Winter is the time to curl up by a fire with all the books you didn’t get to this summer—and this year had some fantastic reads in botany and horticulture. But how do you know what to pick up in a sea of books?
Each year at its annual conference, the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) awards prizes for the best new works in botany and horticulture that contribute to the body of literature in these fields. Not surprisingly, a selection of these award-winning books are available to be borrowed from the Lenhardt Library. Here are our top four picks—find them online, or check them out on-site on your next Garden visit.
Shopping online? Order through our Amazon Smile link; a portion of your purchase is donated to the Garden.
2016 Award for Significant Contribution to the Literature of Botany or Horticulture:
The Curious Mister Catesby: A “Truly Ingenious” Naturalist Explores New Worlds by E. Charles Nelson and David J. Elliott ; foreword by Jane O. Waring
University of Georgia Press, 2015. (Wormsloe Foundation Nature Book Ser.)
456 p.; 238 paintings, illustrations, photos, and maps
ISBN 9780820347264 (hardcover)
Lenhardt Library call number: QH31.C35C87 2015
2016 Award of Excellence in Botany:
On the Forests of Tropical Asia: Lest the Memory Fade
by Peter Ashton
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in association with the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 2014
ix, 670 pages; color photos, illustrations, and maps
ISBN 9781842464755 (hardcover)
Lenhardt Library call number: SD219.A84 2014
2016 Award of Excellence in Plant Identification & Field-Guides:
California Mushrooms: The Comprehensive Identification Guide
by Dennis E. Desjardin, Michael G. Wood, and Frederick A. Stevens
Timber Press, 2015
559 pages; color photos
ISBN 9781604693539 (hardcover)
Lenhardt Library call number: QK605.5.C2D47 2015
2016 Award of Excellence in Biography:
James Sowerby: The Enlightenment’s Natural Historian
by Paul Henderson
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2015
336 pages; 150 color plates, 30 halftones
ISBN 9781842465967 (hardcover)
Lenhardt Library call number: QH31.S69H46 2015
CHBL is the leading professional organization in the field of botanical and horticultural information services. It is comprised of librarians who work in botanic garden libraries across North America and in university libraries focused on botany and agriculture. Several Lenhardt Library staff (Leora Siegel, Stacy Stoldt, and Donna Herendeen) have served as CBHL board members in the past—and at present.
This past summer, the Chicago Botanic Garden joined an intrepid team of plant collectors from four other American institutions on an expedition to the Republic of Georgia.
Our focus: to collect seeds to diversify the genetic diversity of ex-situ plant collections; to bring back and evaluate species for their ornamental potential; and to provide a hedge against natural and man-made disasters—all while building upon institutional collaborations developed during previous expeditions.
The PCC16-Georgia group poses at the Old Omalo Guest House in the Tusheti Region, Georgia. From left to right: Joe Meny (US National Arboretum), Peter Zale (Longwood Gardens), Boyce Tankersley (Chicago Botanic Garden), Vince Marrocco (Morris Arboretum), Koba (owner of Old Omalo Guest House/Hotel Tusheti), Matt Lobdell (The Morton Arboretum), Temuri Siukaev (driver), Koba’s daughter, Constantine Zagareishvili (driver), Manana Khutsishvili (botanist), David Chelidze (botanist)Just east of the Black Sea is the Republic of Georgia. Map courtesy worldatlas.
The Republic of Georgia was chosen because it is the only biodiversity hotspot that is situated within the temperate climatic zones.
Over millennia, the high peaks of the Greater Caucasus Mountains to the north, Lesser Caucasus Mountains to the south, and their inter-connecting mountain ranges situated between the Black Sea to the west and Caspian Sea to the east have provided a refuge for species that have gone extinct elsewhere due to glaciation and other climate extremes.
Tucked into hundreds of microclimates created by this varied topography, many of these endemic species (found nowhere else on earth) are perfectly hardy in American, Russian, and European gardens much farther north.
Coordinating the trip on the Georgian side were our colleagues from the Institute of Botany, Tbilisi and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden. They provided invaluable logistical support through the use of two of the foremost botanists in the region, drivers, vehicles, and places to stay.
The varied topography of the Tusheti Region.
Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden, Institute of Botany, and American collectors at Bakuriani Field Station
In a little more than two weeks in the field, the group traveled more than 1,100 miles from the high—and barely accessible—Greater Caucasus Mountains of the Tusheti region in northeastern Georgia, through the central valleys, to Lake Tabatskuri in the Lesser Caucasus Mountains in the south, between the Tetrobi Reserve and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden.
The central valley separating the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain rangesLake Tabatskuri is situated between the Tetrobi Reserve and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden; the Lesser Caucasus mountain peaks are in the distance.
The geographic location of Georgia (Russia to the north, Central Asia to the east, Persia to the south and Asia Minor, the Middle East, and Europe to the west) has made this region a favorite transit point for merchants. Tucked into remote mountain valleys are small communities created from the descendants of Greeks, Germans, Hebrews, Persians, Armenians, Turks, Russians, Circassians, Huns, Mongols, and more, with remnants of each people’s own unique culinary, religious and linguistic traditions.
It was also, unfortunately, a thoroughfare for invading armies. Ancient fortifications, places of worship, homes—all show evidence of destruction and rebuilding.
Samshvilde Fortress ruins
Fortified towers are a typical feature of many homes in the Greater Caucasus mountains.
Church of St. George
The collections wrapped up with a foray into western Georgia (ancient Colchis in Greek mythology) in and around Kutaisi, the legislative capital and its third largest city. A brief visit to the Kutaisi Botanical Garden was in order here, before we left the region. A highlight: a small shrine built inside a living 450-year-old oak.
In all, 205 different seed lots and herbarium vouchers—representing 169 different species of trees, shrubs, perennials, and bulbs—were collected, including six of seven species of Quercus (oaks) in support of the IUCN Redlist of all of the Quercus in the world.
A religious shrine is built inside this 450-year-old Quercus hartwissiana at Kutaisi Botanical Garden.
What a haul! Admiring hundreds of seed collections to be cleaned are (left to right): Dr. Fritz, Dr. Tatyana Shulina (Garden consultant), Dr. Manana Khutsishvili (lead Georgian botanist) and Dr. Marina Eristavi (botanist on a former trip).
While we each came away with a fantastic collection of seed to propagate, this trip was about much more than collecting plants. Our journey’s end featured a meeting with representatives of institutions from America, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia all focused on expanding collaboration to match areas of expertise with areas of need—not only in the area of collections, but also horticulture, conservation science, education, and fundraising/collaborative grants.
The Caucasus Regional Meeting participants pose on balcony at the of Institute of Botany. The ancient Narikala Fortress of Tbilisi is in the background.
Left to right: Dr. Marine Eristavi, conservation scientist, National Botanical Garden of Georgia, Dr. Tinatin Barblishvili, deputy director, National Botanical Garden of Georgia, Dr. Lamara Aieshvili, curator of rare and endemic plants of Georgia ex situ collection, National Botanical Garden of Georgia, Vince Marrocco, horticulture director, Morris Arboretum, Dr. Manana Khutsishvili, botanist, Institute of Botany, Tbilisi, Dr. Peter Zale, curator and plant breeder at Longwood Gardens, Matt Lobdell curator of The Morton Arboretum, Dr. Fritz, Dr. Tatyana Shulkina, former curator of the living collections of the Soviet Union, Komarov Botanical Garden and currently Chicago Botanic Garden consultant, Dr. Rashad Selimov, head of education, Institute of Botany Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, Baku, Joe Meny from the US National Arboretum, Dr. Vahid Farzaliyev, National Botanical Garden Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, Baku, Boyce Tankersley director of living plant documentation at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Dr. Shalva Sikharulidze, director of Institute of Botany, Georgia and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden, Dr. George Fayvush, Department of Geo-botany Armenian Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, Dr. Zhirayr Vardanyan director of the Institute of Botany and National Botanical Garden Armenian Academy of Sciences Yerevan
What can we expect from our efforts? New blooms in the Garden! We have added quite a few plants to those brought back from Georgia on three previous trips:
Lilium monadelphum
Muscari armeniacum
Tulipa undulatifolia
Bellevalia makuensis
Campanula lactiflora
Gentiana schistocalyx
Stachys macrantha
Stokesia major
Dianthus cretaceous
Iris iberica ssp. elegantissima
Verbascum pyramidatum
Colchicum trigyna
Stay tuned! Invitations have been received from institutions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia for future plant collecting trips to the region. Likewise, scientists from these countries were invited to collect American native plants to increase the biodiversity of their ex-situ collections.
