The First and Final Flowering of Muriel’s Bamboo

Peter Del Tredici

Regular readers of Arnoldia can appre-ciate the many satisfactions that comefrom working at the Arnold Arbore-tum, with its endless opportunitiesfor studying plants. Even after twentyyears of daily contact, there’s alwayssomething new and exciting. Somedays it is the first flowers on a recentlyplanted specimen; on others, it is

stumbling, sometimes quite literally,across an amazing old plant neverbefore noticed. The highlight of the1998 season was definitely the discov-ery of flowers on Muriel’s bamboo,Fargesia murielae, which appeared atthe Arnold Arboretum for the first-and last-time.

The FloweringFargesia murielae is native to themountains of central China, where itgrows at elevations between two andthree thousand meters. The species isone of the principal foods of the giantpanda bear and arguably one of themost ornamental of the hardy speciesof bamboo. Its graceful, arching stemsreach two to three meters in heightand add a measure of exotic eleganceto any garden. As a clump-formingspecies it expands slowly, in stark con-trast to bamboos that spread by long,underground stems-the "runningbamboos"-which are often the bane of unwarygardeners. Experienced bamboo growers are uni-versal m their praise of Fargesia murielae, notonly for the above-mentioned traits, but alsobecause Muriel’s bamboo is among the hardiestof the entire family, growing well m USDA zone5 and, with protection, into zone 4.

For all of its attractiveness, however, themost interesting feature of Muriel’s bamboo is

Mumel’s bamboo, Fargesia mumelae, m the full flush of its sprmg growth.

its monocarpic life cycle-it flowers once in itslife and then dies. Gardeners are used to seeingsunflowers germinate, grow, and die m a singleseason, and foxgloves die after two years, butthe idea of a plant flowering after eighty to onehundred years and then dying seems more thana little strange. And strange indeed it is, beingfound only among the "woody" monocots, suchas the well-known century plant (Agave sp.), ),

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a few genera of palms (most notably in thegenus Corypha), and an Andean bromeliad oftree-sized proportions (Puya raymondii), whichtend to come into flower when they reach acritical size.’

Monocarpic bamboos are unique even amongthis unusual group because they do not floweraccording to their size, but according to a prede-termined maturation cycle, the length of whichappears to be genetically fixed for each species.2The eighty-to-one-hundred-year flowering cycleof Muriel’s bamboo, while certainly not thelongest on record, is among the most widelyknown and well documented. Indeed, it was thewidespread flowering and subsequent death ofthe umbrella bamboo in China in 1971, alongwith that of several closely related species, thatcreated worldwide concern about the survivalof the giant panda. The panda population incentral China, it was found, had become overlydependent on the high-elevation species ofFargesia after bamboo species growing at lowerelevations were eliminated by land clearance foragriculture.3Even more remarkable than their long flower-

ing cycle, many bamboos are also synchronousin their flowering behavior. This term refers tothe tendency of most or all of the individuals ofa given species to come into flower at more orless the same time. This unusual behavior hasled some authors to postulate that flowering inthese bamboos is controlled not by climatic fac-tors but by some sort of internal clock. In real-ity, however, the synchromcity is less precisethan generally believed, particularly whenplants m their native habitat are compared withsame-aged cohorts in cultivation that have beenrepeatedly propagated by division.4 It may bepropagation by subdivision that affects culti-vated bamboos, but in any case their floweringcycle occurs as much as twenty years later.While many authors have speculated on the

possible evolutionary and ecological signifi-cance of the monocarpic habit in bamboos,nothing has been proved. One theory, proposedby Daniel Janzen,s is that the long delay in flow-

ering is a strategy for preventing a buildup ofpredators that would feed on the highly nutri-tious seeds if they were produced on a predict-able schedule. However, this idea does notexplain why the flowering intervals of manybamboos greatly exceed the lifespans of mostanimals that would feed on their seeds. Morelikely, the real reason is inextricably embeddedin a complex matrix of physiological, ecological,and evolutionary factors.

