Arnoldia (journal)

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History

Arnoldia was established as the Bulletin of Popular Information in 1911. The Arnold Arboretum's first director, Charles Sprague Sargent, viewed the publication as a means of alerting visitors to the "flowering of important plants" in the Arnold Arboretum's collections. Initially, the Bulletins were issued only during the growing season, and with a Bulletin in hand, there was no reason a visitor should miss the flowering or fruiting of any plant on the grounds. [2]

After Sargent's death in March 1927, Ernest Henry Wilson assumed responsibility of the publication. Other than the addition of illustrations, however, the publication continued to be a seasonal guide filled with information on the phenology, history, and culture of the Arboretum's plants. It was not until Wilson's untimely death in 1930 that the content began to expand. Edgar Anderson, best known for his later work at the Missouri Botanical Garden, edited the publication for the next four years, and while "plants of current interest" remained a regular feature, staff members began to contribute longer articles, with new interdisciplinary topics including ethnobotanical uses of plants, botanical art, and landscape history. [2] This thematic expansion was encouraged by Oakes Ames, a Harvard professor of botany who had been appointed the managing supervisor of the Arnold Arboretum in 1927. In 1931, Ames wrote the first Bulletin article about botanical art. [3]

Donald Wyman took over the editorship in 1936, and in 1941 Arnold Arboretum director Elmer Drew Merrill, who was partial to one-word titles, changed the Bulletin of Popular Information into Arnoldia, honoring benefactor James Arnold. Wyman wrote the lion's share of its articles for over thirty years. [4] A remembrance in 1993 recognized his contributions: "More, perhaps, than any other single person, certainly of his era, he advanced the knowledge of hardy woody plants through his articles published in Arnoldia and elsewhere . . . His work may now seem familiar, but only because it's been so often imitated." [5]

After Wyman's retirement, other editors expanded the content. In 1970, Arnoldia was reformatted as magazine with multiple contributors per issue, and the inaugural issue contained articles about botanical libraries, a botanical trip to Hong Kong, and the natural history of a common weed. [6] The scope of the publication has continued to expand over the subsequent decades, attracting an even wider variety of scholarship. [2]

Aims and scope

Arnoldia calls its interdisciplinary approach “plant studies,” as opposed to “plant science,” which implies that authors should use a humanities-based approach, even when the subject matter comes from a scientific research background. [7]

Related Research Articles

Charles Sprague Sargent American botanist (1841-1927)

Charles Sprague Sargent was an American botanist. He was appointed in 1872 as the first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, and held the post until his death. He published several works of botany. The standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he identified.

Arnold Arboretum


The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, established in 1872, is the oldest public arboretum in North America. This botanical research institution and free public park is located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. The landscape was designed by Charles Sprague Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted and is the second largest "link" in the Emerald Necklace. The Arnold Arboretum's collection of temperate trees, shrubs, and vines has a particular emphasis on the plants of the eastern United States and eastern Asia, where Arboretum staff and colleagues are actively sourcing new material on plant collecting expeditions. The Arboretum supports research in its landscape and in its Weld Hill Research Building.

H. H. Hunnewell estate

The H. H. Hunnewell estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts was the country home of H. H. Hunnewell (1810–1902), containing over 500 species of woody plants in 53 families. The estate remains in the family, and includes the first (1854) topiary garden in the United States, featuring intricate geometrically clipped native Eastern white pine and Eastern arborvitae. A collection of specialty greenhouses feature over 1,000 plant species. The estate has been cared for by six generations of the Hunnewell family.

Joseph Hers (1884–1965) was a Belgian railroad engineer who served from 1919 to 1924 as a botanist in northern China, where he discovered several new varieties of lilac. Some have been named after him.

Alfred Rehder

Alfred Rehder was a German-American botanical taxonomist and dendrologist who worked at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. He is generally regarded as the foremost dendrologist of his generation.

Ernest Henry Wilson

Ernest Henry "Chinese" Wilson, better known as E. H. Wilson, was a notable British plant collector and explorer who introduced a large range of about 2000 Asian plant species to the West; some sixty bear his name.

Elmer Drew Merrill

Elmer Drew Merrill was an American botanist and taxonomist. He spent more than twenty years in the Philippines where he became a recognized authority on the flora of the Asia-Pacific region. Through the course of his career he authored nearly 500 publications, described approximately 3,000 new plant species, and amassed over one million herbarium specimens. In addition to his scientific work he was an accomplished administrator, college dean, university professor and editor of scientific journals.

<i>Ulmus minor</i> Umbraculifera Elm cultivar

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera' [:shade-giving] was originally cultivated in Iran, where it was widely planted as an ornamental and occasionally grew to a great size, being known there as 'Nalband' Persian: نعلبند‎ [:the tree of the farriers]. Litvinov considered it a cultivar of a wild elm with a dense crown that he called U. densa, from the mountains of Turkestan, Ferghana, and Aksu. Non-rounded forms of 'Umbraculifera' are also found in Isfahan Province, Iran. Zielińksi in Flora Iranica considered it an U. minor cultivar.

