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Chrysanthemum
CHRYSANTHEMUM HISTORY, like Gaul, is divided into three parts. The first part is the epoch of extensive and intensive cultivation in China, and later in Japan, lasting about 1,400 years from the fifth century BCE. The author of a recently published book about the origin of the chrysanthemum, J. J. Spaargaren, an eminent Dutch horticulturist, has elucidated this period thoroughly for Western scholars.
The second part was the initial introduction of the flower into Western Europe in the late seventeenth century, when very little happened. No one paid much attention to the modest flower and it lapsed into obscurity. The third part, the one covered in this chapter, was the beginning of the modern period in 1789, when Captain Pierre-Louis Blancard (not Blanchard as is sometimes written) of Marseilles imported specimens of Chrysanthemum morifolium from China and gave cuttings to the Abbé de Ramatuelle. This period continues into the present.
Chrysanthemum morifolium was the first really large-flowered chrysanthemum ever seen in Europe. Only a few had survived the journey, and the one Blancard sent the abbé, which ultimately reached London, was tall and purple. The first European illustration of this new flower was plate 327 in the Botanical Magazine in 1796. The abbé, in his turn, sent specimens to the Jardin du Roi in Paris in 1790.
Chrysanthemum morifolium ‘Old Purple’.
Reproduced by permission of Chronica Horticulturae
The survival of this fragile new flower during those perilous times in France is astonishing. With the revolution raging, it is remarkable that people even thought about flowers. It is even more amazing that the Jardin du Roi, a symbol of the hated royal family, escaped utter destruction. The institution, which actually flourished under the new regime, was renamed the Museum of Natural History in 1800. A few of the more intellectual of the revolutionaries believed that understanding natural history was important to a new world order.
BOTANY
Chrysanthemums are in the family Asteraceae. This family produces blossoms with large composite heads. Short disc florets are clustered in the center of the blossom, and long, slim ray florets supply the “petals” surrounding the disc. The current botanical name of the horticultural chrysanthemum is Dendranthema grandiflorum, but in the United States it goes by the affectionate nickname of “mum.” When the name Dendranthema was proposed to replace Chrysanthemum, the members of the English National Chrysanthemum Society complained so vociferously that the change did not take place. Germplasm from other Dendranthema species, possibly D. japonicum and D. indicum, also contributes to the modern hybrid. C. indicum is the type species of the genus Chrysanthemum.
The next important division is into classes based on the flower’s shape, the so-called horticultural divisions. This nomenclature has evolved over the past century, absorbing new forms as they have been discovered. The classification system of the Chrysanthemum Society of America is based on the shape and arrangement of the rays as well as the disc florets: Irregular Incurve; Reflex; Regular Incurve; Decorative; Intermediate Incurve; Pompon; Single/Semi-Double; Anemone; Spoon; Quill; Spider; Brush and Thistle; and Exotic. These classes are in keeping with the international system.
The pompon variety was originally quite tall and even needed staking in some instances. The flower’s resemblance to the pompon on top of the French sailor’s hat was irresistible, and the name stuck. For a while, the early growers called it “pompone.” As members of the Asteraceae, chrysanthemums and dahlias look very much alike, up to and including the pompon forms.
The plant is native to the Northern Hemisphere and widespread across the Eurasian landmass. It is found most abundantly in the Mediterranean region, particularly Algeria and the Canary Islands, and in northern Asia: China, Japan, and Korea. A few species, mainly in the genus Tanacetum, are endemic to North America. The European and North African species are diploid, whereas the Asian plants range from diploid to decaploid. (“Diploid” means there are two sets of chromosomes. “Decaploid” means there are ten pairs. The presence of more chromosomes is often associated with larger and more complex flower heads.)
COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE
This flower is now one of the most important floricultural crops in many countries. Together with poinsettias and orchids, the chrysanthemum appears at various positions in the lists of the top ten most frequently sold potted plants, cut flowers, and garden plants in the United States and other countries. In the 1990s, Japan led the way with 2 billion stems of cut flowers. In contrast, during that period, the Netherlands sold 800 million stems, Colombia 600 million, Italy 500 million, and the United States 300 million. Chrysanthemums in Italy are almost solely used for funereal purposes, and Italians get quite upset if a guest arrives with a bunch of chrysanthemums as a hostess gift.
In the U.S. Department of Agriculture data for 2009/2010, the grand total of hardy potted chrysanthemums sold was 45 million pots, with 7 million indoor pots, as well as 8 million bunches of cut pompons. (By comparison, 36 million pots of poinsettias were sold during that same period, and 21 million pots of orchids.)
DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE
Chrysanthemums seized imaginations in England and France at much the same time. Here was a compact floriferous plant, available in attractive colors, easy to grow, and coming into bloom at the end of the summer. It could continue in flower as late as December. This was something to conjure away the bleak dullness of late autumn. An English horticultural observer, A. H. Haworth, suggested that if they were planted against a sunny wall in England and properly tended, the flowers might still be blooming in January. The French climate was somewhat more propitious, and the flowers flourished in the warmer regions.
ENGLAND
The chrysanthemum was said to have flowered for the first time in England at Colvill’s nursery in the King’s Road, Chelsea, in 1796. Colvill’s ‘Old Purple’, a form of the purple flower Blancard had originally given to the Jardin du Roi in France, was tall with double purple flowers. Its Linnaean name was Chrysanthemum morifolium (now C. × morifolium Ramat). Chrysanthemums had been grown at the Chelsea Physic Garden many years before, in the quiescent “second epoch,” but they had been ignored and lost.
A Dutch merchant, Jacob Layn, had introduced chrysanthemums into the Netherlands in about 1688, but just as occurred in England, once they died out no one seemed to remember anything about them, and a century later it was as if they had never been there. There were said to be six varieties of the flower. William, Prince of the House of Orange in the Netherlands, took over the throne of England in 1688 as William III. He and his wife, Mary, introduced the Dutch style of gardening. They reigned together, always referred to as “William and Mary,” and favored trees and shrubs over herbaceous plants. The chrysanthemum was not used.
After the flowers were reintroduced, the chrysanthemum began to spread slowly throughout England. The Horticultural Society of London was enthusiastic, and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine had quite a few pictures of this “new” flower. George Harrison of Downham in Norfolk was especially enamored of it. In 1831, he protected his late plantings under glass, with stunning results. Eventually his efforts led to the first chrysanthemum show, held in Norwich in 1843.
Three years later, the Stoke Newington Chrysanthemum Society was started. This later became the National Chrysanthemum Society. Stoke Newington was a charming village just outside north London at the time. It has since been incorporated into north London.
