January/February, 1984

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Los Angeles County Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens

GARDEN SHOW 1983

HE STANDARD and floral garden displays at the third annual fall garden show at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum were impressive again this year, but the statistics were even more striking.

GARDEN SHOW 1983 not only re

Best of Show award went to Stewart's Orchids for this bg setting of orchids and flags from 18 different nations

covered one-third more area than previous shows, but this year attract- ed about 30,000 Apts! ee to 11,000 visitors last y

An early indication ae GARDEN SHOW 1983 would prove to be one of the most successful major shows of the decade came during the sale of tickets to the preview party on

the evening of Oct. 21. Compared with about 800 in 1982, 3,000 rep- resentatives from the plant industry, California Arboretum Foundation members and guests came for an advance look at the 50 standard and floral garden displays and a chance to shop at the 80 trade mart booths this year.

that illustrates the GARDEN SHOW 1983 theme, “The World in California Gardens.”

(Photos by Wm. Aplin)

Regional edition of Garden

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When the show first opened to the public on the morning of Oct. 22, people waiting for tickets stretch- ed past the entrance pool and east as far as Baldwin Avenue. While the staff sold tickets to present visi- tors, the telephones rang constantly as others asked for directions to the Arboretum. Many of these firsttime visitors were responding to the wide coverage GARDEN SHOW 1983 received from the news media. In- terest aroused by feature articles in Sunset magazine and the Los An-

geles Times Home magazine that appeared before the show opened was reinforced during the show by

other newspaper articles and radio and television announcements.

o Southern Californians flocked to the Arboretum to admire garden settings planted with tree ferns or cactus and flowers clustered in mono- chromatic splendor or swirled up and around Ionian columns. Some people shopped for lacy garden furniture and unusual plants while others ambled through the huge trade tent watching demonstrations of garden cultivators and hydropon- ic gardening.

Then, after a last look at displays like the international collection of orchids that won the Best of Show

award for Stewart’s Nursery, man

people took leisurely walks out into the Arboretum grounds. Besides attracting new visitors, the Arbore- tum benefitted in other ways. The number of visitors to the Plant Sci- ence Library almost doubled during GARDEN SHOW 1983 week. Joan DeFato, librarian, reported that an average of 23 people used the li- brary each day compared with an average daily attendance of 15 per- sons in the same period last year.

Sales in the Gift Shop also in- creased significantly, according to Norma Johanson, manager. Sales cannot be compared exactly with the same period last year because they have been rising steadily since the Gift Shop moved into a larger, more conspicuous location in June. Never- theless, Ms. Johanson estimated that sales were from two and one-half to three times greater than during the same period last year.

Public response to the show has encouraged sponsors to further en- large and refine plans for GARDEN SHOW 1984.

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RUTH MARY LARSON ELECTED PRESIDENT OF BOARD OF GOVERNORS A NEWLY ELECTED president of the Board of Governors, Ruth Mary (Mrs. Leland) Larson expects to broaden her involvement to in- clude all four of the gardens oper- ated by the Los Angeles County Department of Arboreta and Bo- tanic Gardens.

Mrs. Larson has served a total of nine years on the board, acting as liaison between the gardens and the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. Each county supervisor appoints three members to the Board of Gov- ernors, who in turn, keep him in- formed regarding the feeling about the gardens among county residents.

“But now as president, I think I have an obligation to get to know each garden and work at a volun-

Ruth Mary Larson

“The

teer event there,” she said. support group at each garden is so different as far as personalities are concerned.”

WwW A PERIOD of a few weeks last fall, the Depart- ment of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens lost two supporters who had helped bring into being Los Angeles County’s unique system of public botanic gardens.

On Oct. 18, Helen (Mrs. Sam- uel) Ayres Jr. died at 89 years of age, and on Nov. 2 former county supervisor John Anson Ford died five weeks after his 100th birth- day.

Mrs. Ayres traveled extensively with her husband, bringing back to their adopted state the firm conviction that plants from other sub-tropical or tropical climates could add color to the Southern California landscape. The Arbo- retum they helped establish as an experimental testing ground for these exotic plants became the nucleus for what is probably the only system of botanic gardens operated by a county in the United States.

IN MEMORIAM

Mr. Ford was a Los Angeles County Supervisor for 24 years during the period of explosive growth between 1934 and 1958. His far-sighted policies and po- litical acumen helped assure ac- cess to gardens and the arts for the millions of new residents of Los Angeles County. In 1947, he helped convince the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the California legislature to buy the land for what was to become the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum. Later, he was largely responsible for the county’s ac- quisition of Descanso Gardens when Manchester Boddy’s camel- lia gardens were threatened with subdivision.

Our sadness at the passing of two such extraordinary friends is tempered by the knowledge that during their lifetimes they saw the gardens that they helped establish flourish beyond their most optimistic expectations.