The Introduction

The history of the plant’s introduction into cul-tivation in the West, like that of so many otherplants, is cloaked in mystery and confusion. Itwas first collected by the Arnold Arboretum’smost famous plant collector, E. H. Wilson, whoassigned it number 1462. The Arboretum hasmost of Wilson’s field books in its archives, andthose for his first Arboretum expedition, fromFebruary 1907 through April 1909, contains thefollowing entry: "1462. Bamboo, 12 ft., stemsgolden, thickets, 7000-9000 ft, Fang. Plants, -_ - "6 Unfortunately, the last three words ofthe passage are unintelligible, but one impor-tant piece of information is unequivocal: livingplants, along with the usual herbarium speci-mens, were part of this collection.With the help of Alfred Rehder, Wilson

reworked his field notes and published them inPlantae Wilsonianae a work in three volumesthat appeared in sequence in 1913, 1916, and1917. The reference to the umbrella bamboooccurs on page 64 of volume II:

Arundmama sp. Western Hupeh: Fang Hsien,uplands, alt. 2000-3000 m., April 17, 1907

(No. 1462; 2-4 m. tall, stems golden). Withoutflowers. This plant is in cultivation. It forms onthe mountains of north-western Hupeh densethickets and with its clear golden slender stemsis one of the most beautiful of Chinese Bamboos.A picture will be found under No. 0111 of thecollection of my photographs. E.H.W"8

The photograph that Wilson referred to isfound in a bound volume entitled "Arnold Arbo-retum Second Expedition to China: 1910-1911.

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Photographs by E. H. Wilson." Photograph#0111 clearly shows a clump-forming bamboogrowing below a group of fir trees (Abiesfargesii). According to the notes on the accom-panying label, the photograph was taken on June19, 1910, and the plant, Wilson’s #1462, is seengrowing "behind Fang Hsien" at an altitude of8,000 feet. Wilson’s diary for this day includesthe following entry:The rain had ceased when we woke at 5 am &

though dark mist obscured everything from ahundred yards above & around us I prophesied afine day. It remained fine for about two hours &

then commenced to rain steadily. It mcreased asthe day advanced & we had a fine soake. All weresoon drenched to the skin & everything becamesodden. We hurned on as fast as possible &

reached the head of the pass at 10 am ... Muchof the Bamboo has been burned and cut awayfrom the path which is considerable improvedsince our last visit... This bamboo is the hand-somest I know with its bright golden yellowculms some 10-15 ft high shrubs and with arch-ing plume. It must be very hardy for the climatehere is very mgorous. Patches of original forestremain here and there & especially near water-course silver fir & many Birch with willows

and Rhod. are practically thesole constituents.

The final reference to bam-boo #1462 in the Arboretumarchives comes from an un-dated notebook in Wilson’sown handwriting entitled:"Numerical list of seeds [no.1-1474, 4000-4462], collectedon his Arnold Arboretum expe-ditions to eastern Asia, 1907-09, 1910, which were plantedin the arboretum nurseries."9Under #1462, a single bambooplant is listed as being locatedin the "Greenhouse & Frames" "

area of the nurseries. Unfortu-

nately, the Arboretum’s perma-nent records of plants growingon the grounds do not containany mention of #1462, stronglysuggesting that the plant wasnever cultivated out-of-doors.

Fargesia murielae photographed byE H Wilson in its natme habitat,Fang Hslen, Chma, at 8,000 feet.The plants are ten to fifteen feethigh with yellow culms Abies

fargesia stand m the background.Below is Wilson’s field book entryfor collection #1462.

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The first scientific description of Wilson’s#1462 did not appear until 1920, in an article inKew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, 10under the name Arundmaria murielae Gamble.In the notes following J. S. Gamble’s Latin de-scription, W. J. Bean, Kew horticulturist, notedthat, "By Mr. Wilson’s special wish the speciesis dedicated to his daughter, Muriel Wilson."Bean went on to detail the plant’s history:This Bamboo was presented to Kew from theArnold Arboretum in the autumn of 1913. Asmgle plant came in a pot, and this was dividedup into about half a dozen pieces, which were

repotted and grown for a few months m a green-house. They were then planted out m the collec-tion of Bamboos near the Rhododendron Dellwhere they have grown luxuriantly and promiseto be as ornamental as any hardy species. Theyare at present (October 1920) about 8 ft. highforming dense masses of culms, the outer ones ofwhich arch outwards towards the top and givethe plants a very graceful appearance ... On thewhole A. munelae is a distinct and most attrac-tive addition to hardy bamboos.

