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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

The Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum and its many names.

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Oregon Fawn lily- Erythronium oregonum
© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Oregon Fawn Lily, Erythronium oregonum.


The Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, and its many common names.

Erythronium oregonum has many common names- giant white fawn lily, Oregon fawn lily, dog’s tooth violet, trout lily, adder’s tongue, lamb’s tongue. Maybe this is why the Historic Deepwood Estate here in Salem, Oregon- where I live- has chosen the scientific name for their annual spring native plant festival. Not wishing to confuse people with a common name that is not “common” to all, they use the scientific name Erythronium (pronounced, err- ih-throne- ee-um.) Personally I find it much more useful to use the scientific name for the same reason. Never underestimate the creativity of humans to come up with interesting and numerous common names for one plant, and though they are lovely, ultimately they are rather confusing, especially when trying to communicate which plant you mean to someone.

My first fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum.

Erythronium oregonum was one of the first bulbs I planted in my own garden when I moved to Oregon many years ago. It has since seeded itself throughout my front yard, totally ignoring all my efforts to corral this charming spring bloomer into an attractive sweep of creamy yellow. It was one of these flowers that I used for my botanical illustration above, and inspired me to create my Pacific Northwest Native Plant Greeting Card Series.

The fawn lily and early plant explorers.

When I first saw this beautiful fawn lily here in the Willamette Valley I assumed it must have been collected by Lewis and Clark or David Douglas in the early 19th century. This is not the case. The first fawn lily to be described from this part of the world, pink fawn lily, Erythronium revolutum, was collected by Archibald Menzies in 1793 and described by James Edward Smith in 1809. Then in 1806 the fawn lily’s mountain “cousin” the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, was brought back by Lewis and Clark (Lewis called it a dog’s tooth violet in his journal) and described by Frederick Pursh in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis in 1814. (for more on the collection see my blog  The saga of the Lewis and Clark Plant Collection and the Irish nurseryman Bernard McMahon’s unwitting role in its fate!.) The glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, also has other common names including yellow fawn lily and yellow avalanche lily.

The common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonoum, erroneously mis-identified.

It wasn’t until 1935 that the more common fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum, was finally described by the Oregon botanist, Elmer Applegate. As is often the case with plant exploration and identification, the story is not that straightforward. According to Applegate “for nearly a century this familiar plant has been known erroneously as Erythronium giganteum Lindl. or as Erythronium grandiflorum var. albiflorum.” ( Kalmiopsis Vol. 10 2003. Native Plant Society of Oregon.) So maybe my assumption wasn’t so far off the mark. Is it possible that some of the Erythronium grandiflorum bulbs collected by Douglas (April, 1826 and 1827) may have been Erythronium oregonum after all?

Elmer Applegate and David Douglas.

There is a tenuous link of a different kind between Applegate and Douglas. Applegate’s wife Esther Emily Ogden was a niece of Peter Skene Ogden (the well-known fur trader and chief trader with the Hudson’s Bay Company.) Douglas met Ogden August 30, 1826 at Fort Vancouver, Washington, directly after Douglas’ exciting 12-day descent of the Columbia River from Fort Colville in eastern Washington. During that descent he had a lucky escape when his canoe was wrecked at the Dalles; causing him to loose the insects he had collected in the interior and some seeds, but he managed to save bulbs of the glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, collected in the Fort Colville area. In April the following year, while on his journey overland to Hudson Bay to meet his ship bound for England, he collected more of the glacier lily in the same area and transplanted them in the hope of keeping them growing all the way to England. Maybe it was these particular transplants that were the first fawn lilies that he is credited with introducing into England. Now I wonder if they were all glacier lilies: if some of the Oregon fawn lilies had not been introduced into the mix also?

When I drive by the Deepwood Estate along Mission Road here in Salem and see the expanse of pale yellow that is the fawn lily, it’s hard to imagine that Douglas didn’t see them while traveling though the Willamette Valley. At any rate, it is a wonderful sight to see and, no doubt, it will be enjoyed by the many visitors to the festival next weekend- Friday and Saturday April 5 and 6. For more information about the festival click here- http://historicdeepwoodestate.org/historic/estate/calendar_events/2013/04/05/  I am delighted to say that my cards will be on sale at the festival also.

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