Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant Illustration Project- Getting started!

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This is the second blog in a series I’m writing about a large native plant illustration commission I received from the Friends of Silver Falls State Park (FOSF). To read the first blog click here.
Scouler's Corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, flower with drawing detail

Detail of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older sketchbook.


Tús maith, leath na hoibre, A good start is half the work!

Irish Proverb

When I first received this commission I was very excited: so many wonderful species and so much potential for good work, but my head began to spin when I thought about the scale of the job ahead of me (thirty native plant species). I realized immediately that the project would involve many comprehensive studies of the different growing stages of each plant. I knew too that if I wanted to do a good job I needed a good plan. But by the time the project finally started it was June and Oregon was beginning to experience its worst drought on record. I could feel the panic rising as I watched many of the native species on the list wither before my eyes. To calm my nerves I focused on the art materials I’d need, starting with the right sketchbook. I had already begun to make my own for other projects and knew I would do the same for this one but I wasn’t sure what page dimensions to use.

Finding the right sketchbook!

Scouler's corydalis, Corydalis scouleri sketchbook pageStudy of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older homemade sketchbook.

Feeling the panic nipping at my heels I began drawing Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, (in bloom in my own garden at the time). I used a homemade sketchbook I already had – made from Fabriano Artistico Extra White Watercolor Paper. I realized very quickly, however, that the pages were too small. I love the brightness and versatility of this paper, which I use for graphite as well as watercolor studies, but I needed bigger pages.

Making my own sketchbooks for the project.

Luckily my local art store had a sale in Fabriano Artistico Extra White (140 lb, 300 gsm) at the time. I bought 22×30 inch (559 x 762 mm) sheets and divided each one into four x 11×15 inch (279 x 381 mm) pages. I then had them spiral bound into sketchbooks of 12 pages at my local printer. I thought, rather than having one large sketchbook, dividing the pages up like this would make it easier to manage- and safer. Damage or loss of my sketchbook would be a real setback- especially if all my plant studies were in one. By splitting up the pages this way the sketchbook is lighter too and more manageable. I can study about 10 plants per sketchbook and when full move onto the next.

First Sketchbook with tools and paper

My first FOSF sketchbook of 12, spiral bound pages. The cover (printed on my Epson printer) shows a pen and ink illustration of Western tiger lily, Lilium columbium, created previously. It is one of the native plants on my project list (shown below).
FOSF Native Plant Illustration List with no crop marks

Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant list included it in the sketchbook.

 

The finished botanical illustrations.

The finished botanical illustrations will be reproduced on 11×16 inch (279 x 406 mm) sheets (similar to an herbarium specimen sheet) so my sketchbook page dimensions, at 11×15 inches  (279 x 381 mm), help me visualize how much plant information can fit onto that size sheet. I’ve already begun using my first sketchbook and it’s working well so far. The only change I will make to the second and third will be to insert lighter tracing paper sheets between the watercolor pages so that I can protect them better. I’ve made a tús maith (good start) I think. I will let you know how the “other half” of the project goes in due course.

Aislinn Adams
Blog #2 Friends of Silver Falls State Park Native Plant Illustration Project.

 

 

Native plant Illustrations for Silver Falls State Park- a timely enquiry leads to a dream commission.

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Western ground ginger, Asarum caudatumPen and ink illustration. Western ground ginger, Asarum caudatum, one of the native plants growing at Silver Falls State Park.

The Friends of Silver Falls State Park

scan0002-103x150Earlier this year I visited the Nature Store at the South Falls area of Silver Falls State Park. I was hoping the attractive gift store might be interested in carrying some of my botanical art greeting cards and was finally making enquiries. The aptly named Nature Store is housed in the restored historic log cabin to the north of the South Falls Lodge and is run by the Friends of Silver Falls (FOSF) non-profit. Since their founding in 1986 the FOSF’s mission has been to fund educational and interpretive programs at the park and the Nature Store is the main source of that funding. As a very active voluntary organization they have a long tradition of collaboration with the park staff.  Being Oregon’s largest, Silver Falls State Park attracts over a million visitors annually so the FOSF provide valuable help on a weekly basis as well as at busy times of the year like the annual Mother’s Day Wildflower Festival.