<i>Ulmus</i> Koopmannii Elm cultivar

The elm cultivar Ulmus 'Koopmannii' was cloned from a specimen raised from seed sent from Margilan, Turkestan by Koopmann to the Botanischer Garten Berlin c. 1880. Noted in 1881 as a 'new elm', it was later listed by the Späth nursery, catalogue no. 62, p. 6. 101, 1885, as Ulmus Koopmannii, and later by Krüssmann in 1962 as a cultivar of U. minor. Margilan is beyond the main range of Ulmus minor. Augustine Henry, who saw the specimens in Berlin and Kew, believed Koopmann's Elm to be a form of Ulmus pumila, a view not shared by Rehder of the Arbold Arboretum. Ascherson & Graebner said the tree produced 'very numerous root shoots', which suggests it may be a cultivar of U. minor. Until DNA analysis can confirm its origin, the cultivar is now treated as Ulmus 'Koopmannii'.

<i>Ulmus</i> × <i>hollandica</i> Gaujardii Elm cultivar

The hybrid elm cultivar Ulmus × hollandica 'Gaujardii', one of a number of cultivars arising from the crossing of Wych Elm U. glabra with Field Elm U. minor, was raised by the Gaujard-Rome nursery of Châteauroux, France, in the 1890s as Ulmus Gaujardii and was described in the 1898 Kew Bulletin and Wiener illustrirte Garten-Zeitung. It won first prize in the International Horticultural Exhibition in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1899 and a silver medal in the Heemstede Exhibition, The Netherlands, in 1925. From the early 20th century it was distributed by the Späth nursery of Berlin as Ulmus montana Gaujardi, and in the interwar years by the Boccard nursery of Geneva as Ulmus campestris Gaujardi. It appeared in Unsere Freiland-Laubgehölze in 1913, but without description.

Oakes Ames (botanist)

Oakes Ames was an American biologist specializing in orchids. His estate is now the Borderland State Park in Massachusetts. He was the son of Governor of Massachusetts Oliver Ames and grandson of Congressman Oakes Ames.

The Field Elm cultivar Ulmus minor 'Rugosa' was distributed by the Späth nursery, Berlin, in the 1890s and early 1900s as U. campestris rugosaKirchner. Kirchner's tree, like Späth's a level-branched suberose field elm, was received from Belgium in 1864 as Ulmus rugosa pendula. Kirchner stressed that it was different from Loudon's Ulmus montana var. rugosa, being "more likely to belong to U. campestris or its subspecies, the Cork-elm".

Charles Edward Faxon American botanical artist

Charles Edward Faxon was an American botanical artist and instructor of botany born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. The standard author abbreviation Faxon is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Frank Nicholas Meyer American botanist

Frank Nicholas Meyer was a United States Department of Agriculture explorer who traveled to Asia to collect new plant species. The Meyer lemon was named in his honor.

Donald Wyman was an American horticulturist, the head of horticulture at Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum from 1935 to 1970.

Professor John George Jack was an American dendrologist.

Susan Adams Delano McKelvey (1883-1964) was an American botanist and author, noted for her work at the Arnold Arboretum. The standard author abbreviation McKelvey is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Susan Minns was an American biologist, philanthropist, and collector. She was one of the first women to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She created a notable and extensive collection of art and literature relating Danse Macabre, a portion of which is now held by the University of Louvain. Minns helped establish the Marine Biological Laboratory and donated generously to numerous scientists, institutions and to her home state of Massachusetts.

Ernest Jesse Palmer was a “collector-botanist” botanical taxonomist and plant collector. He began collecting in 1901, then collected professionally for the Missouri Botanical Garden starting in 1913 and for Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum from 1921, until 1948. He specialized in the genera Crataegus and Quercus.

<i>Forsythia europaea</i> Species of flowering plant

Forsythia europaea, commonly known as Albanian forsythia or European forsythia, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family, with a native range from Montenegro to northern Albania. It is the only species of Forsythia native to Europe; prior to its discovery in Albania in 1897, it was thought that all Forsythia were native to East Asia.

References

  1. "Arnold Arboretum - Arnoldia - Home Arnold Arboretum" . Retrieved 2020-03-25.
  2. 1 2 3 "Arnoldia Online" (PDF). Arnoldia. 65 (1): 36 via Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
  3. Ames, Oakes. "Botanical Drawings of John Singer Sargent" (PDF). Bulletin of Popular Information. series 3, vol. 5(10): 37–40.
  4. Del Tredici, Peter (1991). "Introduction" (PDF). Arnoldia. 51 (4): 3 via Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
  5. "Remembering Donald Wyman" (PDF). Arnoldia. 53 (3): 3. 1993 via Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
  6. "Arnold Arboretum - Arnoldia - Show Arnold Arboretum" . Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  7. "Arnold Arboretum - Arnoldia - Submissions Arnold Arboretum" . Retrieved 2020-03-25.