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The Maple Society Newsletter● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 27
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The Maple Society Newsletter● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 27
MAPLE HISTORY
An Abundance of Acer
– Maple Cultivation in the Delaware Valley,
Part I
by Anthony S. Aiello
Alleé of sugar maples (Acer saccharum) at Peirce’s Park, now Longwood Gardens (Image courtesy of Longwood Gardens Archives)
Philadelphia and its surrounding area, the Delaware Valley, has long been at the center of horticulture in the United States. Today, the “America’s Garden Capital” lists “30 Gardens in 30 Miles”, an indication of the range of types and sizes of gardens, everything from smaller gardens and campus arboreta to larger public gardens. As the cultural and scientifi c capital of the early United States, Philadelphia was at the center of plant exploration and cultivation in the later 1700s and early 1800s, infl uencing regional horticulture through the 19th and 20th centuries.
For early botanists in the Delaware and Susquehanna Valleys, the diversity of plants would have been astounding compared to those found in Europe. As early as the 1750s John Bartram was selling seed of the six maples species native to Pennsylvania (Fry 2014). And, as shown in the 1783 Bartram’s Garden (home of John Bartram and his son William) Catalogue of American trees, shrubs and herbacious plants (Bartram, 1783), and described by Humphry Marshall in his Arbustrum Americanum (Marshall 1785) the species native in this area are still found here today, although the names used are both interesting and confounding (Table 1).
Following Bartram and Marshall, Bernard M’Mahon was a renowned late 18th and early 19th century Philadelphia nurseryman, best known for receiving shipments of seed from the Lewis and Clarke Expedition of Discovery and honored by Thomas Nuttall with the genus Mahonia. In his 1804 Catalogue of American Seeds, M’Mahon lists the six familiar North American species (Table 1; M’Mahon 1804a), but in a broadside from the same year (M’Mahon 1804b), Acer pseudoplatanus is listed for sale as sycamore or “great” maple, marking the fi rst non-native species commercially available in Philadelphia.
McMahon's great legacy was his American Gardener's Calendar, fi rst published in 1806 and for many decades and editions the most comprehensive gardening book in the United States (Bailey 1900). The detail and information presented in this calendar is remarkable in its relevance today, and the information provided shows a deep understanding of the cultivation of a wide range of edible and ornamental species. A favorite section is M’Mahon’s description of seed germination of maples, provides advice that remains remarkably true and relevant. For example, M’Mahon (1806) wrote:
Table 1. Availability of maples in Philadelphian nursery catalogues in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The specifi c epithets are listed as shown in the period catalogues.
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| Modern name | Bartram 1783 | Marshall 1785 | M'Mahon 1804a | M'Mahon 1804b | Bartram 1807 |
| Acer campestre | macrocarpon | ||||
| Acer negundo | Nigundo | negundo | Negundo | negundo | |
| Acer pensylvanicum | Ornata | canadense | pensylvanicum & canadense | pennsylvanicum | pensylvanicum & canadense |
| Acer pseudoplatanus | pseudoplatanus | ||||
| Acer rubrum | Rubra | rubrum | rubrum | rubrum | rubrum & glaucum |
| Acer saccharinum | Glauca | glaucum | argenteum | ||
| Acer saccharum | Sacharifl ua | saccharum | saccharinum | saccharinum | saccharinum |
| Acer spicatum | Arbustiva | pennsylvanicum | montanum | montanum & striatum |
The Maple Society Newsletter● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 29
Entrance to Meehan’s Nursery, Germantown, Philadelphia, from the late 1800s (Germantown Historical Society/ Historic Germantown)
“The Acer argenteum [sic] or silver leaved, and Acer rubrum or scarlet maples, perfect their seeds in May, and should be sown immediately after having been collected; they will vegetate directly and will produce fi ne plants their fi rst season, if kept free from weeds. The seeds of the former do not keep well till spring, but those of the latter will.
