MoMA

I was at MoMA last weekend and decided to take a few pics of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Yes, the image above says the Lillie P. Bliss Garden Plaza, but presumably the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden commences when one descends the steps on the right.


By the way, doesn't Lillie P. Bliss sounds almost like a pseudonym someone would daftly invent, were one in a screwball comedy? The real Miss Bliss was a key figure to MoMA due to the terms in her will. She left a large art collection to MoMA but also allowed MoMA to sell art from that collection in order to acquire better pieces. For example, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was partially bought with funds raised by selling a Degas in Bliss's collection.

Back to the garden:

When MoMA was redesigned by architect Yoshio Taniguchi, Taniguchi preserved Philip Johnson's original design (1953) for the garden. Some expansions were made, but for the most part the garden was untouched.


Note that the bridge is comprised of only three slabs of marble. In the background, there are the Bertoia chairs we last saw in Paley Park.

The weeping European beech trees, or Fagus sylvatica, (so sensitive to compaction due to their shallow roots) were preserved, though I'm skeptical as to whether I could say the same of the birches (Betula populifolia); they look a bit small for the originals.


Birch trees seem to be a touch ubiquitous outside museums. The Tate Modern in London opened 53 years after MoMA, and birch trees were used once again. Of course, birches have an austere quality that mirrors the sense of peace and order you achieve in a museum, and they're vertical, compact plants which work in the urban environments of most museums.

Ilex verticillata

Since we are well into December and Soho streets are getting thronged with tourists, it seems appropriate to do a post on Ilex verticillata or winterberry holly. Here's one in full fruit on the High Line.



Ilex verticillata (sometimes called fever bush, as is Lindera benzoin -- both species have been used as antiseptics and astringents) is an incredibly tough plant with a vast range - it can grow as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Florida. It thrives in wet soils and like most hollies, it prefers a slightly slightly acid pH.



Of course, the bare stems are beautiful and make frequent appearances in holiday floral decorations. I remember seeing fields of these hollies being grown in rural Virginia during college and stunned at the plants' beauty.

Like most hollies (but not all) this plant is dioecious, which means you'll need one male plant in order for the females to fruit.

Equisetum hyemale

There are a fair amount of wetland plants listed on the High Line's plant list, one of which is Equisetum hyemale, or giant horsetail.


Now, at this point I have to pause to explain a bit about how I write this blog. I take my camera with me everywhere and if I see something that interests me, I take a photo of it. Most of the time I know what I'm looking at, but if I don't and I have the time, I try to identify the plant. After that I google it, trying to find some more information about the plant. If you're a regular reader, you know I have a soft spot for etymology or unusual things regarding plant morphology, lineage or ethnobotany.


I knew the plant above was Equisetum but you can imagine my excitement when the first hit on google reads as such:

Equisetum hyemale is not a rush however. Nor is it a fern. Equisetum is the single surviving genus of a class of primitive vascular plants that dates back to the ...

To the what?! Well, after reading on, I find that this species dates back to the mid-Devonian period (of course) which was about 350 million years ago. And little facts like that really make my day. (To assure you that I don't take the first google hit as gospel, know that I try to verify a fact like that on a few other reputable sites before regurgitating it on this blog.)



Equisetum is also lumped into the category of fern ally -- it means that while the plant is not a fern (another ancient primitive plant type), it is similar in that the plant doesn't flower, nor has seeds and instead reproduces with spores. Other fern allies include Lycopodium and Salaginella.

High Line, Rhus & Cotinus

The palette of shrubs on the high line made a lot of sense to me. They are primarily tough plants and while not all are native, most of them are associated as colonial plants; plants which can inhabit a difficult environment.


Rhus typhina or staghorn sumac, definitely belongs in this category. You've probably seen this plant on the sides of highways or growing in craggy areas where few other plants succeed. The plant is called staghorn sumac because of the fuzzy stems -- they almost resemble the hairy antlers of a stag.



Below is another Rhus, Rhus glabra or smooth sumac.


Like most Rhus species, the plant has a characteristic red seed head, which as you can see, is quite beautiful.


Finally, a third Rhus, Rhus aromatica or fragrant sumac. I love this plant. It's tough, has great fall color and it emits a spicy aroma when the leaves are crushed. Of course, it's important to know the difference between this plant and it's more aggressive cousin, Rhus dermatitis, or poison oak.


I've spoken about Cotinus coggygria two times in the past. It's a plant I don't really love, since it seems so alien in almost any landscape. However, the small whips of this tree (or is it a shrub? It seems to occupy the no-man's land between these two categories...) that dotted the High Line seemed right.


And it's hard to deny the brilliance of its autumn color.