At the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, the onlyrecord of Wilson’s #1462 is in the accessionbooks, which noted its arrival on December12, 1913.Wilson’s only other reference to # 1462 is in A

Naturalist in Western China, published in Lon-don in 1913 and New York in 1914. On page 49he describes the vegetation behind Fang Xian byparaphrasing his journal entry of June 19, 1910:The summit is of hard limestone with rareoutcroppings of red sandstone. Stunted wmd-swept Silver Fir and various kmds of Currantextend to the summit. Rhododendron and adwarf Juniper (j. squamata) are also common.The descent was through woods of Birch andBamboo to an open, grassy, scrub-clad, slopingmoorland, through which a considerable torrentflows. The Bamboo, so common hereabouts, isvery beautiful, formmg clumps 3 to 10 feetthrough. The culms are 5 to 12 feet tall, goldenyellow, with dark, feathery foliage; the youngculms have broad sheathmg bracts protectingthe branchlets. Taken all in all, this is the hand-somest Bamboo I have seen.’

The footnote at the bottom of the page reads:"In 1910 I successfully introduced it into culti-vation." In the revised edition of the book, pub-

lished in 1929 under a new title, China, Motherof Gardens, Wilson makes clear that the name-less bamboo mentioned in the 1913 edition wascollection #1462 by removing the footnote andadding the following to the end of the above-quoted paragraph: "In 1910, I successfully intro-duced it into cultivation. It has been namedArundinaria Murielae in compliment to mydaughter.""From all this information, it appears that only

one plant of Wilson’s #1462, collected on May17, 1907, survived the long journey from FangXian in China to the Arnold Arboretum, whereit was observed growing in the greenhouse in1910. In December 1913, without ever beingcultivated out-of-doors here, the plant was sentto Kew Gardens where it was divided-it musthave been quite large-and planted out in thebamboo collection. Although Fargesia murielaewas widely distributed throughout Europe dur-ing the first part of the century, the ArnoldArboretum did not get another plant until1960, when the U.S. National Arboretum inWashington, D.C., sent one (under the nameSinarundinaria murielae) that had beenimported in 1959 from the Royal MoerheimNurseries in Dedemsvaart, Holland. 12

Flowers at Last

The first flowers of Fargesia murielae in theWest appeared in Denmark in 1975.13 Whilethese plants were clearly representative of thespecies, it is not certain that they were part ofWilson’s #1462 clone. The plants were said to besmaller than Wilson’s, and they came intobloom several years earlier than plants knownto be divisions of #1462.While the origin of the Danish plants will

never be determined with certainty, the factremains that in 1998 the flowering of knownclones of Wilson’s Fargesia murielae appears tobe virtually complete, more than ninety yearsafter it was collected from the wild. Some of the

plants of #1462 have produced seed, but it isimportant to remember that they are the resultof self-pollination, and as such they are likelyto suffer from the deleterious effects of inbreed-

ing depression. Only by re-collecting the speciesin central China-from seedlings that germi-nated following the widespread flowering that

15 s

History of Fargesia murielae in the West

1892: The French missionary P. Farges collects a herbarium specimen of an unknownflowering bamboo in Szechuan Province, China. In 1893, the French taxonomist A. Franchetassigns it to a new genus, Fargesia, with the specific name spathacea. 14

17 May 1907: On his first expedition to China for the Arnold Arboretum, E. H. Wilson collectsplants and three sterile herbarium specimens of an unknown bamboo at Fang Xian, Hubei,under collection #1462.

[1910]: Wilson makes note of a single plant from his collection #1462 growing in the "green-houses and frames" area of the Arnold Arboretum.

10 June 1910: On his second Arboretum expedition to China, Wilson revisits Fang Xian andphotographs #1462, labelling the photograph #0111.

12 December 1913: One plant of Wilson’s #1462 is received by Kew Gardens from the ArnoldArboretum. The plant is divided into six pieces that are planted out in the bamboo area.

1916: Wilson labels #1462 as Arundinaria sp. in volume II of Plantae Wilsonianae, but hststhe wrong collection date.

1920: Wilson’s #1462 is given the name Arundinaria murielae by J. S. Gamble.

1935: T. Nakai of Japan reclassifies Arundinaria murielae as Sinarundinaria murielae.

23 December 1959: U.S. National Arboretum botanist F. Meyer arranges for the importationof plants of Sinarundinaria murielae (PI #262266) from the Royal Moerheim Nurseries,Dedemsvaart, Holland. The plants are probably divisions of Wilson’s #1462. One of them isreceived by the Arnold Arboretum on 8 November 1960, under accession #1239-60.

1975: Plants of Sinarundinaria murielae in Denmark, possibly divisions of Wilson’s #1462,come into flower.

