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by Amy Heuer, Visitor Engagement Fellow
 

As Visitor Engagement Fellow, Amy Heuer has coordinated all activities since Fall 2018 to bring Expeditions from aspiration to published application. Photo by Jeff Blackwell.

In 2014, the Arboretum debuted Other Order, a mobile app “sound walk.” The project—a collaboration between Arboretum Senior Research Scientist Emeritus Peter Del Tredici and sound artist Teri Rueb—featured stories and sounds from Bussey Brook Meadow, a parcel of Arboretum land left largely unmaintained for purposes of long-term urban ecological study. Other Order was the Arboretum’s first foray into mobile app interpretation, harnessing new technologies to reach audiences in novel ways.

In the intervening years, mobile technology has become even more widespread and the concept for another app emerged. “Utilizing mobile app technology will greatly broaden our outreach capability,” says Kate Stonefoot, Arboretum Manager of Visitor Engagement. “Besides providing casual access to detailed, targeted information, there are profound benefits for individuals with hearing or sight impairments, as well as visitors for whom English is not their first language. With this in mind, and the help of a generous donation, we’ve embarked on the Expeditions project, which will allow us to share the story of the Arboretum and its world-renowned collection of trees in ways that will enhance the visitor experience.”

When I came to the Arboretum as Visitor Engagement Fellow, tasked with managing the development and launch of the Expeditions app, several things immediately became clear. First, it’s hard to narrow down 16,000 plants to a small selection! And second, the Arboretum’s staff, with their wide-ranging roles, are an incredible reserve of stories. “Behind each of our roughly 16,000 accessions lies a unique story—a story of journeys and collecting around the world, of amazing natural history, horticulture, and the aesthetic experience of observing our plants throughout the seasons and years,” said Director and Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology William (Ned) Friedman. “Expeditions was designed to enrich the experience of interacting with our photosynthetic brethren.”

With the help of an editorial committee—composed of Stonefoot, Keeper of the Living Collections Michael Dosmann, Head of the Library and Archives Lisa Pearson, Editor of Arnoldia Jonathan Damery, and Associate Project Manager Danny Schissler—I began selecting which plants and areas would be featured in the app. Drawing on the Arboretum’s long tradition of docent-led tours, we created a structure featuring two linear tours (an introductory tour and a tour of the Explorers Garden, each with a series of highlighted plants) along with other independent plants and sites throughout the landscape.

Expeditions is available for download at the Apple and Google Play app stores, and may also be viewed on an internet browser.

In structuring the app’s content, we created something flexible. If you want to follow a linear tour from the Hunnewell Building to the ponds, you can opt for the Introductory Tour, with eleven “stops” (featured plants or areas) along Meadow Road. If you want to chart your own course, you can explore and visit up to thirty-five independent stops featured throughout the landscape. You also have a range of options to select from at each stop—you can view images, listen to audio clips, and “dig deeper” by accessing additional content pages. The app’s content will be translated into Spanish and Simplified Chinese. Users will have the option to download the app for free or access the content on an internet browser.

We’re excited to share Expeditions this summer with Arboretum visitors. The app has something for everyone, from the first-time visitor to the most seasoned volunteer. Sharing stories from across the Arboretum’s departments—from horticulture to curation to research to education—illustrates that anyone can develop meaningful relationships with trees. By demonstrating the many complex ways we think about and learn from plants, we hope to encourage visitors to build connections not only to the trees they encounter in our landscape, but to their counterparts everywhere.

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Learn more about hybrid tulip tree on our Tournament of Trees page, and more images in our Plant Image Search.

Native to the eastern United States, L. tulipifera is called tuliptree, tulip poplar, and yellow poplar. On the other side of the globe, the other species, Chinese tuliptree (L. chinense), grows from central to southeastern China. Although the two species look much alike, they can be differentiated by their leaves (those from the Chinese species are more deeply lobed) and by their flowers (the inner tepals of the American species carry bright orange markings). Despite being separated for millions of years, they can be cross pollinated successfully. The hybrid tulip tree displays intermediate characteristics from its parent trees. A beautiful specimen accessioned by the Arboretum in 1981 grows on the Hunnewell Building lawn.

Learn more, and enjoy images, sound clips, and even an “interview” with our winning tree on the Tournament of Trees page.

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Richard Weaver (right) and Stephen Spongberg in the Dana Greenhouses, November 1977.