The county-wide perspective is considerably more ambitious than her goals when Mrs. Larson first joined Las Voluntarias as a school field trip leader in 1968. “I joined because I thought maybe I could learn something. At that time, most of the school groups were from the inner city. I began to think that if

could awaken an interest in nature

in just one of the children, I would have accomplished something,” she said. Now she will continue promoting the continued existence of the gar- dens by reminding the county super- visors of the need for public gar- dens as proven by attendance and the number of volunteer hours given by people in the community. “The kind of atmosphere provided by the gardens improve the quality of life in Los Angeles County,” Mrs. Lar- son concluded.

Mrs. Larson is past president of the California Arboretum Founda- tion and Las Voluntarias y Ayudan- tes. In June, 1983, she was honored as Volunteer of the Year at the Arboretum and named one of the top 10 volunteers in Los Angeles County by the board of supervisors.

NEW REFERENCE WORKS IN THE PLANT SCIENCE LIBRARY

Popular Encyclopedia of Plants edited by Vernon H. Heywood Herbs, Spices and Flavorings by Tom Stobart Building an Ark; Tools for the Pres- ervation of Natural Diversity through Land Protection by Phillip H. Hoose Flora de Gran Canaria, Volume IV: Los Subarbustos by Mary Anne Kunkel and Guenther Kunkel Ecology of Desert Organisms by Gideon Louw and Mary Seely The Englishman’s Garden edited by Alvilde Lees-Milne and Rosemary Verey

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By Suzanne L. Granger

Lasca Her

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a IMPORTANT resource on the grounds of the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, rela- tively unknown and seldom used ex- cept by persons in the Research Di- vision, is the Lasca Herbarium. Un- like parks, whose function is purely recreational, botanic gardens are outdoor laboratories — museums of living plants. The working garden is made up of three parts, a_ living plant collection, a botanical library and a herbarium. The primary task of our herbarium is the documenta- tion of the Arboretum’s diverse liv- ing collection. Just as an art museum must have evidence to document its claim that a painting is the work of a particular artist, a botanic garden must also prove that a plant on the grounds really is a representative of a particular species. Without this accurate identification, a plant is worthless for scientific purposes.

Basically, a herbarium can also be considered a special kind of library,

books. This library is a collection of dried plants that have been identified, pressed flat, glued onto stiff paper, labeled, catalogued and filed in cases according to a system of classification. Our filing system

Librarian Joan DeFato, left, and taxonomist James Bauml work together as she locates a reference ina botanic key that he can compare with a herbarium specimen and an unidentified plant sample. (Photos by James Johnson)

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conforms to the nomenclature in Hortus Third, the standard reference for horticulturists and gardeners. Species are filed within a genus, and the genera arranged into families, which are then filed according to alphabetical order.

The plant families on the grounds, and, therefore, in the herbarium, cover a wide portion of the botanic spectrum because Los Angeles County represents a unique grow- ing situation where both tropical and temperate zone plants flourish. Unlike a garden in Hawaii or Cana- da, for example, the herbarium does not specialize in either exclusively tender or hardy plants. Instead, it includes representatives of both types.

The correctly identified specimens

in the Herbarium collection are especially important for re-identify- ing and relabeling plants on the grounds when accession tags are lost. These tags are small strips of embossed aluminum bearing, along with other information, the history of each plant in the Arboretum. The first two numbers on the top line indicate the year the plant arrived here followed by a single letter which records the original form in which it joined the collection: § for seed, C for cutting or P for plant. The last set of numbers on the top line refers back to the year noted by the first number and indicates the plant’s position in the sequence of acquisitions that year. For instance, the Banksia serrata carrying an ac- cession tag with the code 83-S-1037

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& Volunteer Janet (Mrs. W. D.) Pans nycook, lett snips a fresh phar sample as Carolyn (Mrs. ald) Toomb records information that will be included on the finished herbarium voucher.

The author collects —— fo a tree in the Australian sectio

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came into the collection in 1983 as a seed and was the 1,037th plant acquired by the Arboretum this year.

The Lasca Herbarium contains about 17,000 mounted specimens representing 220 plant families from all over the world. Most serve as reference material, but some are special collections with other uses. Among the latter is a collection of common poisonous plants. A com- plete complement of reference specimens reduces errors in identifi- cation, especially important in cases where a child has eaten plant ma- terial and become ill. In such a situation, the Los Angeles County Medical Association’s Poison Infor- mation Center may ask our taxono- mist to identify the suspect plant by comparing often fragmentary samples with herbarium specimens. Precise identification of the plant could be lifesaving because doctors must know the specific poison the plant contains to determine appro- priate treatment. In the past six months, the research staff has re- sponded to almost 200 calls from the Poison Information Center, doctors, hospitals and even veterinarians who needed immediate help in de- termining whether a plant was re- sponsible for poisoning symptoms and, if so, the name and toxic chem- icals it may contain.