1979: Based on the flowering specimens of the Danish plants, T. Soderstrom proposes the nameThamnocalamus spathaceus, for the umbrella bamboo. Based on the same specimens, otherbotanists argue that the species should be classified as either Fargesia murielae (Gamble) orF. spathacea (Franchet).

1988: At Kew Gardens, the original plants of Wilson’s #1462 come into flower for the first time.

1995: C. Stapleton makes the case for preserving the name Fargesia murielae, but proposescorrecting the spelling of the specific to muriehae.’s

May 1998: Arnold Arboretum plants of Fargesia murielae, received from the U.S. NationalArboretum in 1960, come into flower for the first time.

1G f

The flowers of Fargesia munelae are inconspicuous

occurred there during the 1970s-can we hopeto obtain material comparable in quality to theoriginal Wilson #1462.

The story of the introduction of Muriel’s bam-boo is typical of the interplay between meticu-lousness and confusion that often surrounds theintroduction of a new plant. That we can followthe Fargesia story as well as we can bears wit-ness to the care and effort that the Arnold Arbo-retum in general, and Wilson in particular, putinto the process of collection and documenta-tion. The story illustrates another point as well:the importance of sharing plants among botani-cal gardens. Kew Gardens, and especially itshorticulturist W. J. Bean, deserve credit forpropagating and eventually distributing theplant throughout Europe. Distributing rareplants is an act both of generosity and of self-preservation : if you have two plants and giveone away, you can get it back when you lose theone you kept. Such losses happen frequently,

but the tradition of sharing plants provides animportant safety net that greatly increases thechances of successful introduction. Given therate at which the forests of the world are disap-pearing, failure to thoroughly document collec-tions-and to share them-can represent theloss of a resource that can never be recaptured.

Endnotes

~ S. A. Renvoize, Thamnocalamus spathaceus and itshundred-year flowenng cycle. Kew Magazme (1991)8(4) 185-194.

z E. J. Fortamer and R. H Jonkers, juvenility andmaturity of plants as influenced by the ontogeneticaland physiological aging. Acta Horriculturae (197G~56: 37-44.

3 G. B. Shaller, J. Hu, W. Pan, and J. Zhu, The GiantPandas of Wolong (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1985).

4 Renvoize, op cit. ’

°

5 D. Jansen, Why bamboos wait so long to flower AnnRev Ecol Syst /197G[ 7: 347-391.

~ E H. Wilson, AA Manuscript #39526. First

expedition for Arnold Arboretum; Feb. 1907-Sept.1909; collectmg numbers 1-1474 (undated).

7 C. S. Sargent, ed., Plantae Wilsonianae 11 (ArnoldArboretum, 1916), 64.

8 Wilson’s diary entry for April 17, 1907, makes nomention of any bamboo, but when I checked theherbanum specimens that document #1462, 1 foundall of them dated "17/5/07" m Wilson’s handwriting.In the absence of any ~ournal for the month of May1907, this discrepancy in dates was resolved bycheckmg Wilson’s other herbarium specimenscollected at Fang Xian Accordmg to formerArboretum director R. A. Howard, m his 1980 article"E H Wilson as Botamst" (part I, Arnoldia 40(3):102-138; part II, 40(4): 154-193), the Fang Xianmaterial all had collection dates m May 1907. Thisclearly suggests that the date of April 17 published mPlantae Wilsonianae is an error, and that May 17,1907, noted on the specimen, was the actual date forthe collection of Fargesia mumelae

9 E. H Wilson, AA Manuscnpt #39611: Numerical listof seeds [no. 1-1474, 4000-4462], collected on hisArnold Arboretum expeditions to eastern Asia, 1907-08, 1910, which were planted m the arboretumnursenes (undated, probably 1910-1911 [.

lo J. S. Gamble, in Anon, Decades Kewenses~Plantarum novarum in Herbano Horti Regil

17 7

Fargesia munelae at Kew Gardens, hfeless at the conclusion of its flowering m 1997

conservatarum Kew Bulletm of MiscellaneousInformation (1920) 10: 344-345

11 Perhaps Wilson used 1910 as the date for

"successfully" introducing Fargesia mumelaebecause it was then that he inventoried hiscollections for those that were actually alive "m thearboretum nursenes." An alternative, and ratherunlikely, interpretation is that Wilson recollected thebamboo in 1910 and simply recycled #1462 fromthe 1907 expedition. Of course, one can not discountthe possibility that Wilson ~ust made a mistakein giving 1910 as the date for the introduction ofF munelae

