Garden.

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

LASCA 1

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.

2 LASCA

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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-

RR

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

LASCA

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(LASCA continues after page 32)

By Suzanne L. Granger

Lasca Her

arlum

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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)

LASCA 5

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

Pres
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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

6 LASCA

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

——— ee

LASCA 7

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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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

8 LASCA