Perfect Timing!

As soon as I made enquiries at the store a friendly shop assistant (a FOSF volunteer) handed me their administrator’s business card advising me to email her. This I did as soon as I got home and was promptly rewarded with a reply. My timing couldn’t have been better as it turned out, not only was the FOSF interested in selling my native plant greeting cards, they also had a project they were deliberating upon and wondered if I might be interested- illustrating a series of thirty native plant identification sheets to be displayed at the lodge. I could hardly contain my excitement and of course I said yes immediately.

Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum

Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum. One of my native plant greeting cards that can be found at the Friends of Silver Falls State Park Nature Store.

Old herbarium specimens to be replaced by new botanical illustrations made possible by the Maroe Brown Trust.

Regular visitors may remember browsing through a set of herbarium specimens, housed in a wooden box, that sat on a counter in the lodge dining room. For many years these specimens (provided by the FOSF) helped visitors identify native plants growing in the park. Over time the popular specimens succumbed to the wear and tear of visitor use and had to be removed. At the time of my enquiry the FOSF had just received a generous bequest allowing them to consider replacing the old with new botanical specimens, however, in the end they decided to use botanical illustrations instead. It was my good fortune to walk into the Nature Store at just the right time and thanks to the generous bequest of Maroe Brown – long time FOSF volunteer and native plant lover- I have this great opportunity to work on the new FOSF  series of native plant identification sheets.

Illustrating thirty native species-a long term project.

Illustrating thirty native species will take time, several seasons in fact, but I look forward to the challenge. It’s not often that one has the opportunity and funding to really get to know a plant subject: to study and record its different growing stages and most importantly, to observe it in its natural habitat. At 9,200 acres, the park (often called the “Crown jewel” of the Oregon State Park system) is vast. I look forward to exploring its diverse regions as I search for the native plants on the list – and I hope you can join me on this botanical adventure as I write about it here.

Aislinn Adams
Blog #1 Friends of Silver Falls State Park Native Plant Illustration Project.

 

 

 

 

Native Plant Appreciation Week, Month,Year?

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Western ground ginger, Asarum caudatum
© Aislinn Adams, 2011
Western wild ginger, Asarum caudatum

Gardening with Native Plants.

I love gardening with wild flowers- or native plants as they are more accurately named. Long before I decided to return to college to study horticulture, I was interested in gardening with wild flowers. This has meant that no matter where I live I grow the native species of that area. Since moving to Oregon, nearly 13 years ago, I have happily discovered that many of the native plants from this part of the Pacific Northwest have long been residents of Ireland and the U.K. Thanks to such plant collectors as David Douglas and Archibald Menzies, and a corresponding rainfall, many of the native plants from the Pacific Northwest thrive in the moist, temperate conditions of the British Isles and Ireland.

Native Plant Time!

If you are interested in native plants and live in the Pacific Northwest this is a very exciting and busy time of year. Between April and May there are many local events organized to help you get up close and personal with the native flora. Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon we have plenty to choose from – wildflower festivals, native plant guided walks and native plant identification classes. If you want to learn more about the native plants in your area- from the showy and colorful to the weird and wonderful- now’s the time. To help you find the right activity here are some links, below, for events in this region but if you search for your own state native plant society or a different native plant organization where you live I’m sure you will find similar information.

Native Plant Appreciation Week.

For me every week of the year (nearly) is native plant appreciation week but spring is one of my favorite times to really admire the beauty and variety of these plants – both in the wild and in my own garden. Many states celebrate Native Plant Appreciation Week (NPAW) around mid-April to early May. Here in the Pacific Northwest the Oregon, Washington and Idaho Native Plant Societies will be celebrating NPAW from April 28- May 4th. Click these links below to find out about the different events they are organizing.


Native Plant Society of Oregon’s list of wildflower festivals

http://www.npsoregon.org/wildflowers.html

Washington Native Plant Society’s Native Plant Appreciation Week Events.

http://www.wnps.org/chapter_info/chapter_programs.html

Idaho Native Plant Society of Idaho NPAW

https://www.facebook.com/events/407168246047518/

Native Plant Identification Classes.