12 At the National Arboretum the plant was giveninventory number 262266; at the Arnold Arboretum,it became accession number 1239-60

13 T R. Soderstrom, The Bamboozling Thamno-calamus. Garden (1979) 3~4/: 22-27; Renvoize, op cit.

la M_ A Franchet, Fargesia, nouveau genre deBambusees de la Chme Bull Mens Soc Lmn ~Paris,1893~ 2: 1067-1069.

ls C. Stapleton, Muriel Wilson’s Bamboo. Newsletter ofthe Bamboo Society (European Bamboo Society,Great Bntam, January 1995), 21.

AcknowledgmentsThe author would like to express his thanks to Dr. Chns

Stapleton, consulting taxonomist at Kew Gardens, forhis help in sorting out the complex history of theintroduction of Fargesia munelae, and to Keiko Satoh,Putnam Research Fellow at the Arnold Arboretum, forhelp in sifting through the Wilson Archmes, housed atthe Arnold Arboretum.

Peter Del Tredici is Director of Living Collections at theArnold Arboretum.

Nature Study Moves into the Twenty-First CenturyCandace L. julyan

The veining of the leaves and the construction of the stalks... are as interesting to meas the construction of a locomotive is to an engineer. When you get to know the plants,you feel as though you ought to have a garden where you can take care of real plantsand study them.

Plants move, though many people do not know it. It is true that they do not move witha jerk, but they move very slowly. When the corn gets beaten down by a heavy rain orhail storm, it gradually works itself up again, although it never gets perfectly straightas before. When we move, we bend our joints. That is the way also with the corn. Itbends at the nodes.

-Reports from fourth-grade students at the Francis Parker School, Chicago, 1915.1 1

In many respects these reportscould be more readily attributed tostudents today than to those at thebeginning of this century. Thestudy of plants is now considered aroutine part of the elementary cur-riculum, and reports are a standardform of communication betweenteacher and student. However,classroom practice that encouragesstudents’ observations of nature,considered laudable today, wasmuch more controversial at thebeginning of the century. At theArnold Arboretum, education forchildren has been shaped by ourstrong belief that the most power-ful learning happens out in thelandscape, a belief that was articu-lated at the turn of the century byparticipants in the "nature-studymovement." The fourth-gradersquoted above, students at a schoolfounded on the principles of thismovement, had studied plants byobserving corn growing in theirschoolyard, rather than by readingabout it in a textbook. A closer

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look at the tenets of nature-study servesto identify the roots of our beliefs and toilluminate new ways to approach thestudy of nature.The nature-study movement, which

peaked between 1890 to 1920, was partof a progressive education philosophythat proposed a child-centered approachto learning by encouraging engagementand play in contrast to more traditional,text-driven practices. Nature-study edu-cators (who used the hyphen to signifythat their nature study included a peda-gogical approach) proposed that learningabout the natural world was as impor-tant as studies of reading, writing, arith-metic, and grammar. The key precepts ofthe nature-study movement can be sum-marized briefly:· The objects of study can be ordinary,seasonal phenomena.

· Direct observation is central to learn-

ing ; drawing can be a useful, comple-mentary tool.

. The teacher guides the students’

exploration; fostering discussions isconsidered more critical than memori-zation.

· Truly significant learning about nature takesplace outdoors, "in nature." "

· Education should instill a love of nature inthe child.2

Much of the impetus for this movement camefrom a concern that the rigid approach to teach-ing was not resulting in significant learningby students. Samuel Jackson, an importantspokesman for the movement, summarized thedissatisfaction of many with traditional book-centered study:

Instead of providing the child with proper condi-tions which cause him to grow out of the oldinto the new, usually, the teacher merely smiteshim wnih a defmztlon The child is finally bela-bored into saying, "The earth is round like a

globe or a ball," and the matter is dropped; butmost of his geography forever conforms to hispicture of the old flat earth of his childhood.3 3

Such misgivings were certainly not new.Over two centuries earlier, the Moravian monk

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) wrote a cri-tique of the approach to children’s educationat that time:

Hitherto the schools have done nothing with theview of developing children, like young trees,from the growing impulse of their own roots, butonly with that of hanging them over with twigsbroken off elsewhere. They teach youth to adomthemselves with others’ feathers, like the crowin Aesop’s Fables. They do not show them thingsas they are, but tell them what one and another,and a third and a tenth, had thought and writtenabout them, so that it is considered a mark ofgreat wisdom for a man to know a great manyopinions which contradict each other .4

Comenius developed his ideas in the firstillustrated children’s book, Orbis Plctus, pub-lished in 1658 and focused on topics familiar toyoung people. The book’s small woodcut graph-ics are accompanied by short texts that dealwith a wide range of topics drawn from bothnature and ethics-from clouds, trees, and ani-mals, to honesty, respect, and love.

