Princeton University • 3 May 2013

Field GuideThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of PlantsThe Secret Life of Plants

This booklet is a guide, and an invitation. A guide: to a handful of the plants on campus, their situations and a few salient details from their life stories. An invitation: to join with a plant in a collaboration. The substance of the collaboration, its procedures and its fruits, is up to you. You can make or do anything, so long as you make or do it together with the plant, one-on-one or in groups (of people, of plants), one time only or over time. The species here are a suggestion, but you need not limit yourself to this list nor to the Princeton campus. We will harvest these collaborations for an exhibition to be held during ihum’s Secret Life of Plants symposium on May 3rd. We will include in the exhibition all collaborations undertaken in earnest, in any medium, be it text, image, object, recorded sound, video. Please notify us in advance (at ihum@princeton.edu) that you intend to participate, and tell us roughly what to expect. Collaborations will be due to us on Thursday, April 25, and we will send out instructions for submission shortly before. � Here is an occasion to come to something like equal terms with a citizen of the vegetable kingdom, and discover what comes of it. We hope you will join in.

Texts by Sam GalsonMap on last page

Field Guide The Secret Life of Plants

American Sycamore or Buttonwood Platanus occidentalis Native to lowland areas in the East, the sycamore has a peculiarly rigid bark which tends to flake off as the tree develops, producing a distinctive mottled appearance. It is a vast tree at maturity and capable of surviving for 600 years. The name “sycamore” originally designated a species of fig (súcos) called “sycamore” either after its resemblance to the mulberry (moros) or because of the smallness of its fruit, which was accounted worthless (móros). This fig appears in the Bible and is often confused with the American sycamore, although it is not related. [1]

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American Elm Ulmus americana The elm is an arching, urn-shaped tree with hermaphroditic flowers and leaves beloved by various species of Lepidoptera. It lines the banks of many Northern streams and before the onset of Dutch elm disease was a popular roadside ornament. The elm guards the passage to the netherworld in a number of cultures. Anyone taking of its wood is encouraged to leave an offering for the Faerie folk. When Dutch elm disease struck Princeton in the 1960s, over two thirds of our elms passed to the other side.

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American Beech Fagus grandifolia The beech is known for its pale, smooth trunk and edible nuts, which have been used for centuries to feed livestock. At the beginning of Virgil’s Eclogues, Tityrus is found reclining under a beech tree, providing an archetypal image of bucolic repose. Coincidentally – or not – the beech was often used to frame wax writing tablets. In Germanic cultures, runes would be inscribed directly onto the wood itself and many words for

“book” are derived from “beech” (in German “Buchenbaum.”)

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European Hornbeam Carpinus betulus Hornbeam, a close relative of the birch, is the plant of choice for clipped screens and hedges in English and early American gardens, partly because it keeps its (browned) leaves over winter. The name derives either from its use as a yoke for horned cattle, or because it becomes so hard and tough with age that it resembles horn. The latter quality has given rise to the moniker “ironwood” in America. Another common name is “musclewood.” The characteristically ribbed, sometimes contorted trunk powerfully conveys its gathered strength.

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Japanese Pagoda Tree Sophora japonica The Japanese pagoda tree is a large tree whose flower buds were once widely traded as a source of yellow dye. If left alone, it will bloom in late summer. As it is a member of the pea family, the tree produces striking pendulous seed-pods that resemble strings of pearls. Originally from China, it is also called the “Chinese scholar tree” because students would gather under its filtered shade to listen to lectures. The last emperor of the Ming dynasty hanged himself on one of these trees.

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Dawn Redwood Metasequoia glyptostroboides With a maximum height of 200 feet, this deciduous conifer is the smallest of the three known redwood species. The Metasequoia was thought extinct until in 1941 a Chinese botanist stumbled on a specimen in a remote and dangerous area of Szechuan. In 1948, an investment from the Arnold Arboretum in Boston facilitated an expedition for the collection of seeds, which were distributed to 76 different individuals and institutions. One of those seeds has produced the tree before you.

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Tulip Poplar Liriodendron tulipifera This tree is over 150 years old and one of the tallest trees on campus, producing greenish yellow flowers in early summer. The leaves develop folded-up inside nested oval envelopes and emerge on long stalks which allow them to flutter independently and catch the light. Their shape is distinctively blunted, like the outline of a tulip. The tulip poplar is particularly intolerant of shade and so is fast-growing, sturdy, with minimal branching in its early stages. These qualities make it ideal for timber cultivation, but the tree will take 10 years to flower.

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Ginkgo Tree or Maidenhair Ginkgo biloba The ginkgo, which favors disturbed riverside environments, is attested in the Early Jurassic period, 200 – 175 million years ago. Its large seeds and habit of shooting to 10 meters before extending lateral branches may reflect its origins in an epoch before the evolution of flowering plants, when ferns dominated the riverbanks. Like cycads, ferns, mosses, algae and humans, ginkgo reproduces with motile sperm. Goethe found the cleft, fan-shaped leaves particularly expressive and sent a pair to a love interest, Marianne von Willemer.

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American Holly Ilex opaca This native New Jersey evergreen can live to 300 years. It is one of the holiest of plants. It shines in the dead of winter with the rich green of its thorny leaves, and blood-red berries. In Celtic mythology, the holly rules the forest in the winter months, as the “tanin” (dark twin) of the forest’s summer monarch, the oak. The Green Knight, who interrupted the midwinter feast at Arthur’s court to issue a deadly challenge, carried holly as he did so.