If you live in the Salem, Oregon area you can attend a Native Plant Identification class that I, and fellow Native Plant Society of Oregon member John Savage, will be teaching at the Straub Environmental Learning Center. For dates, time and other details go to this link- http://fselc.org/event-calendar/

Aislinn Adams

Pacific Northwest native- red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum- a favorite on both sides of the Atlantic!

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Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum.

My botanical illustration this week is part of an on-going series I am creating – Pacific Northwest Native Plants. Sadly, the actual shrub from which I sketched this illustration is no longer alive, having succumbed to a bad ice storm several winters ago. I have since planted more red flowering currants, Ribes sanguineum, in my yard but I am glad to have this botanical illustration as a souvenir of that plant. It was a very fine specimen.

A favorite with the humming birds!
This lovely shrub is native to the Willamette Valley, Oregon, where I now live, but it is also fairly common in Ireland – where I come from originally. I remember it as a child growing in the hedge between my garden and my neighbor’s. I didn’t pay much attention to it, as I didn’t like its “perfume”. I have since discovered that humming birds have no such scruples –or a very different sense of smell to humans- because the red flowering currant is a sure favorite with them here every spring.

Thanks to Archibald Menzies and David Douglas.
Thinking of those childhood memories got me wondering about how long the red flowering currant has been in Ireland- a pretty long time as it turns out, thanks to two Scotsmen – Archibald Menzies and David Douglas. Menzies was the first to bring the shrub to the attention of botanists in Britain in the late 1700’s. But it was David Douglas who brought back the viable seeds that became the first red flowering currant shrubs grown on that side of the Atlantic.

In 1825 the London Horticultural Society sent Douglas to the Pacific Northwest; his task was to collect plants that were already known to British botanists but had not been introduced into cultivation. He more than fulfilled this task, not only introducing many already described plants but also “discovering” new ones.

David Douglas – seed collector extraordinaire!
So successful was Douglas in his collecting that he overwhelmed his clients with vast amounts of seed obliging them to redistribute the surplus to other nurseries. According to the Horticultural Society of London the proceeds from selling this shrub alone more than paid for Douglas’ trip to the Pacific Northwest and to this day the red-flowering currant remains one of the most popular flowering shrubs in Britain.

Aislinn Adams

The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!

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This week I’m posting a different botanical illustration of the Pacific Northwest native plant named for Bernard McMahon- and not one of my own. This actual botanical illustration was very possibly created in McMahon’s home. To find out how read on.

Tall Oregon grape. Mahonia aquifolium syn. Berberis aquifolium. Illustrated by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis, 1814.
 According to Joseph Ewan (Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates)
 you can see where Pursh traced the plant from the dried specimen in the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.

The Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and Bernard McMahon’s role in its fate.

While researching my last blog – Nurseryman Bernard McMahon and the Oregon native plant with an Irish connection– I promised to return to the story of Bernard McMahon’s, sometimes unwitting, role in the fortunes of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection.

“The convoluted history of the seeds and plants collected by Lewis and Clark, their passage from Washington and Oregon into the botanical record was nearly as arduous as the journey itself… Working largely behind the scenes, one obscure figure, Bernard McMahon, assumed a primary role in nurturing the seeds from field to page.”

Robert S. Cox

From the Pacific Northwest to McMahon’s nursery.

In order to understand how this happened let us go back a little and look at the history of this famed collection once it arrived back in the eastern U.S. The collection was shipped back east in two stages. The first shipment was sent back in 1805 and the second brought back by Lewis & Clark in 1806. There were two parts to the collection- the dried specimens and the live seeds. The dried specimens were sent to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia where, it was understood, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton would assist Lewis in preparing their description for publication. The seeds were divided between McMahon and William Hamilton who were to propagate and grow them in secret until such time as Lewis would bring the account of his travels and the plant collection to print. Apparently, McMahon proceeded immediately to germinate the seeds whereas Hamilton was slower to set to the task.

From under his nose!