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Another writer influential in the develop-ment of the nature-study movement was JeanJacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Many of hisideas were incorporated into the movement’sphilosophy: the principles of science are discov-ered by the child, not learned as facts; learningshould begin with observation of commonphenomena; the order of learning should bedetermined by the learner’s interests and expe-riences, not by the organization of science; andthe objective should be enthusiasm for the dis-cipline and methods of science, rather than abody of memorized facts.sAs the nature-study movement gathered

momentum in the late nineteenth century, itsleaders built upon these ideas to create an

approach to education with careful study of theoutdoor environment as its centerpiece. While a

growing number of teachers found these ideasexciting and in line with their own thinking,many others were baffled by the idea of teachingwithout books and using natural objects andphenomena to help children understand theworld around them. Ultimately the movementlost strength as educators turned away from theideas of progressive education in favor of moretraditional approaches.

The Relevance of Nature-Study TodayWhile the philosophy of the nature-study move-ment could be found in small pockets of schoolsthroughout this century, the ideas gained favoragain in the 1960s and 1970s with the growth ofenvironmental education and of science educa-tion that focused on experience and, morerecently, in the 1980s and 1990s, with a renewedfocus on science education. The notion of a

compatibility between science and nature-study was not prevalent at the turn of the cen-tury. Although exceptions existed, such as LouisAgassiz, a nineteenth-century scientist whosecredo was "Study nature, not books," generally,nature-study educators and professors of scienceheld significantly different ideas, as suggestedin these passages written by Anna Comstockin 1911:

For a long time botanical science, in the popularmmd, consisted chiefly of pulling flowers topieces and finding their Latin names by the use

of the analytical key. All the careful descriptionsof the habits of plants in the classic books wereviewed solely as conducive to accuracy in plac-ing the proper label on herbarium specimens.Long after the study of botany in the universitieshad become biological rather than purely sys-tematic, the old regime held sway in our second-

ary schools; and perhaps some of us today knowof high schools still working in the first ray thatpierced primeval darkness....To-day nature-study and science, while they

may deal with the same objects, view them fromopposite standpoints.... The child, throughnature-study, learns to know the life history ofthe violet growing in his own dooryard, and thefascinating story of the robin nesting in the cor-nice of his own porch.b .6

Comstock explained that nature-study "doesnot start out with the classification given inbooks, but in the end it builds up a classificationin the child’s mind which is based on fundamen-tal knowledge; it is a classification like thatevolved by the first naturalists, it is builton careful personal observations of both formand life."’She would, no doubt, be surprised to learn

how the teaching of science has shifted in theintervening years. In 1994, the National Acad-emy of Science convened a large group of scien-tists and educators to consider how and whatchildren should learn about science and theenvironment. The conclusions of this group,published in 1996 as the National Science Edu-catlon Standards (NSES/, suggest certain "bigideas" to be addressed at each grade level andpropose an approach to teaching that in manyways resembles the one endorsed by the nature-study authors at the turn of the century:

Learning science is something students do, notsomething that is done to them. In learningscience, students describe objects and events,ask questions, acquire knowledge, constructexplanations of natural phenomena, test thoseexplanations in many different ways, and com-municate their ideas to others 8

The Arboretum’s work with children employsa combination of the nature-study philosophyand scientific practice. Begun in 1984, theArboretum’s Field Studies Experiences are

designed for small groups of elementary stu-

21

dents who come to the Arboretum to observeclosely and make sense of what they see. In thefall, students look for seeds and determine theirmode of travel; in the spring, they discover thestages of transformation from flower to fruit. Inboth of these activities, careful observation issupplemented by conversations with the guides,who help students make sense of what they see.This program is based on a belief that childrenlearn best through experiences in the landscape,guided by attentive adults.A decade later, we explored ways to add data

collection to these observation-based activities.In 1995, with funding from the National ScienceFoundation (NSF), the Arboretum began thedevelopment of a program that could serve as amodel for partnerships between elementaryschools and institutions involved in science.While based on many of the principles of nature-study, this new project, called Seasonal Investi-gations, also includes an emphasis on keepingsystematic records of observations and sharingthose data with others using a computerweb site.