In his 1971 book about antique plants, Roy Genders mentioned several chrysanthemum enthusiasts who were active before the next major event, the advent of the Chusan Daisy variety. These included Isaac Wheeler of Oxford, who exhibited his flowers at the Horticultural Society in 1832, and another resident of Downham, John Freestone of Watlington Hall, who was the first Englishman to ripen seed and raise new varieties. Chrysanthemum seed is hard to collect and handle, so this was a real achievement.
Vauxhall, in London, the home of the famous and also infamous Vauxhall Gardens (who knows what high jinks went on there), was where Chandler’s Nursery grew seedlings from seed sent by John Salter. Salter was an English nurseryman who worked in Versailles for a number of years before having to return to England in 1848. The populist uprisings in Paris made things too uncertain for him. Two of Salter’s cultivars, ‘Queen of England’ and ‘Annie Salter’, lasted a very long time and could still be found in some nursery catalogues as late as 1960.
Early enthusiasts also had C. indicum in their gardens. Its single yellow flowers provided an additional source of color. Its origins went back almost a century. In 1751, Peter Osbeck, one of Carolus Linnaeus’s students, had found C. indicum near Macao in southern China and sent it back to Europe. Philip Miller cultivated it in the Chelsea Physic Garden as early as 1764.
In 1822, J. C. Loudon, the formidable one-armed horticultural editor and writer, said that Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London (subsequently the Royal Horticultural Society), knew of fourteen types of chrysanthemum. Loudon also commented that there were supposed to be more than fifty types of chrysanthemum in China. By 1826, Sabine could point to forty-eight varieties of this plant in the society’s grounds. In that year Louis Noisette, noted for his roses, took a few of Sabine’s varieties back to France. Years later, Sabine insisted on sending Robert Fortune to China to bring back even more chrysanthemums.
Sabine’s list of chrysanthemums at the Horticultural Society of London in 1822 included these varieties:
Buff Flowered
Golden Yellow
Pink Flowered
Quilled Flamed Yellow
Quilled White
Sulphur Yellow
Tasselled White
Changeable White
Large Lilac
Quilled Pink
Quilled Yellow
Spanish Brown
Superb White
The Purple
Until Robert Fortune brought the Chusan Daisy, C. rubellum, back from China in 1846, these C. indicum and C. morifolium varieties were the only types of chrysanthemum in the British Isles. They formed the backbone of all breeding efforts. You will look in vain for C. rubellum. It is now Chrysanthemum zawadskii subsp. latilobum (Maxim.) Kitag.
Fortune’s introduction became very popular, and led to considerably increased interest in the flower. The diminutive daisy-like plant was the forerunner of many new cultivars. Another great advantage of the Chusan Daisies was that they flowered much earlier in the year, enabling them to be grown outdoors.
It was still possible to find some of the British varieties from the early and mid-nineteenth century in the twentieth century. Genders listed at least three pompons which appeared in John Forbes’s catalogue in 1960: ‘Model of Perfection’, ‘Bob’, and ‘Mlle. Marthe’. Forbes had a nursery in Hawick, Scotland. (See chapter in this book on the penstemon.) Robert Fortune embellished his already stellar reputation for finding magnificent plants by collecting Japanese varieties and taking them back to England in 1862. They were quite unlike the previous specimens. Some were shaped like a camellia, and there was a wider range of colors. According to J. Lochot, himself a chrysanthemum breeder, Fortune’s introduction of seven Japanese species in 1862 invigorated the field; everyone was excited by the large blossoms with long, narrow, and fantastical petals.
Putting all these things together, nurserymen were able to establish a successful commercial cut flower trade in chrysanthemums.
Wealthy men of leisure as well as nurserymen devoted their lives to growing and breeding chrysanthemums. They formed societies of like-minded people, held competitions, and moved the flower in exciting new directions. The societies created increasingly complicated and strict rules to govern the exhibitions, constantly tightening the challenge. Rigid rules are a feature of English floral competitions and shows, sometimes stultifying genuine advances and necessary change. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) was particularly important in promoting these improvements. Members who disagreed and amateurs were the ones who restricted new advances. This conservative attitude was a feature of the old workingmen “florists,” mentioned below.
The RHS established a Floral Committee in 1859 to report on all flowers or flowering plants being submitted for consideration. Looking at the members of this committee, one is struck by the number of active nurserymen, some of them chrysanthemum breeders, who served on the committee. Although the society was an elite social organization, the fact that its members decided to include these tradesmen was a sign of how seriously they took horticulture. The leaders were able to transcend their class consciousness and recognize true talent and contributions when they saw them. As a complete non sequitur, it is almost certain their wives did not approve. Well-born women were constantly aware of class distinctions.
Florists and the Chrysanthemum
For almost three hundred years, working-class men in the British Isles found sources of pride and dignity in growing and breeding a number of small plants like auriculas, pinks, carnations, primulas, tulips, and ranunculus, which lent themselves to containers. This activity started when the Huguenots (French Protestants) fled from Paris after the infamous Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572. The refugees took their cherished plants with them, and the idea of plant breeding spread. These men were very poor, without estates or property, but they still enjoyed the excitement of watching plants grow and selecting new varieties. They also enjoyed competing for prizes, and, perhaps even more, the respect that winning brought them. After some delay, the chrysanthemum was also taken up by these “florists,” as they were called.
Florists tended to be small artisans such as skilled cotton weavers in Lancashire and the silk weavers of Paisley. They were able to tend their looms and keep an eye on their flowers at the same time. If it began to rain, they could take the cherished auricula with its delicate “farina” inside the house.
Once the crucially important textile industry was consolidated into large factories in the early nineteenth century, this convenient state of affairs was no longer feasible. Proudly independent weavers became cogs in a gigantic machine. A factory hand can only take care of plants in his free time. Florists and their societies gradually disappeared over the nineteenth century.
Florists adopted the ‘Gold Bordered Red’ variety of chrysanthemum in about 1830. The color, gold-tipped red petals and an undersurface striped with gold, and form both suited their slightly odd attitudes toward beauty. Until then they had been indifferent to the flower’s charms. A flower all in one color was not challenging. The florist wanted two or more colors to stimulate his fancy. As A. H. Haworth wrote in J. C. Loudon’s Gardener’s Magazine in April 1833, “Chinese chrysanthemums have not hitherto ranked with the true flowers of the florists because, however well-formed, in many of the varieties, they are all, save the Gold-bordered Red, of self or uniform colours.” A flower with gold-tipped red petals and an undersurface striped with gold did catch their eye. This feature allowed the grower to come up with stripes, flakes, and picotees and generally follow his whims.
Classification
Mr. Haworth also tried his hand at a classification in the same article. He listed seven classes: Ranunculus-flowered, Incurved Ranunculus-flowered, China Aster-flowered, Marigold-flowered, Tassel-flowered, and Half Double Tassel-flowered. It was a start.