While Jefferson and Lewis were counseling McMahon to keep the precious live plant collection secret fearing some unscrupulous botanist might, on discovering its existence at McMahon’s nursery, rob Lewis of his right to describing them first, in the end it was the dried specimens that were more at risk of being spirited away. Ironically, this was not done by some outside interloper but by the very person McMahon recommended to assist Lewis bring his work to publication; and it was this assistant who ultimately published the collection first, not in the United States but in England – adding insult to injury.

MacMahon helps speed up the plant collection’s journey to print.

For a variety of reasons both Barton and Lewis delayed in preparing the material for publication. McMahon, wishing to be helpful and possibly anxious to shorten the “quarantine” period of the secret plants he had in his care, recommended the young German botanist Frederick Pursh for the job.  Pursh was probably already familiar with some of the dried specimens, having been employed by Barton at the time that the first shipment of plants had arrived back east.

Difficult working conditions bring Pursh to MacMahon’s home.

By all accounts Barton was a difficult person to work for and things did not go well between him and Pursh- so much so that by early 1807 Pursh had moved into MacMahon’s home and begun working on Lewis’ plants there. At this time Lewis was Governor of the Louisiana Territory and living in St. Louis. MacMahon wrote several times to St. Louis seeking instruction on Pursh’s behalf but with no success. He also took it upon himself, while waiting for the arrival of Lewis, to pay Pursh to describe the dried specimens (which had been brought from Barton’s Herbarium.) Pursh had the work more or less completed by early 1809 and grew restless waiting for further instruction. However, in 1809 Lewis died in tragic circumstances. Clark, as executor of Lewis’ will, took over responsibility for the collection material but, while MacMahon kept the live and dried specimens in safe keeping for Clark, Pursh left (or should I say absconded?) with the drawings and descriptions- and as it turns out some of the dried specimens as well.

Somehow, amazingly, during all this time (over a year) while Pursh was living at MacMahon’s and working on the collection, he never discovered the live specimens growing at the nursery (Joseph Ewan- Frederick Pursh 1774-1820 and his Botanical Associates.)

Finally published in London, England.

A description of the well-travelled collection was finally published in England by Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1814.) It is not clear to me if Pursh was ever properly reimbursed  for the work he did for Lewis. Nonetheless does that excuse his behavior? Does a combination of frustrated ambition and impecuniosity justify his conduct? His mysterious disappearance from the U. S. and reappearance in London a couple of years later caused much speculation and criticism amongst American botanists at the time and maybe it is for this reason that his Flora never sold well.

What of the live plant specimens at McMahon’s Nursery?

According to Ewan the first evidence of McMahon advertising plants for sale from the collection was 1815. Sadly he didn’t live long enough to benefit from such sales, dying the following year. But as I mentioned in my last blog, his life and work was memorialized by the botanist Thomas Nuttall who, in 1818, named the genus of shrubs Mahonia for him in his flora, The Genera of North American Plants. According to the record this flora was much more successful than Pursh’s.

Aislinn Adams

Nurseryman Bernard MacMahon and the Oregon native plant with an Irish connection.

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Mahonia aquifolium syn. Berberis aquifolium.
© Aislinn Adams 2008

Tall Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium- Oregon’s state flower and its Irish name!

I’ve always marveled at how something as fragile as a plant can end up thousands of miles from its original home: collected and pressed into herbarium specimens or more amazingly, kept alive on long transcontinental journeys and treacherous sea voyages.  Somehow they avoid destruction and are finally transplanted into a foreign soil and there, not only survive but thrive.

I must confess I feel a certain affinity with these well-travelled plants. I am also a transplant from a far off land having emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. However, my journey was pretty uneventful and mundane when compared to the fortunes of these early pioneering plants and their adventurous collectors who often risked everything to bring them back.

As a horticulturist and botanic artist I feel not a small debt to these enduring plants and their collectors. So, when I post my botanical illustrations, instead of writing about their cultivation I prefer to write the human stories behind the plants. The story behind this week’s botanical illustration, tall Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium, contains all the elements of a good plant story but it also has another important attraction for me: it connects the place of my birth with my new home in Oregon.