A Design for Nature Study in the Twenty-First Century

Before I investigated a twig in winter, I justthought that the leaves fell off a tree and gradu-ally grew back. But boy, did I learn a lot abouttrees from Just one little twig!Maybe I should tell you about some things I

learned... I learned the names of the different

parts of a twig, hke the Terminal Bud, which isthe bud at the tip, and the Lateral Buds, the littlebuds on the sides. I, myself, liked the names ourclass made up better. Like the name I gave to theTerminal Bud, Kiss-End Tail (an off-spnng fromthe expression "Kiss and Tell"[. I.Another thing I learned from my twig is that

the different colors along the twig signal yearlygrowth. We also determined the yearly growthfor 1995-96 by loolang at the first ring from thetop. Then we measured from that ring to the

very tip of the twig. Get this, my twig grows onecentimeter less each year! So next year, if mytwig only grew one centimeter since 1995, mytwig will probably stop growing. Or maybe itwill start a whole new growth. I think thatthe reason my twig’s health has been declining isbecause of the harsh winters we’ve been having.Well it’ll sure be a big surpnse [this spring] !

My twig was a veryinformative source. I

learned more abouttrees than I could everfit into one report. So I ~

better go before I start an-other paragraph telling youabout how great trees are!"

"

-Report from a fourth-gradestudent at the Murphy School,Boston, 1996.

Like the student reports from B1915 quoted at the beginning, thisone displays an enthusiastic, obser-vation-based consideration of the sub-

ject. The author is a student in one ofthe classrooms participating in theArboretum’s Seasonal Investigationsprogram (originally called the Commu-nity Science Connection), designed tohelp elementary teachers strengthentheir science curricula by replacmg theusual one- to two-week unit based ontextbook explanations with a year-long study of trees in the schoolyard.To date, we have worked with fifty

teachers from the Boston, Newton, andBrookline school districts; all attendedsummer institutes at the Arboretumbefore guiding their students throughthe study. The goals of the program arevery similar to those of the nature-studymovement:

. to encourage use ot the outdoors as an ex-

tension of the classroom, whether in theschoolyard, the Arboretum, orthe students’ neighborhood;

. to provide the structure of ayear-long study of individual trees

-,

that incorporates close observations, sys-tematic data collection, and guidance inmaking sense of the data;

. to give the students opportunities to com-municate on the web with others studyingthe same topic.The program proceeds through three seasons.

The fall investigation focuses on the generalcharacteristics of trees and on the ways speciesdiffer, such as in the dates that leaves change

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color and fall from the tree. In the winter inves-

tigation, students learn to "read" a twig and usetheir new knowledge to determine which wasthe best recent growing year for the schoolyardtrees. The spring investigation revisits thefeatures examined in the winter to learnwhether and how those features change in thespring and to determine when the flowers are"open for business."

iThe student report quoted

above was written as part of thewinter twig investigation. Thetwigs, initially viewed by studentsas a bag of sticks, constitute themajor focus of the class investiga-tion. Each twig soon becomes atreasured resource. Students beginby making careful drawings andidentifying features of the twig,later naming the features. Thesenames are often revealing. Forexample, one student named theannual growth-ring marks "grow-ing up lines." Many students pre-ferred their own names to thoseof scientists, but they were fluentin both.

The Role of the Web Site

Now in our final year of NSF fund-

ing, we are designing a web sitefor Seasonal Investigations that webelieve will support both the class-room and outdoor work and allowa greater number of teachers totake part in the project. While theprogram can be (and sometimesis) completed successfully usingonly the classroom and school-yard, the on-line environment pro-vides an important support for thefour activities central to the proj-ect-observation, data collection,communication, and publication-with a web site feature dedicated toeach of these activities.The Spotlight feature changes

weekly throughout each seasonalinvestigation; the topic of eachentry is chosen to encourage

closer observation. In the fall investigation, stu-dents were invited to consider patterns of leaf

change, to view other students’ drawings of pat-terns they found, and to share their observationsabout leaf patterns with others. Another Spot-light entry asked them to consider how bark ac-commodates the expansion of a tree’s girth.Three possibilities-fissures, plates, and peels-were illustrated with photos; students were