Dick’s work in the 70s to revitalize the collections went a long way in helping the Arboretum ‘learn’ about itself, articulate its mission, and I would say, help make the institution whole again by bringing relevance to the living collections. Among so many others, the 1977 Weaver and Spongberg trip to Korea and Japan stands out as such a monumental event. He collected almost 1500 accessions for the Arboretum’s living collections during his tenure. And over 300 plants living in the collection bear his name as one of the collectors!
—Michael S. Dosmann, Keeper of the Living Collections
 
We are sad to report the passing of Richard E. ‘Dick’ Weaver, Jr. horticultural taxonomist and assistant curator of the Arnold Arboretum from 1970 to 1983.

Weaver was born in Richland, Pennsylvania in 1943 and received his bachelor’s degree in education in 1965 from Millersville State College (PA) and his master’s degree in plant Taxonomy from Duke University in 1968. He continued studying taxonomic botany at Duke earning his doctorate in 1970 with the thesis, “A revision of the neotropical genus Lisianthius (Gentianaceae),” which was published in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. [53:76-100 (1972)]

In late 1970, he was named horticultural taxonomist/assistant curator at the Arnold Arboretum, working with taxonomist Stephen A. Spongberg and horticulturalist Gary Koller. With Weaver joining the staff, the study of ligneous genera of eastern North America and eastern Asia was revived. Weaver played a key role in shaping the landscape and living collections, and directed planting for several seasons.

He organized and carried out several plant collecting expeditions, most notably in Korea and Japan with Spongberg in 1977, and in the Soviet Union as part of the Cary Arboretum’s reciprocal program in 1980. He taught many classes at the Arboretum and Harvard University Summer School, particularly in plant taxonomy. Besides his interest in temperate woody genera, Weaver’s botanical research centered on the Neotropical members of the Gentianaceae, and he published several articles on the group during his tenure.

He was closely involved with the Arboretum’s publication Arnoldia, contributing numerous articles to the magazine and serving as editor. From July 1, 1977 through September 30, 1978, Weaver served as acting director of the Arboretum’s Jamaica Plain and Weston segments (e.g. the Case Estates) during the transition between the directorships of Richard A. Howard and Peter Shaw Ashton. Weaver was also a driving force and project manager for restoration of the living collections—an ambitious plan to re-establish their original arrangement and to reconstitute plantings along the Arboretum’s pathway system (specifically Maple, Willow, Hickory, Ash, and Catalpa Paths). He also oversaw a five-year campaign to acquire all taxa listed in Alfred Rehder’s Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs not already represented in the living collections. His papers dating to his years at the Arboretum are held by the Arnold Arboretum Archives.

After leaving the Arboretum in 1983, Weaver and his partner, Rene Duval, started We-Du Nurseries in Marion, North Carolina. The nursery specialized in wildflowers from eastern North America and eastern Asia, both areas of horticultural interest to Weaver. In 1996, they sold the nursery, relocating to Puerto Rico where they purchased a coffee finca. In June 2002, they moved to Florida where Weaver took a position in the Herbarium of the Division of Plant Industry, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, from which he retired in 2010.

This memorial was written with contributions from Sheila Connor, Liz Francis, and Lisa Pearson.

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by Jon Hetman, Associate Director of External Relations and Communications
 

In 2019, installation of a new system to mitigate drought at the Arboretum covered the viburnum, walnut, and oak collections around the Centre Street Gate and the Explorers Garden on Bussey Hill. Above, contract irrigation specialists and Arboretum staff work together to install a mainline through the oak collection. Photo by Danny Schissler.

“The fundamental imperative of our work as an Arboretum is to safeguard the living collections so they continue to inform and inspire, from generation to generation,” said Arboretum Director William (Ned) Friedman. “We expend a tremendous amount of effort and resources to provide the best environmental controls for our trees, shrubs, and lianas for their entire lifespans. Just as a museum of art must protect its treasures with the right environmental controls, the Arboretum must act now to shield ours from the growing threat of extreme drought.”

Throughout the Northeast, spring is arriving earlier and bringing more precipitation, though our summers are trending hotter and drier—a warning shot being the brutal summer of 2016, the hottest and driest yet recorded in Boston. Among the collections hardest hit that season were the beeches (Fagus), as the drought forced a final reckoning for several specimens severely compromised by beech bark disease. As this misfortune illustrates, several successive years of inadequate rainfall could devastate many Arboretum collections, as drought-stressed plants are more vulnerable to pests, disease, and the long-term effects of issues like poor soil health. Irrigating our plants during drought emergencies is part of a larger set of strategies aimed at improving growing conditions across our landscape.

Staff irrigation specialists Jed Romanowiz (right) and Emma Hahn bring automation technology to the new irrigation system in the Explorers Garden on Bussey Hill, an area with a large concentration of high-priority accessions. Photo by Danny Schissler.