Two scientific names for one plant!

The connection to Ireland lies in the second scientific name for this genus of shrubs. For some reason Oregon grape has two scientific names- Berberis and Mahonia. Generally speaking, botanists use the first name while horticulturists use the second. As a horticulturist I learned to name the genus Mahonia and even though I have been aware of both names for many years it has never bothered me which one was used. Now that I’ve discovered the Irish connection I’m more inclined to favor the latter.

Years ago in Ireland I chose Mahonia aquifolium for my first garden. Back then I didn’t give the plant’s scientific name much thought. It wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest and discovered Mahonia aquifolium growing in the wild that I began to wonder about its Irish-sounding name.

Irish Nurseryman Bernard MacMahon

That is how I discovered the Irish nurseryman Bernard MacMahon (1775-1816) . Maybe it was because MacMahon had to leave Ireland in a hurry that so little is known about his early life other than he emigrated (probably from Ulster) around 1796. (Some historians suggest that he fled government persecution due to his political leanings towards the United Irishmen.) Fortunately we know a lot more about his life in the U.S.

MacMahon Nursery and Seedhouse.

By the early 1800’s MacMahon had established  a successful nursery and seed business in Philadelphia where many of the up and coming young botanists of the day would gather (including William Darlington and Thomas Nuttall.) However, MacMahon’s main “claim to fame” was his popular gardening book The American Gardener’s Calendar– the first book of its kind to be published in the U.S. It ran to 11 editions and had many admirers, one of whom was President Thomas Jefferson. So impressed was Jefferson with The Calendar that he became a regular correspondent with MacMahon, often trading plants and seeds.

Lewis and Clarke’s Plant and seed collection.

1806, the year The Calendar was published was also the year that Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery returned from the Pacific Northwest. As directed by Jefferson the expedition returned with a trove of plants and seeds collected along the way. Jefferson expected Lewis to publish their description as soon as possible.  Unfortunately, due to his untimely death, publication was delayed. The story of this famous plant and seed collection is an interesting but complicated one with many twists and turns and MacMahon’s, sometimes unwitting, role in its fortunes will be the subject of my next blog. In the meantime, for the purpose of this story, all you need to know is that the collection passed through the grasp of several individuals before finally arriving in the capable hands of MacMahon.

“Classified” seeds!

This was no ordinary collection.  Jefferson passed on the larger portion of the collection’s seed to MacMahon with strict instructions: as federal property he was forbidden to propagate any of the seeds for commercial use and the collection had to be kept secret while its description awaited publication. In spite of these restrictions MacMahon set to propagating and growing the seeds with great diligence and skill and  the plants flourished. He never really benefited from the plants commercially, nor from being able to advertise their existence at his nursery but in the end he was honored posthumously for his efforts. In 1818 Thomas Nuttall named this genus of shrubs for him in his publication The Genera of North American Plants. I suppose one could say the reward for his hard work, loyalty and discretion was immortality in a plant’s name- for which I am very glad – because every time I see this plant I feel the connection between Ireland and Oregon and the distance recedes.

Aislinn Adams

Botanical illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring.

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© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum

Botanical Illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring. 

I’m delighted to announce that twelve of my black and white botanical illustrations are now available as rubber stamps. I’ve just signed my first license contract with the rubber stamp company Impression Obsession.

Spring is finally in the air and the inspiration for this rubber stamp collection. There are lots of blossoms to choose from- Florida dogwood, Chinese plum, peach blossom, fawn lily, passion flower, rhododendron, lily of the valley, daffodil and crab apple. I am particularly happy to see the American native plant in the selection- fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum – a favorite from the Pacific northwest where I live.

Check out the complete collection of my new botanical illustration rubber stamps at this link.

Aislinn Adams

American Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, and Irish Fall Color?

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Sweetgum

© Aislinn Adams 1998

My first American Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua.

The first time I saw an American sweetgum was in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland. It was autumn and I was a first year horticulture student attending college there. Ireland is not known for its fall color but that sweetgum, growing on a small island in the “pond”, stopped me in my tracks; its glowing orange-red-purple leaves took my breath away. Such a marvelous display would have done New England proud.