By 1880, a more modern grouping had emerged in England: Section I, incurved exhibition varieties; Section II, very large-flowering varieties; Section III, anemone-flowered; Section IV, Japanese; Section V, anemone-flowered pompons; Section VI, pompons; and Section VII, early flowering (outdoors).
Chrysanthemum cultivars: collage assembled by Yves Desjardins, science editor, Chronica Horticulturae
List of cultivars:
National Chrysanthemum Society bloom classification. Class 1: ‘Mt Shasta’, best Irregular Incurve bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 2: ‘Apricot Courtier’, best Reflex bloom, grown by David Eigenbrode. Class 3: ‘Golden Gate’, best Regular Incurve bloom, grown by Normandie Atkins. Class 4: ‘Peacock’, best Decorative bloom, grown by Ron and Georgene Hedin. Class 5: ‘St Tropez’, best Intermediate Incurve bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 6: ‘Kelvin Mandarin’, Pompon bloom, grown by Ed Mascali. Class 7: ‘Peggy Stevens’, best Single and Semi-Double bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 8: ‘Seatons Ruby’, best Anemone bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 9: ‘Kimie’, best Spoon bloom, grown by David Eigenbrode. Class 10: ‘Delistar’, best Quill bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 11: ‘Senkyo Kenshin’, best Spider bloom, grown by David Curtis. Class 12: ‘Cisco’, best Brush and Thistle bloom, grown by Dorrie McDonald. Class 13: ‘Lone Star’, best Exotic bloom, grown by Jerry Donahue. Classes 1–12: Photographer: Todd Brethauer, Old Dominion Chrysanthemum Society. Class 13: Photographer Ralph Parks (deceased), Delaware Valley Chrysanthemum Society.
Reproduced by permission of Chronica Horticulturae
SIGNIFICANT BRITISH FIGURES
Some of the people whose stories follow were fairly prominent in their day, and there is considerable information about them. For those who are more obscure, the little information that is available has had to be gleaned indirectly. The same will be seen as the story moves from the United Kingdom to France and later to the United States.
The criterion I used to keep the list within bounds was a somewhat arbitrary limit of eight cultivars per breeder. There are records of more than 150 British men raising chrysanthemums seriously before 1900. If a breeder had introduced eight or more cultivars, I included his name. I only ignored this self-imposed rule in a few instances.
William Bull, Sr. (1828–1902), Chelsea, London
William Bull, the “new plant merchant,” acquired a portion of John Weeks’s nursery in Chelsea in 1861. In 1863, he leased additional space from Weeks. He purchased the nursery outright in 1874, changing the name to Bull’s Establishment for New and Rare Plants. By 1878, he had become well known for introducing numerous new plants. He specialized in greenhouse plants, particularly orchids, and in pelargoniums, fuchsias, and verbenas. ‘Chelsea Gem’, a pelargonium he introduced in 1880, is still grown.
When Bull died (c. 1902), he had just over three acres with greenhouses. He left his business to his sons William and Edward: William Junior died in 1913, but Edward continued the business until 1920. William Bull had served on the RHS Floral Committee.
Henry Cannell (1833–1914), Swanley, Kent
Henry Cannell began his career as a jobbing gardener but was very ambitious and eventually built up a large nursery and floral business before succumbing to financial problems and ending up in bankruptcy. At its peak, the firm was well known both nationally and internationally, but the death of three of his four children had the inevitable impact on his life and ability to function. He was devastated.
In 1897 he sent specimens of his chrysanthemums to the trials at Cornell University, in New York State, together with another English breeder, Robert Owen of Maidenhead (c. 1839–1897). Cannell was very interested in many types of flowers, and was known for fuchsias, pelargoniums, and verbenas, but his most profound interest was in the chrysanthemum. He recalled that he had first seen the flowers as a child and never forgot the impression they made on him.
Cannell built his nurseries near railway lines, allowing him to send his flowers to market quickly. He understood the advantages of mail order and may have been the first nurseryman in Britain to use it. His chrysanthemums won prizes and medals at many shows. Cannell served on the Floral Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society with William Bull.
W. Clibran and Sons, Altrincham and Manchester
William Clibran had a very substantial business. He owned Oldfield Nurseries at 10 and 12 Market Street, Altrincham, Cheshire, as well as another large nursery in Manchester. Later, the firm opened more branches in other Lancashire towns, and had large seed warehouses too. At one point, Clibran employed more than 250 men. It is not surprising that the employees joined a union, and when 25 of them were dismissed in 1914, the rest struck. No doubt the onset of World War I made much of this labor dispute irrelevant. Almost no men remained to work in civilian businesses.
Clibran’s lasted for more than seventy-five years, still being in business in 1960. Their earliest catalogue dates from 1881. In November 1900, the firm successfully “displayed single-flowered chrysanthemums” at the National Chrysanthemum Show. Clibran’s flowers were exhibited at shows for years. At their peak, the Clibrans received a royal warrant to supply flowers to King Edward VII.
Robert Forster’s name is associated with W. Clibran & Sons, although he lived and worked in Surrey. He made his living as the superintendent of the cemetery in Nunhead. It is hardly surprising that he was very active in growing flowers. He had ample space in which to experiment.
The information about his activities comes from reports in the gardening magazines of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: The Garden and Gardening World. The redoubtable William Robinson edited or wrote most of the material. In volume 60 of The Garden (1900), Robinson reported that “W. Clibran & Sons, Altrincham, staged a collection of cut singles . . . [and] Mr. Robert Forster, Nunhead Cemetery, SE, secured a Silver Gilt Medal” for his contributions.
Robinson reported again in volume 62 of The Garden (1902) that “Messrs. Clibran and Forster won a silver gilt medal in a show on Monday December 27, 1902, at the National Chrysanthemum Society.” The prizewinning cultivar was ‘Nemasket’, and the “Chrysanthemums were arranged in tall glass centre pieces.” At this event, W. Clibran & Sons of Altrincham again staged “a collection of cut singles,” and again, “Mr. Robert Forster, Nunhead Cemetery, SE, secured a Silver Gilt Medal.”
John Freestone, Norfolk
Freestone was a very early raiser of chrysanthemums in Norfolk. Frederick Burbidge referred to him in his 1884 book on chrysanthemums. “Mr. Short and Mr. Freestone, about the year 1835, showed ‘Nonpareil’ and ‘Norfolk Hero’ at the first public Chrysanthemum show for cut blooms at Stoke Newington.” In all, Freestone seems to have produced nine cultivars of chrysanthemum, and was said to be the first Englishman to raise chrysanthemums from seed, an extremely difficult thing to do.
W. J. Godfrey, Exmouth, Devonshire
Godfrey ran the Exmouth Nurseries in Exmouth, Devonshire, but also participated in some of the shows with the Devonshire branch of Veitch. Old John Veitch had started his English nursery in Exeter before branching out to the smart trade in London.
