The King's gardeners

The flowers of our native Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana x 3), typical of the Dayflower family (Commelinaceae) of which it is a member, open only in the morning, according to The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers: Easterm Region.

The heart-stoppingly beautiful cluster of volunteer Spiderworts (they planted themselves) growing just east of our front porch had apparently not read Audubon's Field Guide, as numerous flowers were open well into the afternoon when we took the photos above and below. But it's true, as the Field Guide says, that the blossoms last only one day. Note bud-in-waiting lower left above and the cluster of buds upper right below.

"John Tradescant the younger succeeded his father as gardener to Charles I and continued the horticultural enterprise in the Tradescant garden [on the Thames] in South Lambeth," says the caption to the above image from Steven A. Spongberg's Reunion of Trees re the son of the 16th- and 17th-century father-and-son team who served as the King's gardeners and transformed the landscape on both sides of the Atlantic through their work as plant explorers extraordinaire. Our exquisite native Spiderwort's botanical name honors the Tradescants.

"The younger Tradescant also opened his home, a veritable museum of curiosities [known as 'The Ark'] to the public," says the Arnold Arboretum's Steven A. Spongberg in his totally awesome A Reunion of Trees: The discovery of exotic plants and their introdution into North American and European Landscapes. (The Ark was later bought by Elias Ashmole, who shipped the rarities to Oxford, where they formed the nucleus of the Ashmolean Museum.) John Tradescant the younger made three trips to Virginia -- in 1637, 1642 and in 1654 -- and returned to South Lambeth with many Virginian plants, including the American Sycamore, which subsequently mated with the European Plane Tree -- possibly in the Tradescants' garden -- to produce one of the world's all-time greatest street trees, the London Plane (Platanus x. acerifolia). Writes Spongberg re the miracle in the garden:

The two species, previously separated from one another by the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, were growing together where they might hybridize -- the pollen of the oriental species [P. orientalis] functioning to fertilize the ovules concealed within the flowers of its occidental cousin [P. occidentalis], or vice versa.  The resulting offspring proved unlike any tree then in existence, a tree of remarkably strong and vigorous growth and of easy propagation by cuttings or by layering.

You'll see mature specimens growing in allee fashion along the sides of many a 19th-century thoroughfare -- such as Memorial Drive in Cambridge, MA -- both here and abroad.

According to the aforementioned Audubon Society Field Guide, Spiderwort is "so named because the angular leaf arrangement suggests a squatting spider."

In contrast to the Audubon Field Guide's theory, Edwin Rollin Spencer in All About Weeds asserts that "The name spiderwort means spider plant and refers to the hairy stamens which look like the hairy legs of a spider" (see top photo).  It all goes to show that whether you're talkin' old-fashioned dead-tree books or the internet, the more sources the better.

Comments

[goomp]

Thank you for the interesting lesson in arboriculture. It may interest you to know that before the wood of dead trees was developed into fibres from which paper could made, old rags were beaten to a pulp to separate the fibres from which paper was be made.

[be]

I'm a huge fan of the plane trees, be they American sycamores or London Planes. I remember hearing somewhere that they are the largest (girthwise) trees on the East Coast of the US - don't know if that's true or not, but the two growing a couple blocks from my office (they look like London Planes) are sooo wide that I can't reach my arms around them when I feel the urge to give them hugs.

What a lucky garden you have to be visited upon by spiderwort. I've considered digging some up from an undeveloped lot nearby to my house, but figure that it volunteered to grow there and not in my yard. I don't want to interfere with its free will or anything.

[Mr.Kurtz]

More exquisite images and fascinating history. And sigh, that's yet another book for the list.

I revere my London Plane for the shade in our 100°+ summers and for the Autumn experience of wading around hip-deep in the yard looking for the cats.

Trees on city property are Pollarded and many homeowners do the same. I know the reasons but it sorta creeps me out. The trees look a bit like enormous old grape vines.

[Sissy Willis]

Interesting, Goomp. Thanks for the inside info. :)

[Sissy Willis]

Be: Native Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) "grows to a larger trunk diameter than any other native hardwoood," says The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees (1988), adding "The present champion's trunk is about 11' in diameter; an earlier giant's was nearly 15'. Re Spiderwort, if you don't want to take them from the wild, there are cultivated species -- Tradescantia x andersoniana -- in a range of flower colors from blue to purple to pink, white and red that might catch your fancy.

[Sissy Willis]

I agree with you, Mr. Kurtz, re the creepiness of pollarding trees like the Planes whose nature is to be large and spreading -- check out this link for creepy squared: http://www.kew.org/newviews/adventures/tree_beech2.shtml -- 'Love the mental image of looking for the cats hip-deep in leaf litter, and yes, Spongberg is wicked fun and interesting for both reading through and dipping into.

[Mr.Kurtz]

Looks rather like a Hogwarts tree.

Also, tangential to Spongberg; there was a mention on the tube last night of 50,000 exotic species of plants and animals in the US.

It won't be the "Religious Right" that takes over this country, but Kudzu and the Asian Carp. Out here it's Russian Thistle.

[temecula chiropractor]

I remember hearing somewhere that they are the largest (girthwise) trees on the East Coast of the US - don't know if that's true or not, but the two growing a couple blocks from my office (they look like London Planes) are sooo wide that I can't reach my arms around them when I feel the urge to give them hugs.

[quail hill homes]

It all goes to show that whether you're talkin' old-fashioned dead-tree books or the internet, the more sources the better.

[Tree surgeons London]

Very helpful and interesting post, thank you