I know there’s a whole series of chemical reactions, triggered by temperature and day length, which make leaves turn the colors they do but seeing that sweetgum made me wonder – if Ireland had more N. American native trees like sweetgum would we have better fall color too?

An American native plant.

Sweetgum is native to the eastern U.S.A. but can be found growing in many parts of the country, including on my own street here in Salem, Oregon. It is not popular with many of my neighbors because its shallow roots push up through the concrete pavement causing large cracks. Even though several neighbors have replaced the sweetgums with smaller, more sidewalk-friendly species, there are still enough on the street to give a striking autumnal show- one I look forward to every year.

Ireland can have good Fall color too.

The botanical watercolor illustration above is part of a series I created for Birr Castle Visitor’s Center in Ireland (and part of my botanical watercolor greeting card series.) I worked on these botanical illustrations while staying in Washington D.C. and was happy to use sweetgum plant specimens from my D.C. neighborhood. I have visited Birr Castle demesne many times (I grew up about 20 miles from Birr) but I don’t recall seeing sweetgum growing there. I have no idea how good the Birr sweetgum looks in an Irish Fall but decided to paint it with good fall color anyway as I like to believe that it too can give as good a show as any of the trees here in the U.S.A. After all, the National Botanic Gardens’ sweetgum looked great.

Aislinn Adams

Hedge bindweed, Calystegia sepium, teaches a hard lesson in humility and patience.

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Hedge bindweed, Calystegia sepium © Aislinn Adams 2009

A new greeting card.

This week I post another botanical illustration from my Washington Post ‘Digging In’ gardening column days and the subject of my latest greeting card design- part of my Botanical Illustration Series #1. In this series I combine my illustrations with favorite quotations. For this card I’ve chosen the quote:

“Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.” Thomas Fuller (1654-1734)

When I read this quote I think optimistically of all the serendipitous plants that turn up in the garden. Often I have bought a plant from my local nursery only to find another species has hitched a ride in the pot. I have acquired some interesting specimens this way: a happy and welcome accident.

Hedge bindweed, Calystegia sepium, not a ‘happy accident’.

This week’s blog subject is definitely not one of those ‘happy accidents’, rather the opposite. Hedge bindweed, Calystegia sepium– formerly known as Convolvulus sepium– is a troublesome weed by anyone’s standards.  This vine twines counterclockwise around plants, often overwhelming them. It is also a well-traveled weed as it can be found throughout the temperate regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres. Calystegia means “covered calyx” while the older name, Convolvulus, means “to entwine” -a name that says it all.

Why do I celebrate this plant in a blog and as a greeting card?

When Thomas Fuller wrote this quote in the 18th century I doubt he was thinking of this troublesome plant. So why do I choose to celebrate this plant not only in a blog but also as a new greeting card? The answer is not that easy to explain.

© 2010  Aislinn Adams

I like my botanical illustration of hedge bindweed in spite of the actual plant’s bad behavior. But this is not the main reason I’ve created this card. The truth is that while working on this design I also battle with the plant in the wildlife garden or ‘naturescape’ (natural landscape) at my daughter’s elementary school. For three years I’ve worked hard to create this naturescape and I don’t want to loose it to this fast-growing plant.

Hedge bindweed- a difficult weed.

In my experience this weed, while not an ‘invasive exotic’, is one of the most difficult to remove from a garden, almost impossible in fact. At the moment it is succeeding quite easily in taking over a large area of the naturescape. Last spring I organized a group of energetic volunteers to pull the weed but within a few weeks it was back again: fresh spring-green shoots pushing through thick hogfuel bark mulch.

I have wasted a lot of time worrying about this plant, wondering how I can get rid of it, imagining it taking over the whole naturescape- kudzu-style.  Maybe by creating this card I hope to weaken the spell this plant has cast over the naturescape- and my mind. Maybe by combining this botanical illustration with a thought provoking quotation I can view it from a different perspective and maybe by thinking more philosophically about this plant I can lessen its power.

My ‘Coyote plant’?