“The Sugar, Canada, Ash-leaved, Pennsylvanian, and Mountain maples, and also the Acer Pseudo-platanus, or sycamore, may be sown either in autumn or March, and will succeed well in either season: If sown in autumn, cover them about three quarters of an inch deep; if in spring, half an inch will be suffi cient. When about a foot high in the seed beds, plant them early in the spring into nursery rows, at proper distances. ”
Clearly from this description, M’Mahon had been growing maples long enough to have a thorough understanding of their germination requirements, not only of the native but of Acer pseudoplatanus, an indication that it had been in cultivation for some time. One indication of the fi rst introduction of sycamore maple into Philadelphia comes from Colonel William Carr, who along with his wife Ann Bartram Carr (John Bartram’s granddaughter) managed Bartram’s Garden starting in 1810. Carr mentions Acer pseudoplatanus arriving with other plants in the 1780s received by William Hamilton (of the Woodlands, now Woodlands Cemetery) in the 1780s (Carr 1861).
Contemporary to the M’Mahon catalogues, the Bartram’s Garden catalogues from 1807 and 1814 show the familiar American species, with the notable addition of Acer macrocarpon (i. e., A. campestre) by 1807 (Table 1; Bartram 1807; Bartram 1814). Obviously by the early decades of the 19th century botanical exchange between Europe and North America was suffi cient to have allowed for the introduction of these two species. For subsequent decades there was little change in the composition of available maple species, with only an occasional interesting item occurring in catalogues of this period.
30 The Maple Society Newsletter ● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3
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The 1828 Bartram’s Garden Catalogue lists the usual native species but also includes A. pseudoplatanus and A. platanoides (Carr 1828). The most unusual listing in this catalogue, is under “Ornamental Shrubs” where it shows Acer pseudoplatanus fol. arg. This silver-leaved form is likely one of the many variegated forms of sycamore maple, making this the fi rst mention of a cultivated variety in the Philadelphia area.
Although Philadelphia is infamous as being the place of introduction of the highly invasive and often reviled Norway maple, these trees were a botanical curiosity for much of the 19th century. While there is often some debate about the place and exact date of introduction, being either Bartram’s Garden or The Woodlands, it was in Philadelphia by the later 1700s (Nowack and Roundtree 1990). Joel Fry of Bartram’s Garden (personal communication) writes that John Bartram certainly received Acer platanoides in 1756. By the mid-1800s it was off ered occasionally by nurseries and grown in a few rarifi ed collections; by the end of the century it became established in nursery catalogues and American landscapes but not the widespread scourge that it is currently across the U. S.
The state of available maples in the mid-1800s is perhaps best summarized by Thomas Meehan in, The American Handbook of Ornamental Trees (Meehan 1853), which provides invaluable insight into m i d - 1 9 t h c e n t u r y A m e r i c a n
hort i c ult ure a nd in pa rt i c ula r
throughout greater Philadelphia. Meehan was born in Great Britain and trained at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew before working early in his American career at Bartram’s Garden. His numerous accomplishments included editing The Gardener's Monthly for 30 years, followed by founding Meehan’s Monthly, publications known for their wealth of horticultural information, serving on the Philadelphia city council and school board, and helping to found the city’s Fairmount Park, all while managing a renowned nursery in Germantown, Philadelphia (now Mt. Airy) near this author’s home.
His writings and nursery catalogues provide invaluable insight into the history of introduction of plants into this region. Meehan describes the attributes of these maples (modern names used): A. campestre, negundo, nigrum, pensylvanicum, platanoides, rubrum, saccharinum, saccharum, and spicatum. Meehan also lists three species that had been introduced into cultivation but that he had not personally observed (A. circinatum, obtusatum, and opalus). Even after 170 years, Meehan’ s comments are
The sugar maple (Acer saccharum) and small hummingbird. (Courtesy of Arader Galleries)
The Maple Society Newsletter ● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3 31
Some of maples available in Philadelphian nurseries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: Acer rubrum (left) and A. spicatum (right) (photo: Anthony S. Aiello).