Godfrey was very industrious. Robinson reported in 1894 that he showed ‘Miss Dorothy Shea’, ‘Charles Blick’, ‘Duchess of Devonshire’, ‘Lizzie Cartledge’, and ‘Aureole Virginale’, among other chrysanthemum cultivars. The name ‘Charles Blick’ may have honored another very active nurseryman, Charles Blick, who owned Warren Nursery in Hayes. Blick won a silver Banksian Medal for his carnations but was also interested in chrysanthemums. He introduced the chrysanthemum ‘Hilda Tilch’ in 1910. It was a measure of his significance that he sat on the RHS Floral Committee.
In November 1895, Robinson mentioned Godfrey’s chrysanthemum ‘Monsieur Chas Molin’, introduced from France in 1894. Later, in the same magazine, he commented on the joint display of cut chrysanthemums by Veitch and Godfrey. Godfrey showed ‘Mrs. W J Godfrey’, a white incurved cultivar similar to ‘Mrs. Alpheus Hardy’, in 1901.
He introduced many more chrysanthemum cultivars as well, such as ‘Delightful’, ‘Yellow Boy’, ‘Bridesmaid’, and ‘Market Favourite’. Another of his cultivars, ‘Bessie Godfrey’, was a Japanese variety, as were ‘Exmouth Crimson’, ‘Exmouth Rival’, and ‘Sensation’; the show differentiated between the Japanese varieties and others. The Gardener’s Chronicle indicated that Godfrey grew his seedlings from his own seed. Many were rather short, not more than two and a half feet tall.
Robert Owen (1840–1897), Maidenhead
Owen owned the nursery Castle Hill at Maidenhead in Berkshire. He showed his incurved cultivar ‘Lord Rosebery’ at the National Chrysanthemum Society exhibition in 1893, together with about four other kinds. He also showed ‘Magicienne’, which won a first-class certificate, and he was the developer of ‘Robert Petfield’, a seedling of ‘Princess of Wales’. There were also a “bronze sport from the incurved ‘Robert Petfield’, and ‘Gold Coast’, a rich, bright yellow Japanese reflexed.” Robinson also liked ‘Pride of Maidenhead’, ‘Ernest Fierens’, and particularly ‘Owen’s Perfection’.
Owen died suddenly while working in one of his greenhouses. By the time his assistant realized something was wrong, Owen was dead.
John Salter (1798–1874), Hammersmith, London
Salter, the grandson of an English cheesemonger, ran a nursery in Versailles from 1838 until 1848. Salter was very clever and thought he would capitalize on the craze for the English garden on the Continent, but was obliged to return to England because of the Communist uprisings in Paris. He is known to have introduced more than seventy-five chrysanthemums, many of them prizewinners.
Once back in London, he set up the Versailles Nursery in Hammersmith, where his son Alfred worked with him. Salter named one of his more successful cultivars ‘Alfred Salter’. Another cultivar that lasted well, ‘Annie Salter’, was named for his daughter. His nursery survived until 1874. When Salter retired, he sold his stock of chrysanthemums to William Bull.
Descendants of John Salter are still very active in pointing out just how remarkable a man he was. (Colin Salter was most helpful in filling in some of the details.) Salter did not start out as a professional horticulturist, but learned everything he needed to know and produced his chrysanthemums in the space of about ten years. Sometime after that, he took up pansies, and once again did stellar work. (See chapter 7.) The Canadian amateur Henry Groff followed much the same path, starting with gladioli, and then, years later, taking up iris, and seems to have been a very similar sort of person, immensely quick and energetic. (See chapter 4.)
John Salter, carte de visite. Photographer unknown.
Reproduced by permission of the Royal Horticultural Society
George Stevens (d. 1902), Putney, London
Stevens introduced ‘Prefet Robert’, “a handsome Japanese incurved flower, deep crimson in color with silvery reverse.” He owned St. John’s Nurseries in Putney and served on the Floral Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society.
Charles Lennox Moore Teesdale (1816–1901)
Unlike some of the men mentioned earlier, Charles Teesdale was an amateur. He was born in Guernsey to a military family just one year after the battle of Waterloo but elected not to follow the family trade. He may have been given the name Moore in admiration of a popular general.
Teesdale chose to work for the Post Office in London, gradually rising in rank. (His career mirrored that of the much better known Anthony Trollope. As part of his duties for the Post Office, Trollope invented the iconic red pillar box to post letters safely.)
Subsequently Teesdale retired to Herne, a very select part of the small Sussex town of Worthing on the south coast. There he was a justice of the peace and a magistrate. The family could afford this pleasant place because his wife had some money. (Alert readers will remember that Ernest, in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, was found in a bag in the railway station at Worthing.)
Growing chrysanthemums was an avocation for Teesdale. He left more than sixteen new cultivars. His retirement to Herne coincided with the advent of many new greenhouses built to supply fresh fruit and vegetables to London and the other big towns. This development may have sparked his interest in flowers.
Veitch and Sons, Exeter and London
The Veitch family ran a distinguished nursery for four generations, starting in Exeter and then moving to London. They were known for very bold business moves, such as sending private collectors to many parts of the world, and offering some of the rarest and most remarkable plants on earth. In Exeter, Veitch employed John Dominy as a hybridizer. In 1861 he was the first person to introduce a hybrid orchid, an astonishing feat at the time. Introducing new chrysanthemums was part of their background activity for Veitch and Sons, not their main thrust, but as in everything else they did it very well. James Morton, the American author of a very useful book about the early chrysanthemum, wrote, “In 1881, Messrs. Veitch & Sons of London imported from Japan six new sorts, called Ben d’Or, Comte de Germiny, Duchess of Connaught, Thunberg, and others, all of which are well known.”
William Wells (1848–1916), Redhill, Surrey
Wells took over Goacher’s nursery at Merstham, Surrey. He published a book about the finer details of raising chrysanthemums in 1898. The book was clearly successful, for it went through several editions.
Channel Islands
The islands of Jersey and Guernsey lie closer to the French coast than the English, but are considered to be part of the United Kingdom as a result of ancient wars and battles between England and France. The islands’ prosperity stems in part from their proximity to the Gulf Stream. This provides the islands with a better climate for growing crops than much of the rest of Britain. Certain commercially important flowers blossom several weeks before those on the mainland, and the Channel Islands’ principal cash crop, tomatoes, ripens earlier too.