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asked to look at their school-yard trees and report their

findings.The Tree Talk feature facili-

tates communication amongclasses, from initial letters ofintroduction to later conversa-tions about questions or find-ings. Contributions to most ofthese "conversations" can bemade and viewed at any time;in addition, there is an optionfor a live, scheduled chat witheither Arboretum staff or otherclassrooms.The Activities feature pro-

vides the structure for sharingdata among classes. Studentsare asked to provide specificdata about their schoolyardtrees, changing or adding to thedata as the study progresses.The combined data provideopportunities for discussion in the classroom orwith other students.The Publication feature is intended to elicit a

creative activity at the end of each investiga-tion, perhaps a report or drawing, that bringstogether the ideas, surprises, and discoveriesfrom the investigation.The first three years of the project were spent

perfecting the model and developing a set ofinvestigations that could be completed in the

schoolyard, with supporting visits to the Arbo-retum. During this, the last year of the project,the focus is on perfecting the web site to ensurethat the program will continue after NSF fund-

ing ends.Even before the project’s completion, the

framework of Seasonal Investigations has beenadopted as a model by other institutions

engaged in science education. Descanso Gar-dens in Los Angeles is replicatmg the entire pro-gram as a pilot project with the Los AngelesUnified School District. The Garden’s director,Richard Schulhof, had first-hand experiencewith the project as a member of the Arboretumstaff at the time it began, and is enthusiasticabout using the program as a new approach toscience teaching for his own staff as well as forthe Los Angeles teachers. In addition, the Mas-sachusetts Audubon Society is using the Sea-sonal Investigations framework to develop bothteacher institutes and investigations of vernalpools in three locations across Massachusetts.

Future Directions , , I

Many of the ideas of the nature-study move-ment are alive and in practice in today’sprograms at the Arboretum, but new issues

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are also being raised. What role can the webplay, not as an end in itself but as a springboardto investigations outdoors? How might it pro-vide an avenue for sharing our educationalideas, many of which have century-old roots,with interested educators around the globe?

In many ways, the words of Anna Comstockhave as much relevance at the end of this cen-

tury as they did at the beginning:When the child has become acquamted with theconditions and necessities of plant hfe, how dif-ferent will the world seem to him! Every glanceat forest or field will tell him a new story. Everysquare foot of sod will be revealed to him as abattlefield m which he himself may count thevictories m the struggle for existence, and hewill walk henceforth in a world of miracle and of

beauty,-the miracle of adjustment to circum-stances, and the beauty of obedience to law."9

The young author who wrote about her twigis one of a growing number of students whosescience experiences have been shaped, eitherdirectly or indirectly, through a connection withthe Arboretum and its staff. As we enter the

twenty-first century, we continue to seek oppor-tunities for sharing our ideas about the compat-ibility of nature, science, and technology withteachers and students eager to learn about treesand plants. Our hope is that ideas aboutchildren’s education, developed and nurtured atthe Arboretum, can grow into viable "seeds"locally and around the country.

Endnotes

1 From the Francis Parker School Year Book, vol IV,June 1915 (Archives of Gutman Library, HarvardUniversity).

z Culled from W. S. Jackman, Nature-Study andRelated Sub7ects for Common School, Part II (NewYork: Henry Holt, 1891); A. C. Boyden, Nature Studyby Months (Boston: New England Publishmg, 1898);G. L Clapp, "Real and sham observation by pupils,"Education, January 1892; C. B. Scott, Nature-Studyand the Child (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1901); A. B.Comstock, Handbook of Nature-Study (Ithaca, NY:Comstock Publishing, 1911 /.

3 Quoted in Jackman, op. cit, pp. 9-10.

4 Quoted m N. A. Calings, "History of ObjectTeaching," Barnard’s American Journal of Education(December, 1962) 12: 637.

5 Quoted m T. Mmton, "The History of the Nature-Study Movement and Its Role m the Developmentof Environmental Education" /Unpublished dis-sertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,1979), pp. 30-31.

6 Quoted m G. F. Atkmson, First Studies of Plant Life(Boston: Ginn & Co , 1901), p. m.

7 Comstock, op. cit., p.5.

8 National Research Council, National ScienceEducation Standards (Washington, D.C.: NationalAcademy Press, 1996), p. 20.

9 Atkmson, op. cit., p. v

Candace Julyan is Director of Education at the ArnoldArboretum.