Swarthmore Woody Plants Conference... Amy, Lynn, Barbara, Nathan, Young, and I went today

So the National Arboretum was well represented in the audience. Of course, Richard Olsen, lead scientist for the USNA's urban tree breeding program gave a talk that was so intellectually challenging that it kept the entire hall awake for that last shift before lunchtime. It sounds odd but I'm not kidding. Nobody nodded off because they were concentrating too hard! Rick Lewandowski suggested a solution to an area of dry shade at the Library: Box Huckleberry, Gaylussacia brachycera, and reminded me that I need to propagate Clinopodium georgianum. It's a honey of a sub-shrumbin the Fabaceae.

I always enjoy both the Perennial Plant Conference and the Woody Plants Conference at Swarthmore. I tend to question the usefulness of many programs and presentations, not aloud or in print because that would be rude and could be hurtful. However, after attending a number of these events, I can say truthfully that I have never walked away without feeling inspired and I've always learned things.

The entire campus of Swarthmore comprises the Scott Arboretum. The plantings are varied, interesting, and largely mature, including any number of impressive specimen plants. I always enjoy the seasonal plantings around the Arboretum office. We ranged afield during breaks and at lunch finding the Clematis texensis in the middle picture, the purple-leafed Solanum in the bottom photo, and (NOTE) a Ribbon or, get this, Tapeworm! Plant, Homalocladium platycladium, a Polygonaceous from the South Pacific. And Strobilanthes gossypinus. If you get the chance to attend one of these conference and see the Arboretum, take it!

Hemerocallis 'Memories of Oz' (top) and 'Skinwalker'...new Daylily selections in quarantine...curious flowers!

After it has been determined that they aren't carrying Daylily Rust, they'll go out into the Daylily beds in the Boxwood Collection. The Daylily collection, though perhaps a bit past peak, is still beautiful and worth a visit. It's integrated into the Boxwoods inside the Bladensburg Road fence.

If there are too many Daylily cultivars, at least they don't all look the same. Hey, there are three basic colors for Peonies and what, half a dozen? flower forms. Where do the hundreds and hundreds of cultivars come from? And don't get me started on Iris or Hostas. Daylilies come in a lot of colors in lots of shades, with lots of differently shaped flowers in different sizes that bloom from early summer to late fall. Often they have interesting names; if 'Skinwalker' is a bit gruesome, it's at least colorful and evocative?

Daylily Rust is a disease caused by a, go figure, rust fungus, Puccinia hemerocallis. I remember a related fungus, Puccina graminis, from pathology classes in college. All rusts are pretty similar. Their lifecycles are curious in that, though they do most of their damage on a particular plant species, they normally require a separate host to complete the sexual portion of their life cycles. The primary alternate host of our rust is plants of the genus Patrinia. The fungus is Asian, and so far as I know Patrinia is Asian. I know I never liked Patrinia scabiosafolia, a tall yellow flowered late-summer bloomer. It's pretty enough but has an unpleasant odor. I remember it growing in the "Korean Triangle" (that is now Asian Collections bed KO). Daylily Rust, however, doesn't need an alternate host; the spores it produces on one Daylily are able to infect another. I have a vivid recollection of Andre Viette declaiming vehemently against the evergreen daylilies, claiming that they were a large part of the reason for the diseases spread. And maybe they are.