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Sugar Maple Acer saccharum The sugar maple is found throughout the mountain regions of the Northeast and is cultivated for its sap and wood. A healthy adult can produce around 20 gallons of sap in a season, making one gallon of maple syrup. The wood is the hardest of all maples and commonly used for furniture, flooring and musical instruments. The maple produces a colorful display in the fall. Its twirling seeds delight children and military engineers, who recently unveiled a drone with a single-bladed helicopter mechanism inspired by the seed.

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White Ash Fraxinus americana This tree was planted in approximately 1836 and is one of the tallest on campus. The ash is a hardwood and good for furniture and weaponry. Many words for ash are related to words for spear. Hesiod may preserve a trace of this ancient connection when he says that the race of brazen men, passionate warriors, were sprung from ash trees. Although the idea that the Celtic “world tree” was an ash is now questioned by philologists, this possible misunderstanding has left a permanent mark on 19th-century literature.

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Golden Rain Tree Koelreuteria paniculata The golden rain tree is a mid-size flowering tree native to Eastern Asia, reaching 30 feet. It produces luxurious clusters of small golden yellow flowers, similar to those of the Laburnum, from early June to late July. The fruit is housed in large papery capsules reminiscent of Chinese lanterns. Lockridge’s attempt at a Great American Novel, Raintree Country – also a film starring Elizabeth Taylor – elevated the golden rain tree into a symbol of the Tree of Life.

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Horse Chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum The horse chestnut was confined to the Balkan peninsula until the 16th century, when the Flemish ambassador to Turkey saw soldiers feeding the chestnuts to their horses in order to cure them of the cough. If the story is true the soldiers were unwittingly poisoning their steeds. The tree produces large candle-like structures of white flowers, with yellow to pink spots at the base of each flower. In England its fruits are called conkers. They are threaded and smashed against each other in exciting competitions.

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Southern Magnolia Magnolia grandiflora This evergreen tree started out as an espalier but has since regained its natural shape. The leaves are thick and heavy and tend to fall all year round. The magnolia is native to the American Southeast and known for its large fragrant white flowers, similar to those of the tulip poplar. These flowers evolved before bees and are adapted for pollination by beetles, which explains the unusual toughness of their carpels. In the 19th century the magnolia flower became a popular image for the Southern belle.

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River Birch Betula nigra The river birch is a short-lived, very fast-growing tree that will multiply prolifically. It is unique among the birches in that it will flourish in a semi-aquatic environment. Its cinnamon-colored, exfoliating bark is spectacular in the winter, but is ranked below that of the white birch (Betula papyrifera) as a writing material. In “Birches,” Robert Frost portrayed springiness and sprightliness as the essential characteristics of the birch, although he mournfully observed that the trees can become permanently deformed in cold weather.

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Rhododendron Rhododendron catawbiense With over 1000 varieties, the rhododendron is a very well known evergreen shrub with magnificent flowers. It likes shade and acidic soul. Our variety is from the Appalachians and is named after the local Indians. The ancients believed that bees that had fed on rhododendrons would produce poisonous honey. Xenophon claims that his army was paralyzed by eating such honey, and Mithridates reportedly used carefully placed honeycombs to disable the army of Pompey. While it is true that rhododendrons poison the soil around them, it is doubtful that their effect extends to honey.

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English Ivy Hedera helix English ivy, an evergreen climbing vine in the ginseng family, is particularly valuable to birds as a nesting environment and source of food. The creepers produce small root-like structures, which exude a gluey substance and adhere to surfaces like Nassau Hall, slowly but surely breaking them apart. Ivy is of course symbolic of academic excellence and poetical glory. It is also sacred to Bacchus. Ovid relates how the god caused ivy to burst forth from the looms of the daughters of Minyas, who refused to worship him. Shortly thereafter, he turned them into bats.

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Firethorn Pyracantha coccinea The tough and thorny Pyracantha, an excellent hedging shrub, produces in autumn the dense clusters of bright red berries that have earned it its name. Many believe these berries to be poisonous, but they in fact make a pleasant jelly. Birds will eat them with gusto, prizing the red berries of the coccinea above the orange and yellow varieties. Birds have been known to take so greedily to the fruits that they have become drunk on the tiny amount of alcohol present in any berries that are over-ripe.

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Eastern Redbud Cercis canadensis Redbud is a regular, though not abundant, constituent of the understory of many forests in the Eastern U.S. It is a relatively short-lived and delicate tree and without careful pruning can develop weak forks. Judas Iscariot is supposed to have hung himself on our tree’s European counterpart (Cercis siliquastrum), which was so horrified that it refused to put out branches of any strength thereafter. The tree also blushed pink with embarrassment, an event now repeated every April.

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Chinese Wisteria Wisteria sinensis This deciduous woody vine, used throughout campus, is capable of growing to a height of 40 meters. It produces curtains of very fragrant, lavender, purple or white flowers highly attractive to bees. No one knows why, but it seems that Chinese wisteria generally twines counter-clockwise, while Japanese wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) twines clockwise. If grown from seed, Chinese wisteria will take 20 years to mature before producing flowers, although the grower may force maturation by abusing the main trunk or roots, or by depriving the plant of water.

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