Daffodils, violets, and some bulbous plants have been associated with Jersey for a long time, but there has also been a small contingent of chrysanthemum raisers. Morton reported that M. Emile Lebois, an amateur in Paris, grew more than five hundred improved seedlings in 1836 but took advantage of the warmer climate in Jersey to “bulk up” a better crop first. He sold them to Chandlers of Vauxhall. Many of Lebois’s varieties remained in commerce for a long time. Lebois was Marc Bernet’s nephew by marriage (see below), and his primary nursery was in Ivry, near Paris.
Lebois was the most successful of the early breeders in Jersey during the 1840s, but he was not the first. A local baker whose name has not survived grew his plants against a wall behind his oven, protecting them from cold damage. Major Carey, a man named Clarke, James Davis, James Dawnton, Thomas Pethers, and Charles Smith, all from Guernsey, raised new varieties for a while, but then the interest died down. Some of these men are discussed below. Davis introduced ‘Prince Alfred’, ‘Prince of Wales’, and ‘Princess of Wales’. Dawnton introduced ‘Elaine’ and the ‘Fair Maid of Guernsey’. The latter were all in Guernsey. The first exhibition of chrysanthemums was held in the islands in 1865.
BREEDERS
Major Carey, Guernsey
Another amateur, a Major Carey, worked in the Channel Islands and introduced these cultivars: ‘Hackney Homes’, ‘Beaumont’, ‘Yokohama Orange’, ‘Victoria’ (1882), ‘The Czar’, (syn. ‘Peter the Great’), ‘The Khedive’, ‘Sir Isaac Brock’, ‘Sarnia Glory’, ‘Red Gauntlet’, and ‘Mrs. C. Carey’.
The cultivar ‘Lady Carey’ was possibly introduced by the nurseryman James Davis in Guernsey or by Norman Davis in Sussex. Major Carey’s first name is unclear. An English expert, Brian Young, told me he has narrowed down the possibilities to two men: Major de Vic Carey (1866–1904) or Major Charles Le Mesurier Carey, who died in 1905.
Thomas Pethers (b. 1821), Guernsey
Pethers worked in Guernsey and bred a lot of seedlings. John Salter bought plants from him and developed many fine varieties. Pethers introduced ‘Mrs. Pethers’, ‘Mrs. Huffington’, and ‘Sir Stafford Carey’, among others. (Sir Peter Stafford Carey [1803–1886] was the bailiff of Guernsey from 1845 to 1883.) Pethers traveled to South Africa for a time but did not resume breeding chrysanthemums when he returned.
Charles Smith (d. 1921), Guernsey
Charles Smith had the largest nursery in Guernsey in the nineteenth century: Charles Smith and Son, Caledonian Nurseries. He introduced several new camellias as well as the magnolia cultivar ‘Goliath’. He was also very active with chrysanthemums.
Nathan Smith and Son
Nathan Smith also had a nursery in the Channel Islands. He introduced the chrysanthemum cultivars ‘Mrs. E. Miles’ and ‘Mrs. Haliburton’, among many others. As far as is known, he was not related to Charles Smith on Guernsey.
FRANCE
One of the reasons the chrysanthemum did so well in France was the warmer climate, particularly in the southwest. After the auspicious start in Marseilles, a warm Mediterranean port, the nearby Toulouse became the center for chrysanthemum development. Growers had had similar experience with roses in the semitropical Midi, as the South of France is known. Gardeners in this region did not have to contend with the cold damp of the English autumn and winter.
In 1891, a statistically minded staff writer at Revue horticole had the happy idea of counting how many cultivars each of the English and French chrysanthemum breeders had introduced by that time. Simon Délaux of Toulouse led with 431 cultivars, then came Auguste de Reydellet, 229, and Louis Lacroix, 202. Fourth place was taken by the Englishman Smith, with 136. The author concluded by saying that in the aggregate the top three men had introduced more cultivars than all the Englishmen combined, so there!
James Morton wondered why there was no chrysanthemum society in France at the end of the nineteenth century. He asked Victor Lemoine about it and received the following reply, dated July 9, 1890:
We have no chrysanthemum society in France, but the numerous horticultural societies in our country are much interested in chrysanthemums, and nearly every one has a chrysanthemum show at the proper season. Pot-grown plants are generally exhibited; cut flowers in small quantities only. Here we do not grow the specimens for exhibition, as the practice is in England and America.
We do not care for the enormous flowers that English florists obtain, or huge plants with only a few blooms upon them. Here the plants are treated to give the largest number of blooms, and in the most natural way. New varieties of chrysanthemums are not very largely produced in France, except in the southern portions. Here in Nancy we have a severe climate, and it is nearly impossible to get seeds of the double varieties. Personally, we have sent out some good novelties, but the seed that yielded them was not our own. There is no country where there is so large a quantity of novelties raised annually as in France. For instance, this year, Simon Delaux, of Toulouse, offers 24 new varieties of his own production; M. de Reydellet, of Valence, 18 novelties; M. Louis Lacroix, [of Paris,] 25 varieties; M. Rozain Boucharlat, of Lyons, 14 novelties; M. Host, of Lyons, 7 novelties; M. Santel, of Salon, near Marseilles, 12 novelties; besides a number raised by Etienne Lacroix, M. Bernard, Pertuzes and Audriguier, of Toulouse, and others. Over two hundred novelties are annually produced in the south of France, principally of the Japanese and Chinese forms.
Charles Baltet (d. 1907), Troyes
Charles Baltet’s father had founded a very successful nursery in Troyes. A nurseryman and horticulturist, Charles fils wrote The Art of Grafting. He and his father introduced new cultivars of many flowers widely in circulation, among them chrysanthemums. His obituary appeared in Revue horticole in 1908 (p. 567).
Captain Marc Bernet (1775–1855), Toulouse
Captain Marc Bernet occupies a special place in this part of the story. He had been born in Toulouse and retired there after a career in the French Army. Bernet was the first European to collect chrysanthemum seed successfully. This gave him the idea of creating new varieties. In 1827, he introduced the handsome violet-colored ‘Grand Napoleon’.
Bernet handed over many of the daily tasks to his seventeen-year-old gardener, Dominique Pertuzès, and continued to introduce new varieties for many years. Eventually Pertuzès went into business for himself. Alas, he and his son François both later competed with Captain Bernet, as did many others in Toulouse.
At first, Bernet only had about thirty seeds, but in the later 1830s and the 1840s he could plant as many as three hundred seeds. He was ruthless in selecting strong and reliable seedlings from his crosses. The names of some of his early cultivars were recorded: ‘Rose Croix’, ‘Duc d’Albuféra’, ‘Annibal’, ‘Maréchal Maison’, ‘Reine Blanche’, ‘George Sand’ (a little daring for a provincial captain), ‘Baronne de Staël’, ‘Princesse Pauline’, and about twenty others.
Captain Marc Bernet.