This is my ‘coyote plant’. You know Coyote the Trickster of Native American fame. It teaches me that all my efforts to create the perfect naturescape with lots of well-behaved native plants -not always the case of course- is foolishness on my part. I can’t control nature, even this small area on the south side of my daughter’s school.

Grudgingly I learn that I have to respect this plant: its tenacity to keep growing in spite of all my efforts to eradicate it, and to admit that it too has certain qualities that could be called beautiful. But I will keep pulling it and as soon as school starts again next month I will organize another volunteer day of weeding. In the meantime I will reflect on this quotation and learn to live and let live- for the moment anyway!

Aislinn Adams

Squash, Cucurbita pepo, a Central American fruit that inspires generousity.

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© Aislinn Adams 2008   Squash, Cucurbita pepo.

Celebrating the arrival of squash.

Squash season is here so this week I’m posting a botanical illustration to celebrate its arrival. When I illustrated this black and white illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post I didn’t have time to research its story. Writing blogs about my botanical illustrations allows me time to research my subject in more depth- a very enjoyable endeavor.

Sorting out the different kinds of squash can take a while. They are loosely divided into two groups – summer or winter squash. Squash, also called marrow or pumpkin, usually refers to four species of the genus Cucurbita– C. maxima, C. mixta, C. moschata and C. pepo. The summer squash varieties have thinner skins and can be eaten raw whereas the winter squash usually have tougher skins and need to be cooked. The botanical illustration above, Cucurbita pepo, is a summer squash and includes such varieties as standard field pumpkins, small pie pumpkins, acorn squash, vegetable spaghetti, pattypan, summer crookneck and zucchini (also known as courgette).

There’s no waste on a squash!

One can eat nearly all parts of the plant. Apart from the fruit, squash seeds can be eaten directly, ground into a paste, or pressed for vegetable oil. The shoots, leaves and tendrils can be eaten as greens. The blossoms too are an important part of Native American cooking and are also used in other parts of the world.

A fascinating journey!

Little did I realize when I began to research squash that it would lead me on such a journey. So much so that I am now hard put to keep this blog entry short. There is enough material in what I’ve learned for a month of blog posts but I don’t have a month of squash illustrations. I will have to save some of the squash’s story for later blog posts and new botanical illustrations.

Central American caves, the Wampanoeg people and a Patuxet named Squanto.

The more I read about squash, the deeper the story goes. I travel from caves in central America, where archaeologists found 8000-10,000 year-old squash seed (Cucurbita pepo), to the Wampanoag tribe of New England and a Patuxet named Squanto (or Tisquantum) who, despite being captured and sold as a slave to the Spanish and later regaining his freedom and finding his way back to his homeland, helped Plymouth colonists survive those first harsh winters in New England by teaching them how to cultivate corn, squash and beans.

The “Three Sisters”- a clever combination.

The “Three Sisters”- corn, squash and beans- were the main indigenous plants used for agriculture in the Americas.  The corn provides a climbing structure for the beans and shade for the squash, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil, and the squash spreads across the ground providing cover from weeds while keeping the soil moist.

Origin of the name squash.

The word squash comes from the Native American word askutasquash: a Narrangansett word meaning ‘a green thing eaten raw’. Narragansett, an Algonquin language, is related to the Massachusett and Wampanoeg languages.

The important role of Wampanoeg women as farmers.

Squash was also a staple of the Wampanoeg diet. Wampanoeg women were responsible for farming and fruit and nut gathering. This meant they provided up to 75% of all the food needed in Wampanoeg societies (Wikipedia [4] ). The importance of their role as food providers is reflected in the status they enjoyed in their communities: land was passed down through women i.e. matrilineally, and they often held leadership positions. As it was the women who grew the food they, along with Squanto, must have been responsible for teaching the Plymouth colonists how to grow the “Three Sisters” during those first few critical years.

The next time you pick up a squash, pause a moment to consider it’s long and bountiful history: the generosity of the Wampanoeg people who shared this food willingly, and nature’s generosity in providing us with such a nourishing food for over 10,000 years.

Aislinn Adams