The Historic Tree Grove at MOSI offers a unique timeline of America's history as it was viewed by silent witnesses, trees. Our 17 trees planted in the grove in 1996 are all seedlings of trees that witnessed amazing historic events or were associated with famous historical people. Imagine the sycamore that grew from seeds that went to the moon, a pine that watched a battle of the American Civil War, the sweet gum that saw the flight of the first airplane. What wonders those trees witnessed and those same trees still live long after the events of history have passed. We can still lay our hands on their bark, sit beneath their boughs and take a few minutes out to learn and converse about great deeds and fantastic people which shaped our world.
Frank Lloyd Wright: an architect who embraced nature.
Frank Lloyd Wright was a master builder, a rebel and a worshipper of nature. Wright introduced the word 'organic' into his philosophy of architecture as early as 1908. It was an extension of the teachings of his mentor Louis Sullivan whose slogan, "form follows function" became the mantra of modern architecture. Wright changed this phrase to "form and function are one," using nature as the best example of this integration.One of Wright's best known examples of architecture is the house known as
Falling Water. 50 Miles outside of Pittsburgh, the house sits astride Bear Creek and a waterfall pours out beneath its concrete cantilevered porches. This home was designed and built for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr. and in part helped to inspire Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead.The Frank Lloyd Wright Gingko stood in front of his Forest Avenue home in Oak Park, Illinois , until it succumbed to a storm in 1992. Cuttings are taken from second-generation offspring of the original tree.
The Ginkgo Biloba: A tree from another age.
The Ginkgo Biloba tree is truly a living fossil. Unique in nature, this species survives as the sole remaining member of a larger family of trees now known only in the fossil record. Other species related to the Ginkgo are not known to have survived past the Pliocene epoch which extended from 5.332 million to 1.806 million years before present.The leaves of this tree have a lovely fan shape and dichotomous venation which means that two veins enter at the base of the leaf and repeatedly fork into progressively smaller pairs. It is also known as the Maidenhair tree for its resemblance to the Maidenhair fern. Ginkgo are deciduous and lose their leaves in the winter and they can flourish in temperate places.
A Jurassic Garden
What exactly is a Jurassic garden, you may ask? Well, our interpretation was to create a garden of plants that are from those epochs where the Ginkgo and other ancient plants flourished on the earth and many of our well known plants had not yet even developed. Perhaps, it is a garden that herbivorous dinosaurs would have looked upon and thought: Mmmmmm. Yum.
Planted on Arbor Day through a grant from Fiskars Project Orange Thumb, so far our Jurassic Garden contains:
- Ginkgo Biloba
- Horsetail reed (Equisetum hyemale) pictured on the right.
- Coontie (Zamia floridana)
- Cardboard Palm ((Zamia furfuracea)
Once these plants establish a bit more I hope to add some more cycads, which are another type of fossil plant and other primitive plants like Peacock Fern (Selaginella willdenovii) which is super cool but requires shade to grow.
I checked out a few of Lloyd Wrights landscape & engineering drawings. Thankfully he did not plant any White, Green or other of the Ash trees that can owe the Emerald Ash Borer for their possible extinction. Here in Oak Park many Frank built houses have or had parkway Ash trees Planted just before or after houses were constructed. I know this because I count the tree rings of Ash tree stumps cut down in 2011. You have to give 5 years from location, as trees usually transplanted. Sometimes you see a year or two of slow growth rings a few years out from center. Like you said and I feel is, these trees have seen history. It's like time travel when I sit down and count back years, seeing the part of the wood that was once an outer ring of the 1890's. Elms & poplar were first choice for parkway. But in spots, people choose our native Ash with possible lifespan of 300 years. Some of Lloyd Franks houses still have mountain Ash -not threatened-and other long lived trees. I myself am gathering seeds from Ash trees for their last time.-oldest 136 so far- We are at least lucky that the Ash trees are having a Masting year, with bags of samarians. We still have our Savanna Oaks that lived alongside native Indians. And a Black Walnut hidden in our woods. I only now know about how old it is by comparing house in O.P. who's owner 130 years ago planted at same time next to his Blk Walnut tree, a white Ash tree just EAB'ed, downed and counted. Looking at his skinny trunked Blk Walnut, I now know my hidden Organism is a slow grower Est.300, and Indians could have used for Dye & Tanning as it's location is between destroyed mounds and I.village w/portage for AuxPlaines river. Your search for where, when & how trees got here now, starting from and surviving earths calamities, stuck safely between mountain ranges is so enlightening to me when you put a name with a tree. Thank You for your passion of living history. By the way EAB is 100% stopped with Tree-age-fish lice killer-for 3 years. City of Chicago has, across from O.P., saving every parkway Ash, even Est. 130 year olds. Very few save any in O.P. and our woods have bald patches with bark less trunks. I hope I follow thru with using my boxes of Ash seeds. Your story compels me to.
ReplyDelete