Reproduced by permission of Chronica Horticulturae
Bernet became rather puffed up over his success but can be forgiven, as it was a triumphant achievement. He also had every reason to be annoyed by other people passing off his flowers as their own and selling them to make money. At first he had been very generous and shared his results with many horticulturists, but because there was no law of copyright at the time and no one even thought about patenting living things, there was no official way to safeguard his plants. He had to protect his ideas and work himself. One person he trusted was his niece’s husband, Emile Lebois, and only Emile was allowed to grow his new cultivars. Bernet sometimes wrote under the pseudonym “Dr. Clos.” He was also known as the Chevalier Bernet, for the decoration he received.
Emile Lebois later left Toulouse, moved to Paris, and started a new chrysanthemum business. He shared the bounty with three other upright men: Auguste Miellez in Lille, John Salter in Versailles, and Philippe Pelé in Paris. In 1854, Pelé introduced the first successful line of dwarf pompon chrysanthemums.
Captain Pierre-Louis Blancard.
Reproduced by permission of Chronica Horticulturae
Pierre-Louis Blancard (1741–1826), Marseilles
Captain Blancard came from an old Marseilles family. He was born and died in the city. Blancard went to sea very young with his father and despite a rather attenuated education became interested in commerce and geography. In 1813, he wrote a brief treatise, Manual on the Commerce of the Indies and China, which was published for the first time by the Geographical Society of Marseilles in 1910, almost a century later. After retirement he joined the Agricultural Council in Marseilles.
Once he obtained his captain’s certificate, the merchant family of Audibert employed him in their shipping line. His first trading voyage for the Audiberts was in 1770 to the Île-de-France (now Mauritius). The ship left from the port of Brest and returned there two years later. No one was surprised by 22 sailors dying of scurvy while they were at sea, although English sailors were already being protected by the use of lime juice.
On the fifth voyage, leaving Marseilles in 1787 and lasting almost three years, he sailed to the Île Bourbon in the Indian Ocean (now Réunion), Bombay (now Mumbai), the Maldives, Sumatra, and Singapore. His next move was to go to China. He found a pilot on the island of Wampoa who took the ship to Canton. Almost the first thing he did there was to buy half a dozen chrysanthemum plants.
The return journey took fifteen months, and only three of the plants survived. He acclimatized the survivors in his garden in Aubagne, Marseilles. One of them, which was tall and purple, became known afterward as ‘Old Purple’.
Blancard made a similar trip two years later, in 1791. The French Revolution had broken out while he was away on the fifth voyage, and perhaps he felt happier being at sea a little longer. For all its hazards, the sea was a bit more secure than the unpredictable events of the revolution.
Blancard’s voyages were documented in considerable detail, and the records are in the archives in Marseilles. Many years later, his granddaughters, who lived in England, were found to be in extreme penury. Charitable members of the National Chrysanthemum Society of England took up a collection to help alleviate their distress. The city of Marseilles named one of its main streets Promenade Blancard, and a small alleyway is also named for him in the city; his house has had a plaque on it since 1938.
François Bonamy et Frères, Toulouse
The Bonamy brothers were landscapers and nurserymen in the Place Dupuy, Toulouse. In about 1850 they developed the miniature anemone class of chrysanthemum: ‘Eucharis’, ‘Medee’, and ‘Thisbe’ are examples.
A. Bonnefous, Moissac
Monsieur Bonnefous was a gardener at the Jardin de Landerose in Moissac. About fifty cultivars of chrysanthemum are attributed to him.
Laurent Boucharlat (1806–1893), Lyon
Boucharlat founded his business in 1833 and showed his mettle by winning a medal at the Lyon Flower Exposition in 1838, though it is not clear which flower he submitted. He experimented with miniature chrysanthemums and introduced several of the pompon variety. ‘Mme Custex Desgranges’, a very important early (“hâtive”) white, appeared in 1873. It was the basis of future “corbeilles automnales.” In addition to chrysanthemums, Boucharlat was noted for his pelargoniums and petunias.
Had the Franco-Prussian War not turned France upside down after 1870, Boucharlat would have been awarded the Legion of Honor, but this did not happen. There is no question of his importance in the French horticultural community. They mourned his death very sincerely.
Laurent’s younger brother was Jean Marie Boucharlat (1818–1903). He too worked in Lyon.
Ernest Calvat (1858–1910), Grenoble
The Calvat family was prominent in Grenoble. M. Calvat’s father, also Ernest Calvat, served as mayor from 1871 to 1873. The future chrysanthéemiste was born in 1858 and christened Jean Marie Ernest but was always known solely as Ernest. Calvat was definitely an amateur. He owned a successful glove factory, which allowed him to live well and devote himself to his flowers. Chrysanthemums were his principal interest. At one time he was president of the Horticultural Society of the Dauphinée, indicating his position in the horticultural hierarchy of his time. Calvat introduced dozens of significant new cultivars. His accomplishments were recorded in an obituary in Revue horticole.
Alfred Chantrier, Bayonne
Chantrier was gardener to a Monsieur Bocher and was active between 1885 and 1896. He ultimately introduced forty-five new cultivars, of which ‘Duchesse d’Orléans’ and ‘Candeur des Pyrenées’ were notable.
Anatole Cordonnier (1842–1920), Bailleul
Cordonnier wrote a short book and several articles in Revue horticole. He was extremely enthusiastic about chrysanthemums with very large blossoms. From the record, he seems to have bred only ten new cultivars, but his fascination with these flowers suggests that he may have bred others of which no records have been retained.
Simon Délaux (1840–1902), Toulouse
Délaux lived and worked in St. Martin de la Touche, near Toulouse. He was a major figure in the early chrysanthemum world and used intentional cross-fertilization most effectively. He introduced more new cultivars than anyone else. The great English horticultural writer William Robinson wrote Délaux’s obituary for The Garden in the most glowing terms. Robinson lamented the fact that though they had a very valuable correspondence for many years, he had never met Délaux in person.
He noted that Délaux’s work was held in very high esteem among English gardeners, as Calvat’s was to do later. Délaux’s work on the Japanese imports was of especial interest. Among his best-known cultivars were ‘Mme Berthier Rendatler’, ‘M Astory’, and ‘Japonais’. Délaux also worked with the early flowering types, which found many enthusiastic growers in England. There are numerous references to his new cultivars in the gardening magazines of the 1890s, listing extraordinarily good flowers. The fluffy incurved ‘Comte F. Lurani’, which blooms in October, received particular attention. It stood the test of being grown for several years, performing just as well three years after its introduction.
Monsieur Hoste (1820 [1823?]–1894), Monplaisir
No first name has come down to us. Hoste was born in Gand (also known as Ghent), Belgium, and moved to France. He established his nursery in rue de Dahlia in Monplaisir, naming the street himself. Hoste was among the earliest to cultivate chrysanthemums in France, and his work served to introduce the flower to the greater public. He seems to have retired and handed over his business to André Charmet, a fellow Belgian. Some of his cultivars are ‘Ami Jules Chrétien’ (c. 1890) and ‘Catros Gerarde’ (c. 1895).
