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Fritillaria imperialis 'Rubra'
In a typical year, the highlight of yesterday's discussions among staff members would have been news of the first magnolia blossom of the year. That always happy-event was overshadowed by a different topic: the theft of a crown imperial, Fritillaria imperialis. From what I've been able to determine, it was the last remaining individual of this species in the garden. It is even more discouraging to note that this theft will likely have killed the plant, as it was only a few weeks from flowering (one of the worst times to attempt a transplant; in general, fritillarias do not like to be moved at the best of times). It is always very upsetting when plants are stolen from the garden, and, unfortunately, it happens several times a year. This is the second plant theft so far in 2007. Someone earlier in the year decided to help themselves to a small apple tree that Tony Maniezzo was growing with the intent of being a replacement for one of the espaliers – in fact, I believe it was planted right beside the pole in this photograph. There are three things that really disgust me about these thefts: the privatization of a public shared good, the potential impact on research projects in the garden and the loss of public investment. You'll have to excuse my language as I'm not fluent in the words to best express some of these concepts, but I'll explain as best I can. By the privatization of a public shared good, I mean the act of taking something that conceptually belongs to everyone to experience, to enjoy and to learn from and transforming it into a personal possession for the satisfaction of one person alone. I am reminded of the same sort of selfish disregard for others when reading stories about the theft of rocks in the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley. I am not sure what goes on in the mind of the thieves. Is it "I deserve this."? "They won't miss it."? "I can take better care of it."? "If I don't take it, someone else will."? One small consolation is that this plant was not being used in any research projects. As I am sure you can imagine, thefts from research collections can potentially set back years of study. You might argue that if a plant was so important to a research project it wouldn't be left out in the open or multiple plantings would exist, but that's not the reality of gardening – a particular species might be extremely difficult to propagate, might be difficult to source, might be extremely fussy in where it grows and the mandatory conditions can't be replicated elsewhere, and on and on. I would hate for a graduate student's thesis to have to be redone because of a plant theft. The garden has also recently started the process of determining the investment mandatory to grow and maintain a plant in its collection. Considering this crown imperial had been in the garden for ten years, I could provide a rough figure on how much the garden has invested, and that number would likely be surprisingly high to you. If you were trying to determine the investment, you'd have to keep in mind that the garden invests money and time into acquiring the material, growing it to a suitable size before it is ready for the garden, tracking the information on what it is and where it is located in the garden, creating tracking labels and display labels, maintaining the bed and nearby pathways for access, mulching, weeding, ensuring the accuracy of recordkeeping and so on. Its loss is not trivial. Today's photographs are not of the plant that was stolen, but rather a horticultural selection of the same species, the cultivar 'Rubra'. These images were taken by a former employee of the garden, Justin Moore, in 2002. These plants were in the same bed as the stolen Fritillaria imperialis, but died out a couple years ago (related species and cultivars will sometimes be grown together for the ease of comparison). Some of what I described regarding theft similarly applies to plants that die (especially investment costs). The difference? Plant death is far easier to accept as it is inevitable. Scott Appell has written about this group of plants for Brooklyn Botanic Garden in his article, “Fritillarias – Spring Blooming Bulbs of Legends and Lore”, if you'd like to learn more. |
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