Herbarium specimens are also in- valuable for providing an agreed upon standard for comparison when samples of unknown plants are brought in by the public for identi- fication. The herbarium specimen, therefore, must be a typical repre- sentative of its species. A specimen with fruit that is either larger or smaller than the norm, for instance, Would mislead researchers who might have a plant of the same spe- cles but with fruit at the opposite end of the size range. Ideally, each herbarium specimen was collected either in its natural habitat or soon after it arrived here. With this pris-

tine example to use for comparison, researchers can document any phys- iological changes the plant may make over a period of time as it adjusts to local growing conditions.

The value of any reference her- barium depends on whether or not its specimens, called vouchers, meet four requirements. First, the speci- men should include flowers and fruit, stem and leaves and any un- derground parts if possible. Second, the label must include information on its form and shape when first located and where and when it was

The fragment envelope holds reproductive par

collected. Characteristics such as color or succulence which could be lost during processing are noted, too. The material must also have been pressed and dried in an arrangement that shows both sides of the leaves and all the floral parts. Last, the specimen and its label must be se- curely glued to heavy, acid-free

per.

When carefully stored, these spec- imens remain useful indefinitely. Air-tight steel cases are adequate protection against mechanical injury and dust. Plant eating beetles are

attached to the righthand side of this Melia azedarach

ts that may be removed for study under a microscope

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the most critical threat because beetles hatching from eggs carried into the cases on an infected speci- men could destroy an entire collec- tion. As an assurance against such attack, all new specimens are placed in a freezer for 72 hours before be- ing filed in the cases, Additional safeguards include periodic inspec- tions and placing strips of felt soak- ed in a non-volatile poison around the inside face of each case.

As one of the few herbaria acces- sible to the public, the Herbarium collection is available for use by any interested person. The Herbarium is located in the Research Building at the northeastern end of the grounds and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Ms. Granger, a graduate of Cali- fornia Polytechnic University, Po- mona, has been Lasca Herbarium curator since May of 1982.

Janet peut oko checks the data recorded on the accession tag attached to

a Baekea virgat

DESCANSO GARDENS, La Canada

JANUARY 2 through FEBRUARY 2 — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Membership Art Show JANUARY 14 — 1 p.m. to 4 ei Pruning Demonstration orge Lewis and sta FEBRUARY 11 Li oe m. to 5 p.m. Orchi ow Southern California Orchid Society Fi ey

FEBRUARY - 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. gan 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Camellia Southern California — Pon ag MARCH 17, oo a Dp 0 4:30 hey . 4:30 p

Daffodil Show © Southern oe Daffodil Society MARCH 24 to APRIL 1 — 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Spring Garden Show All events sponsored by the Descanso Gardens Guild

SOUTH COAST BOTANIC GARDEN, Palos Verdes Peninsula

JANUARY 8 — 1 p.m.

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p.m Fruit Tree Pruning Demonstration Ed Hartnagel and staff

CALENDAR OF EVENTS JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH 1984

JANUARY 22 — 2 p.m Camellia and Azsien Culture Mazie Jean Geo JANUARY 28, 29-~ Sat. 1 to 4:30 p.m. un. 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m Camellia Show South ap 9 Sse Society FEBRUARY 5 — 2 Lawn eat Turf Cu ‘leurs Charles — teacher, Harbor C.C. FEBRUARY —2 ‘Talk * Why Succulents?” Stan Oleson, So. Coast Cactus & Succulent Society Bagcssreayeetd 2 p.m Talk ‘ Exotic Ferns in the Open arden a Myers, president, Shade Plant

lety FEBRUARY 2 p.m Fuchsia Pruning Demonstration Ida Drapkin MARCH 4—2p Hous agree Demonstration eg An MARCH 11 — oe Flower Arranging Demonstration Gordon Kitna! and Helen Gates MARCH CR

Dr. Robert Sete, South Bay Orchid Socie

igen 25 — 2 p.m alk Basie Perennials” Shiley b ev wae Honored by the South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation

LOS ANGELES STATE & COUNTY ARBORETUM, Arcadia

UARY 8 — 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Gladiolus Bulb Sale

JANUAR . to 4:30 p.m. Bonsai Sho Baikoen Siang Bonsai aging FEBRUARY 5 — 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m rvialite

Los 5 reeled Fe eee yp os FEBRUARY 11, 12—9a 0 4:30 p.m. Camellia how Temple City Camellia peered FEBRUARY 7 5, 26 — Sey m. to 4:30 p.m. Fuchsia Sonihens California shir ing mapa MARCH 10, 11 — 4:30 p.m Girl Scout ower! Sho : Sierra Madres *) hay rope OA

MARCH 24 — 9a Environmental poe Fair Hosted by L.A. eras Achanaien

MARCH SL APRIL 1 — 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. aged bedoy Show Aril All wanes essed by the California Arboretum Foundation

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