“Our goal isn’t to use more water, but in fact, water more with less,” said Andrew Gapinski, head of horticulture. “Our current means of responding to drought are highly inefficient and labor intensive. Through new points of access and use of automated irrigation systems where appropriate, we will be able to fine tune our water use during extreme drought and maximize the effectiveness of every drop.”

Until now, the Arboretum has responded reactively to extended periods of dry weather as the typical homeowner does: by supplemental watering. In a 281-acre landscape, this requires pulling horticulture staff away from their usual tasks to deploy water cannons and position miles of hoses to hydrate the collections. Unfortunately, this means application occurs during the heat of the day, a process that loses a significant amount of water to run-off or evaporation before it can reach the roots. The new system will bring water directly to the plants and collections that need it most and reschedule watering to night when it is more likely to saturate the soil.

Planning and design work for the project began in late 2018, with an extensive process for permitting following last spring. Ground was broken in autumn 2019 in an effort that Gapinski calls unprecedented in scope. While typically irrigation systems of this kind are installed in advance of plantings, the Arboretum and its collections are well established, demanding meticulous care during installation. Air spades were used to excavate soil without disturbing root systems, and consultation with irrigation consultants and contractors led to a revision in the design of the pipes, making them more flexible to avoid damage or disruption to the root systems of nearby trees.

“The beauty of the project is that it brought together both internal and external experts to design and implement an extensive state-of-the-art system using the latest materials and installation technologies,” explains Gapinski. “We were literally able to thread-the-needle with the piping to go under and around the critical root zones of our mature and irreplaceable trees with minimal impact. The lessons learned through the trials and error of this phase will pave the way future projects of its kind.”

Bartlett Tree Experts work alongside Arboretum staff using an airspade to excavate around the critical root zones of mature trees. Photo by Andrew Gapinski.

Thus far the donor-funded project has proceeded on schedule, with some thirty acres of high-value collections receiving access to automated irrigation and another seventeen gaining new access to water infrastructure. With momentum gained the Arboretum has launched plans for next steps, including up-dating existing systems and bringing them online with the central controller. Lessons of the past year have allowed horticulture staff to refine the Arboretum’s remaining irrigation needs to parts of three additional areas: Meadow Road, Hemlock Hill Road, and Peters Hill. With the assistance of a team of civil, hydrogeological, and irrigation engineers, conceptual planning for systems in these areas should be complete by the fall, when the Arboretum will begin fundraising for their design and construction.

With this initiative, the Arboretum takes an enormous step toward improving stewardship of the living collections and boosting its prospects for survival in a rapidly changing environment. When needed, our automated irrigation systems will dramatically increase the efficiency of watering our plants and recover thousands of hours of horticultural labor, reduce compaction caused by moving equipment through the landscape, and uphold our commitment to sustainable development and practices. With this and other critical work underway to respond to changing conditions and the uncertainties of the future, the Arboretum continues to pursue innovative thinking and ambitious means to protect and preserve our trees.
 
Originally published in Silva, Fall/Winter 2019-20. Silva is available biannually as a benefit of membership in the Friends of the Arnold Arboretum.

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“Growing a Museum Specimen” is a special exhibition on Google Arts and Culture focused on how the Arboretum’s exploration, propagation, and horticulture activities result in new accessions for the collections.

The Arboretum’s debut contributions include more than 150 historical photographs by Ernest Henry Wilson, the Arboretum’s famed plant explorer and first Keeper of the Living Collections, and two featured exhibits offering in-depth views of plant exploration from both historical and contemporary perspectives. “The Introduction of the Paperbark Maple in the United States” incorporates photographs, maps, and narratives to tell the story of the discovery and rediscovery of the paperbark maple (Acer griseum)—a plant first collected by Wilson for the Arboretum in 1908 and targeted more recently by a 2015 North America-China Plant Collection Consortium expedition. “Growing a Museum Specimen” uses multimedia to follow our plant explorers on expedition in both Asia and the United States in 2018, and follows the journey of an Arboretum plant from collected seed to accessioned tree in our landscape.

“The Introduction of the Paperbark Maple” is a special exhibition on Google Arts and Culture focused on the discovery and rediscovery of Acer griseum, one of the world’s most beautiful and endangered trees.

Enjoy a virtual visit to the Arboretum—and museums next door or continents away—by exploring collections on Google Arts and Culture. Zoom in on trees, photographs, and paintings for incredible detail, and create your own personal gallery with the images you find!

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Watch “The Lilacs of the Arnold Arboretum” on our YouTube channel.

The lilacs will bloom as usual over the course of several weeks, and will peak later this year due to colder weather conditions this spring. You may visit during these weeks of peak lilac bloom, but please observe safe visiting guidelines including social distancing, wearing facial coverings, and returning at another time if the landscape appears to be too crowded for safe visitation.

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