So you think you’re an ace tree identifier. Those big scalloped leaves are from oak trees, the three-fingered hand shapes are maple leaves, those little oval leaves marching in a double line along a stem are from an ash—boo yah!
OK, now do it without any leaves.
And yes, you can…with a little help from Jim Jabcon, assistant ecologist for natural areas. The other day, Jabcon walked me through the McDonald Woods and began my education.
Paperbark maple (Acer griseum)
Find tree-identification and other classes at the Garden.
First, he corrected my misinformation. I always thought the trick was looking at the tree’s habit—its size and shape. But no—especially not in a natural woodland like this. A tree’s habit depends on where it is growing—how crowded it is by other trees and what it has to do to catch some sunlight.
“Any tree will change its habit depending on what is given to it,” he said as we walked into the woods. “You can probably get 100 trees in a row, but it’s like a fingerprint. They all have different spaces, different light; they’re all going to be different.”
Still, there are some distinctive shapes. Does the tree have thick branches, even at its top with a fearsome, gnarly look worthy of a horror movie? Jabcon nodded at a towering behemoth that could have played a role in The Exorcist: it was an oak.
But let’s start with a major clue: bark.
Jabcon cast a practiced eye—an artist’s eye, in fact, for his degree is in fine art—over the trees. He pointed out a tall tree whose trunk was covered in thick, rough bark.
That bark is the giveaway. The tree was an oak; the tough bark is its secret to surviving fires.
Black walnut (Juglans nigra)
Nearby, another tree boasted thick bark with a rugged geometry, forming blocky rectangles running vertically up the tree in a kind of forest version of cubism.
“This is your black walnut,” Jabcon said. “It’s got a really good knobby bark.”
It also had another tree, a small sapling, growing in a crook about 5 feet up. Jabcon pulled it out and showed how its slender reddish branches were covered with a white chalky material that scraped off easily. “This is your box elder, in the maple family,” he said.
And further along the trail was a tree that won my heart because it looked like another part of a human body.
Its smooth, gray trunk was wrapped in bark with the sinewy look of muscle.
That was because the tree was a muscle wood—the common name for an American hornbeam, bestowed because of the signature appearance of its bark.
American hornbeam or muscle wood (Carpinus caroliniana)
Walking on, we stopped at another tree with its own distinctive bark, which looks like big hunks of bark pasted onto the trunk and separated by deep grooves. That “warty” bark, as Jabcon put it, identified it as hackberry (Celtis occidentalis).
Blogger Kathy J. gives you a Tree 101 on hackberry in her post This Bark is Rough.
Still, bark isn’t the only clue. Jabcon pulled a slender branch close and examined the leaf buds running along its length.
They were in neat pairs, each bud opposite another. “Very few trees have opposite leaf buds,” he said. “Ashes. Maples. So if you’ve got opposite buds you can narrow it down.”
To make the final ID, he examined the terminal bud—the bud at the very end of the branch. It consisted of a cluster of three tiny points, making the branch look almost like a miniature deer hoof. That distinctive shape settled it: this was a white ash.
And so it went as we wandered through the woodland.
We looked at leaf buds, like the sulphur yellow leaf ones (“I love how cool they are,” Jabcon said) on a bitter nut, one of his favorite trees.
We looked at terminal buds, like the super-long ones that look like a goose’s bill and mark it as a nannyberry, a kind of viburnum.
Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata)
We looked at bark, like the one hanging in huge strips off a tree. It was a shagbark hickory. This tree’s bark has peeled off in such big pieces that bats have hibernated beneath them.
And if all else fails, there is another clue still there in winter, though soon it could be hidden under snow.
“It’s OK to cheat and look at leaves on the ground,” Jabcon said cheerfully, picking up a few oak leaves to prove the point. “They’re still there.”