insightful and entertaining, and among the maple descriptions in his Handbook, two of them stand out:
“Acer platanoides: A very ornamental tree in any situation. It does not incline to branch out so low down as some of the maples, while it has a more rugged and branching habit of growth. Its ample broad leaves give a fi ne shade, which is heightened by their dark green color. It is quite a peculiar tree, combining the artistic appearance of some trees with the rusticity of others. There are many situations in a landscape where it would be singularly eff ective. It is very hardy, and will thrive in any soil or situation. The fi nest specimen at Bartram is growing on an elevated situation, in a gravelly soil on a rocky substratum, and is sixty feet in height, and three feet two inches in circumference. In the fi ne arboretum of Mr. G. W. Pierce, near West Chester, there is a fi ne specimen near eight feet in circumference.
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“Acer saccharum: This tree has none of the graceful airiness of the silver-maple, or the rusticity of branches as the Norway; but excels them both in nobility of appearance. It has a stiff, regularly round head, generally in over proportion to the size of its trunk. It is much admired on account of the rich golden-yellow hue, often tinged with red, with which it is clothed in the fall. The fi nest specimen at Bartram is eighty -two feet high and fi ve feet fi ve inches in circumference.
Like most of the maples it is of easy cultivation, doing well in any situation, except in the dry and confi ned atmosphere of a densely built city; and in most soils; but preferring a loose loam or one on a substratum of clay. ”
It was around this period - the middle of the 1800s - that these European species began to make their way into the more signifi cant tree collections in the region. For example, in the collection of Quaker brothers Jacob and Minshall Painter, whose family farm is now the Tyler Arboretum (Media, PA), the following species were listed (with the years of being catalogued; using modern nomenclature; Appleby 1996): Acer campestre (1856), A. cappodocicum f. rubrum (1860), A. macrophyllum (1858), A. platanoides f. laciniatum (1859), A. pseudoplatanus (1849, 1856), and A. tataricum (1854). Although there are still a number of the Painter trees alive, none of these historic maple trees remain at the
32 The Maple Society Newsletter ● Autumn/Fall 2021 ● Vol. 31/3
Tyler Arboretum.
Tomas Meehan’s mention of the “fi ne arboretum of Mr. G. W. [George Washington] Peirce, near West Chester”, refers to a renowned collection of trees in the property of the Peirce family. This famous 19th century arboretum was slated to be felled for timber, which inspired Pierre S. du Pont, founder of Longwood Gardens, to purchase the property and begin the development of his garden (Spraker 1975). The core of this tree collection remains today, situated adjacent to the Peirce-du Pont House, and provides an impressive display of deciduous and coniferous trees. Among the many noteworthy specimens in Peirce’s Park, there was the previously mentioned Norway maple, along with Acer pseudoplatanus, A. rubrum, and an alleé of A. saccharum. Sadly, the last of this sugar maple alleé was removed at the time of the writing of this article, although several other signifi cant sugar maples from the 1800s remain. The venerable sycamore maple, (L-2785) was determined to be 206 years old at the time of its removal in 2013, making it one of the earliest examples of this species in the region. This tree was propagated and re-planted in Peirce’s Park, so guests today can visit a cultivated lineage that dates to over 200 years ago.
Rounding out the available maples in the mid-1800s are the off erings at the Cherry Hill Nurseries, of Hoopes, Brother and Thomas, in West Chester, PA. Although the documentation is scanty, there was clearly communication and exchange of plants during this time among the Hoopes, Painter, Peirce, and other families in the region. Josiah Hoopes wrote his seminal work on conifers in 1868, and their nursery catalogs of 1864 and 1870 shows the relatively limited availability of maples, even at such a signifi cant nursery (Hoopes and Brother 1864; Hoopes, Bro. & Thomas 1870. These included as listed in their catalogue: campestre, monspessulanum, negundo, pensylvanicum, platanoides, pseudoplatanus, rubrum, saccharinum, saccharum, and tataricum.
A watershed moment in the introduction of Asian (and in particular Japanese) species into Philadelphia and the U. S. was the 1876 Centennial Exposition. Prior to the Exposition, Japanese
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