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A greenhouse's roots Erica Howe's well-written article, "A Leafy Library," in the winter 1999 issue of UC Davis Magazine brought to mind for me a number of very pleasant thoughts of some times gone by. I was still a graduate student in botany when in 1959 Professor Vernon Cheadle, then the department chairman (ultimately he became chancellor at UC Santa Barbara), called me into his office to inform me about a job opening. It was for a newly created laboratory technician position working in the greenhouses for the department. I accepted the position and was assigned to work under Harold Drever, the person in charge of all of the department's greenhouses and other plantings. Soon enough, Harold took me over to a brand new 35 x 100-foot nearly empty greenhouse and gave me the assignment to fill it with a diversity of plants. Discussions with Professors Crafts, Tucker and Gifford and others provided me with some guidelines. It was with Harold's coaxing and excellent horticulture training along with the input of the department's staff that a collection was commenced. Because I knew little of what it took to begin such a collection, I spent some time at the University of California Botanic Garden in Berkeley, situated up Strawberry Canyon. There, the person in charge of the greenhouse collections was Myron Kimnach. It was he who provided me with many notions of what a greenhouse collection could contain. My training had been in ecology, genetics and plant taxonomy, so I already had a reasonable understanding of the varying kinds of climates--tropical rain forest, desert, temperate, alpine. Having some understanding of the nature of the world distribution of plants, I was able to guess whether or not any particular plant might be successfully grown in Davis. With four separate compartments in that greenhouse, with certain modifications, Harold and I were able to provide sufficiently modified environments to grow a greater array of plants. I learned of developing seed exchange programs with many of the botanic gardens of the world. Through this and other sources it was possible to expand the collection with interesting plants. Keeping track of the collection was another task, commencing with simple notes and expanding to a more detailed listing, or accession record, showing dates, sources, collectors, etc., for each plant that was ever received. My tenure at the botany greenhouses ended in 1963 when I took over a position at the University Arboretum. My successor, Bejan Dehgan, continued the work that I and others had started, and upon his departure for a teaching position in Florida, Tim Metcalf became the curator. Tim's work has truly placed the conservatory on the map as one of the better collections of its kind in the UC system. Roman Gankin, M.A. '57 |
