Rock Garden Quarterly Summer 2012 - (Page 281)

natural history and fur-trade communities, and over time his meteoric career has created a mythic figure that has grown beyond the usual boundaries of the botanical field. But even without the lore, Douglas’s legacy on the modern landscape extends beyond his collections that appear today in seed catalogs, native plant nurseries, and stunning rock gardens. To many foresters, Douglas’s assessment of possible sites, soil types, and exposures for growing Northwest trees like Sitka spruce marks the beginning of modern British silvaculture. Arborists recognize that seeds he brought back form the basis for several famous arboretums, including copses of Douglas-fir that rank as the tallest trees in all of Europe. Ecologists point out biogeographical aspects of Douglas’s work, including the reality that some of his introductions such as salal in Scotland, fireweed across Scandanavia, and Monterey pines in New Zealand have been so successful that today they rate as noxious weeds. With Douglas, there are always more layers to explore. The spot on the Columbia where he gathered blazing star in 1825 might be buried beneath the backup of the Dalles Dam, but Mentzelia laevicaulis continues to bloom in spoil pits and along gravel trails throughout the Inland Northwest. When fire ecologists try to re-learn the art of burning to open up pine or oak woodlands, they often marvel that small species he mentioned, such as esoteric broomrapes and the deervetch Lotus micranthus, can still spring up in profusion after a controlled fire. Coastal and Plateau people from a variety of tribes, who continue to rely on traditional plants for food and textiles, might chuckle at the childish simplicity of Douglas’s recipe for the lichen cakes they bake from Bryoria fremontia, but they see cultural affirmation in the depth of his pioneering ethnobotany. This is the realm where gardeners understand David Douglas best: his work can only be absorbed plant by plant, season by season, as over time species associated with him cycle through their own dynamic lives. When NARGS member David Sellars of British Columbia wrote about Douglasia nivalis in this magazine (Rock Garden Quarterly, Winter 2010/2011), he recounted the often-published story about Douglas gathering the type Douglasia at 14,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. Sellars then correctly pointed out that, since the fur-trade brigade Douglas traveled with crossed Athabasca Pass (elevation: 5751 feet) in early May on top of many feet of snow, this story cannot be true—it has to rank as another entry in the large body of Douglas lore. But Douglas did collect the plant, which today is known only from Washington state, on the east slope of the Cascade Range between the Wenatchee and Methow Rivers. Snow douglasia usually occurs in alpine situations, but occasionally can be found down to around 2000 feet of elevation. David Douglas paddled that stretch of the A Remarkable Garden: David Douglas & Columbia Plateau 281

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rock Garden Quarterly Summer 2012

Digital Quarterly
Expanding Panayoti's Axioms
Photo Contest 2012
Photographing Alpine Plants: A Landscape Point of View
NARGS 2013 Election Timetable
Rock Gardening from Scratch - Seeds
Kim Blaxland and the Violets of North America
Viola pedata
Violas, Kim, and Us - A Celebration
Cooking Native Japanese Plants
Carl Gehenio Memorial Trough Show
Fire in the Hole: Phlox across Colorado
Rebuilding a Rock Garden in Pittsburgh
A Remarkable Garden: David Douglas and the Shrub-steppe of the Columbia Plateau
Bookshelf - Reviews
Swedish Dreams
Treasurer's Report
Bulletin Board
2012 - Eastern Study Weekend: October, Pittsburgh

Rock Garden Quarterly Summer 2012