring for the Tuileries in Paris. Le Nôtre studied painting and architecture and excelled at math as well. Some suspect his interest in math is largely responsible for Le Nôtre's use of warped perspectives in his designs (more on that later).

Le Nôtre became a sort of public figure early on in his life. He was responsible for updating the gardens at Fontainebleau and was appointed as state draughtsman for gardens by the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria. But his influence on landscape architecture was not inevitable until he met Nicolas Fouquet.

Fouquet was the Treasurer for Louis XIV and was also a very very wealthy individual. In Louis XIV's reign, the king depended largely on financing from private individuals -- who he then rewarded with 'cabinet' positions. Fouquet helped fund many of France's activities, but he used some of his money for his own personal pleasure. He hired Le Nôtre, along with the architect Louis Le Vau and painter Charles Brun, to build a grand chateau that would be called Vaux-le-Vicomte.



When the work was complete, Fouquet held a grand party -- with a guest list that obviously included the King. When Louis XIV saw the gardens and the chateau he was, legend has it, overwhelmed with jealousy. It didn't help Fouquet very much that his political rival, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, was plotting Fouquet's downfall by supplying the king with false information about Fouquet and his loyalties.

Three weeks later, Fouquet was arrested for myriad reasons too complicated for a blog post about plants. After three years in court, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The king was disappointed and attempted to overrule the sentence in favor of Fouquet's death, but was unsuccessful. Fouquet lived in a prison for 19 years before dying.



With Fouquet out of the way, Louis XIV had Le Nôtre and his team all to himself. He demanded they create a gardens even more beautiful and more grand than Vaux le Vicomte and offered them to work on an old dilapidated chateau in the village of Versailles. Of course, the Palace of Versailles, which kept Le Nôtre busy for thirty years (!), has eclipsed Fouquet's chateau in scale and reputation, but many - myself included - prefer the proportions and design techniques employed at Vaux le Vicomte.

More on the chateau and Le Nôtre's design in the days to come.

Paley Park

Certainly there has been plenty written about Paley Park, on 53rd Street between 5th and Madison Avenues. I'm not going to add to that material, but did want to post a photo in case readers are unfamiliar with it.


The park is beautifully simple; essentially a cube facing 53rd street, with ivy, rotational herbaceous plants and honey locusts. The wall of water at the back of the park - as every landscape architecture student quickly learns - was a brilliant gesture. The white noise it provides drowns out the sounds of city and profoundly adds to the sense of peace on has when sitting on the Bertoia chairs.


Right next door, you can also get a glimpse of NYC's own piece of the Berlin Wall and maybe snap a photo.


Paley Park occupies the former site of the Stork Club, a famous club in operation from before prohibition until the mid-60s. Honestly, I wouldn't have even noted this, had it not been for the fact that I'm catching up on Mad Men. The episode I watched last night included a party scene there.

Central Park's Lilac Walk

It always bothered me that I had such dreary photos of Japanese Lilac Tree posted on this blog. It's a lovely tree, but the photos I took at Sarah Roosevelt Park were, well honestly, a bit dismal.

So, when I was in the Sheep Meadow last Sunday - on what may very well be our *only* sunny day in June - and I saw these beautiful, sparkling specimens, I decided to do another post on Syringa reticulata and the Lilac Walk in Central Park. In fact, it was only when I looked up the link to my previous post on this species did I realize that I wrote it exactly a year ago.


The path you see above is the Lilac Walk in Central Park. As the name suggests, the path is planted with various species of lilacs, including Syringa vulgaris, S. reticulata and S. patula. From April until June this little part of Central Park has something in bloom.


The Lilac Walk is only 39 years old -- it was created in 1970 by philanthropist Nell Singer, who passed away in 2006. The path itself leads to a (currently defunct) concession stand that was once called Mineral Springs. The site was originally conceived as a concession (and will be once again -- the Central Park Conservancy has an outstanding RFP for a Shake Shack type venue) in the late 19th Century. It was called Mineral Springs because, just as now, people were very into fresh 'high end' waters and would-be reformers thought touting the benefits of spring water would lure people away from the evils of alcohol!

Personally, it looks like a great spot for a glass of white wine.

Armeria maritima

I was in the Liz Christy Garden last week, trying to come up with a new route for my summer students, when I saw a sweet little stand of sea thrift, or Armeria maritima, growing at my feet. Unfortunately the light was fading so I only have a few fairly uncreative shots.

As both the common and scientific names would imply, sea thrift thrives in sandy, dry or even rocky conditions much like those you'd find near the beach.



An interesting (to me, at least) story about sea thrift: In 1937 the silver three-pence coins were becoming too small to feel substantial in the hands of their owners so a more substantial coin made primarily of brass, was printed. On the reverse side, a three-stemmed thrift appeared. As brass is largely composed of copper, the appearance of Armeria makes sense, as this plant can grow with a large amount of copper in the soil. It's likely this plant served as an indicator plant, telling miners where to dig.


Armeria is the Latin word for Dianthus (Dianthus itself is Greek), indicating that sea thrift looks a bit like a pink, or Dianthus.