Etienne Lacroix
Etienne Lacroix was a professional nurseryman whose most popular cultivars were ‘Parasol’, ‘Mlle. Lacroix’, ‘Flocon de Neige’, ‘Jeanne d’Arc’, and ‘Fabias de Mediana’.
Dr. Louis Lacroix, rue Lancefoc, Toulouse
Louis Lacroix was an amateur, making his living from a fireworks business. One of his chrysanthemum cultivars was ‘Viviand Morel’. He was said to have nine hundred varieties of plants in his garden, but these could not all have been chrysanthemums.
Emile Lebois, Livry, near Paris
Lebois worked in Livry, near Paris. As mentioned earlier, he was married to Captain Bernet’s niece. After his death, his widow maintained his work. At her request, a small committee from the horticultural society of Haute-Garonne in Toulouse visited her in 1873 to appraise how well she was carrying on her late husband’s business. They were impressed by her work in developing seven new cultivars.
One of the committee members was a Monsieur Pertuzès, the son of the young Pertuzès who had worked for Captain Bernet. The committee recommended Madame Lebois for an honorable mention in the annals of the society, noting that she burnished the firm’s reputation in a most worthy manner. Reporting on other visits, Pertuzès and his colleague Monsieur Marrouch complained about the confusion in chrysanthemum nomenclature that existed and suggested methods to combat this.
Louis-Jules Lemaire (1859–1925), 26 rue Friant, Paris
Louis-Jules Lemaire was Philippe Pelé’s grandson (see below). The last professional nurseryman to grow his own plants in Paris, Lemaire was known to be a master hybridizer. His two sons Louis and Paul worked in Bagneux but later moved to Saint Jean-de-Braye, near Orléans, in 1949. His granddaughter Paulette Lemaire collected as much information about her family and its work as she could, and she developed the Conservatoire National du Chrysanthème in Saint Jean-de-Braye to commemorate them all.
Victor Lemoine, rue du Montet 134, Nancy
Surprisingly little has been written about this most amazing of all the heroic hybridizers of the nineteenth century. Without his work, it is likely that garden centers as we know them might never have developed or would have come much later. An enormous proportion of the standard annuals, perennials, and flowering shrubs in commerce came from his nursery. If there is one plant with which his name is forever associated it is lilac, Syringa. Lemoine did not pay a great deal of attention to the chrysanthemum, but nevertheless introduced a respectable number of very good new cultivars.
Auguste Miellez, Esquermes les Lilles
Miellez was important because he worked quietly with plant crossing in the early 1830s while it still was considered to be a suspect activity and somewhat impious. Lemoine knew about him as a very young man and spent several months in his nursery learning the techniques. Miellez is perhaps best known for his roses.
Auguste Nonin (1856–1956), route de Paris, Châtillon-sur-Bagneux
Auguste Nonin inherited his father’s nursery in Châtillon at the early age of fifteen. His father, Emile Nonin, was killed in his own garden by a sentry during the Franco-Prussian War. His mother then ran the business and continued to rear her five children alone. Once Auguste married in 1880, he took over from her and started on his remarkable career as a developer of new plants.
Nonin was very observant and understood the conditions in which he had to work, the markets, and the world of competitions. As a young man he traveled widely, particularly to England, where his work on chrysanthemums was greatly appreciated. He won a Certificate of Merit at the London exhibition in 1905 for ‘Perle Chatillonnaise’, a large creamy-white blossom tinged with pink. ‘Coquette de Chatillon’, ‘Chatillon’, ‘Sarah Bernhardt’, ‘Président Truffaut’, ‘Président Loubert’, ‘Raymond Poincaré’, and ‘William Turner’ were among his most successful introductions. He was also decorated by the French government and served on many juries at flower shows. This record of success led to him being elected a vice president of the Société Nationale d’Horticulture Français.
In spite of all these achievements with chrysanthemums, Nonin is remembered today as a distinguished rosarian. He always refused to be pigeonholed as a specialist, but not unlike Victor Lemoine worked with a broad variety of flowers. The Nonin catalogues indicate this breadth of interest.
In 1912, he offered the very large-flowered chrysanthemums bred by Ernest Calvat of Grenoble. In 1913, his catalogue contained more than twenty chrysanthemum cultivars, of which eight were new and came into flower very early in the season, “très précoces.” In that same catalogue, he listed pansies, dahlias, geraniums, fuchsias, cannas, begonias, and new roses, many of which he had bred himself. Another series, perhaps in 1914, listed early-flowering dwarf chrysanthemums.
Nonin’s son Henri inherited the nursery in his turn, and continued to improve it until 1945. Henri was also a fine rosarian. The business finally closed in 1960, most probably for the same reasons the Lemoine nursery closed in Nancy at the same time. They had survived two punishing world wars but could not compete in the postwar environment. Too many external forces were making it more and more difficult to sustain a nursery in France. The Netherlands and Belgium began exporting the same flowers grown in France far earlier in the season. They forced them into bloom in huge greenhouses.
André-Philippe Pelé, Paris
Another early enthusiast was the Paris nurseryman André-Philippe Pelé. He raised his seeds in the south and was extremely thoughtful about which ones he selected for further study. Pierre Coindre of Avignon had bred the first early-blooming chrysanthemum in 1850. In 1855, Pelé exhibited his own series at the Société Nationale d’Horticulture show.
Dominique Pertuzès, rue des Chalets, Toulouse
Pertuzès started out as Bernet’s gardener at the age of seventeen but later began his own business. Pertuzès stole Bernet’s work and competed with him rather unscrupulously.
Alexandre de Reydellet, Valence
De Reydellet was the stationmaster at Bourg-les-Valence, Drôme, and chrysanthemums were his hobby. Some biographical information is available on de Reydellet (in Lyon horticole [1905] and Annuaire de la Société Nationale d’Horticulture de France [1899]), though where and when he was born remain a mystery. According to the Revue horticole (1905),
Alexandre de Reydellet died in October 1905. He was an amateur horticulturist in Bourg-les-Valence (Drôme). De Reydellet was a member of the Association Horticole Lyonnaise since 1891, and member of the SNHF since 1886. He was one of the founders of the Société Française des Chrysanthémistes. He was one of the first to sow chrysanthemums at a time when few seem to have observed that chrysanthemums gave seeds. He began about 1875 or 1877. He gave his first cultivars to Boucharlat the elder (Lyon) in 1882. Then he started to sell them himself. He received a lot of awards. The first medal of honour of the Société Française des Chrysanthémistes was for him. He was made Chevalier du Mérite Agricole.
