Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Reimagining the Cemetery as Museum | Page 5

Historical records are also important, as the Cemetery
has a long tradition of horticultural record-keeping upon
which to draw. One of our founders, Dr.
Jacob Bigelow, was a skilled botanist who
published the Florula Bostonienses: A Collection
of Plants of Boston and Its Environs in 1814.
For the upcoming landscape renovation in
the historic core of Mount Auburn near
Bigelow’s grave, we were able to look back at
the Florula to identify plants that were special
to Dr. Bigelow and incorporate them into the
new planting design.
Historical documentation furnishes stories
and associated data that breathe life into our
“living collection.” In 1896, we learn, Mount
Auburn placed a rather radical plant order
with Tokio [sic] Nursery in Japan (see catalog
image to the right). Superintendent James C.
Scorgie spent hundreds of dollars on plants
from halfway around the world, ordering
lilies, magnolias, Japanese umbrella pines, iris,
peonies, and, of course, Japanese maples. His
correspondence reveals anxious awareness
of the risk involved. Would the plants ship
through the Suez Canal or across the Pacific?
Would Boston Customs officers allow the
plants into the United States? Would the
plants all be dead on arrival? Fortunately,
most survived, but they left us with curatorial
puzzles due to changes in botanical nomenclature, the vagaries of Japanese translation,
and non-scientific record-keeping. For
example, are the 1896 maples named Acer
palmatum ‘Hikasoya’ the same as the modern
A. palmatum ‘Higasyama’? For this and other
quandaries, further research is needed.
The Hurricane of 1938 provided both a
challenge and an opportunity for curation.
The storm destroyed 811 trees at the Cemetery
with an additional 777 suffering substantial
damage. But we have very good records
concerning the replacement trees and shrubs,
including sizes of plants, the nurseries ^B