One of de Reydellet’s earliest cultivars was ‘La Triomphante’ in 1877.
Joseph Rozain-Boucharlat (1849–1917), Lyon
Joseph was Laurent Boucharlat’s nephew. He had a very distinguished career, including founding and becoming president of the Société Française des Chrysanthémistes (an organization based on the English society) as well as vice president and councilor of the Société d’Horticulture Pratique du Rhône. He had studied in England and, amazingly for a Frenchman, admired English ways. Rozain-Boucharlat also worked with fuchsias, dahlias, and pelargoniums. His son Benoit (1886–1943) worked at Cuire-lès-Lyon.
Vilmorin-Andrieux, Paris
The seed house Vilmorin-Andrieux has been at the same address in Paris for more than two hundred years. It might be said to have become legendary. Philippe-Victoire Vilmorin (1746–1804), a physician with a keen interest in plants, founded the firm in 1775 after marrying the daughter of Pierre Andrieux, a seedsman and botanist in the quai de la Mégisserie. Andrieux’s wife, Claude Geoffroy, was the expert. Together they became the suppliers of seed to Louis XV, a huge advantage in those days. What happened at court set the standard for everyone else. The firm prospered for six generations, but about thirty-five years ago it was sold to a large conglomerate and is now part of Groupe Limagrain.
At the outset, Vilmorin-Andrieux concentrated on agricultural seed. Pierre-Victoire’s sons and grandsons developed important strains of sugar beets and carrots. These were very sensible if somewhat unglamorous business decisions and allowed Philippe-André (1776–1862) to move his family into an elegant chateau at Verrières, a former hunting lodge of Louis XIV, in 1815. They and their descendants transformed the park, designed by Le Nôtre, into an outstanding arboretum. It is just possible that this move may have been eased by the flight of its former aristocratic owners during the revolution. Vilmorin must have played his cards very cleverly to avoid being executed, in light of his association with the royal house.
Louis Vilmorin (1816–1860) did his work on the sugar beet at Verrières. His son Henry, an authority on the genetics of wheat, understood plant genetics very early and contributed to the advance of that science. The Vilmorins also maintained a key collection of potatoes. The company added ornamental plants very early and became known for its roses, introducing new varieties for many years. One or another of the Vilmorin brothers was always in demand as a judge or a speaker at floral society events. They also won prizes at chrysanthemum shows.
In the twentieth century, the sons continued to manage the firm, but Louise, the only girl, rebelled, becoming an avant-garde poet and novelist. She married and moved to the United States. In the complex shifts among large commercial horticultural enterprises over two hundred years, Vilmorin-Andrieux is one of the few companies that remained in business into the recent past. Its founders would not recognize it now, but adapting to change and moving forward are both qualities of successful firms.
MINOR FIGURES, FRANCE
Dr. Audiguier
Dr. Audiguier bred ‘Soleil Levant’, a rather memorable cultivar.
Monsieur Bernard, Toulouse
M. Bernard is another of those enigmatic breeders who left no other trace besides his cultivar ‘Gloria Rayonnante’.
André Charmet (1823–1897), Lyon
Charmet was born in Ghent, Belgium. He took over Hoste’s lucrative business in Lyon and continued to breed chrysanthemums.
Pierre Crozy l’ainé (1831–1903), Lyon
Pierre started a nursery at 206 Grande-rue de la Guillotiere, Lyon. His son Michel Crozy (1868–1906) took over his father’s nursery at his death when Pierre died. The late Thomas Brown, who reconstructed authentic historical landscapes, using only plants available during the relevant epoch, listed the dates of this establishment as 1870 to 1908.
Jean Heraud, Pont d’Avignon
Heraud was head gardener at the Villa Brimborion, Pont d’Avignon, in Provence. Only the name has endured, but he left a legacy of new chrysanthemums.
Marquis de Pins, Montbrun near Toulouse, Gers
The marquis owned a chateau at Montbrun near Toulouse, Gers, and devoted himself to breeding new chrysanthemums. The name de Pins appeared quite frequently in the horticultural literature of the day.
UNITED STATES
The chrysanthemum appeared very quickly in the United States after its arrival in Europe. Many other flowers had a similar trajectory. The first known hybrid chrysanthemum cultivar in the United States, ‘William Penn’, was exhibited by Robert Kilvington of Philadelphia at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 1841. At that stage, all chrysanthemums were still grown outdoors, and both professional and amateur breeders worked with garden chrysanthemums. After about 1850, their culture was transferred to greenhouses. Amateur breeders took up the greenhouse flower very soon after this transition.
Some of the most notable were Charles Totty of Madison, New Jersey; Eugene H. Mitchell of the Dreer Company in Philadelphia; and Elmer Smith of Adrian, Michigan. Smith began his work at the end of the nineteenth century and by 1923 had introduced 445 cultivars.
Charles Mason Hovey wrote in his 1846 Massachusetts horticultural magazine that “few plants afford more gratification than a good collection of chrysanthemums.” Soon after, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society held a show in 1846 promoting it as “the coming flower.” Within the next twenty years, the flower consolidated its hold on gardeners’ imaginations. By about 1865, chrysanthemum shows were springing up in many towns and growers competed for prizes and medals just as in the old country. The venerable Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Horticultural Societies were in the forefront of this movement.
As this ferment continued, the introduction of the exquisite white Japanese variety, ‘Mrs. Alpheus Hardy’, took the Western world by storm. A Japanese student at Harvard wanted to please his mentor, Professor Hardy, and arranged for a specimen of this flower to be sent to the professor in 1891, naming it after the teacher’s wife. It was a precursor of the “spider” type, with exquisitely curved and fluffy petals.
As Morton observed in his 1891 book,
The chrysanthemum has been exhibited at the shows of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Boston since 1830. The list of varieties exhibited at that time was as follows: ‘Quilled Flame’, ‘Curled Lilac’, ‘Tasseled White’, ‘Golden Lotus’, ‘Large Lilac’, ‘Changeable Buff’, ‘Paper White’, ‘Crimson’, ‘Pink’, ‘Lilac’, ‘White’, ‘Semi-quilled White’, ‘Parks’, ‘Small Yellow’, ‘Golden Yellow’, ‘Quilled Lilac’, and ‘Quilled White’, these being exhibited by Robt. L. Emmons of Boston, then recording Secretary of the Society, and Nathaniel Davenport. The plants were spoken of as grown in the open ground and evidence is given that that the number of varieties at this period was very small. They were exhibited on the 20th of November, and reported in the New England Farmer of November 26th, 1830.
‘Mrs. Alpheus Hardy’ chrysanthemum
From Garden and Forest, February 29, 1888
MAJOR FIGURES
John Lewis Childs (1856–1921)
