COLUMN: "Lean Greene Clean Machine"

From Elizabeth Hunt's "One Man's Meat," Spring '92 It's a description that has, in every respect but one, outlived its accuracy. The city's not exactly wholesome, and it's sure been burnt more than once. If you define "country" as the part of Pennsylvania where more bears are shot than people, then Philadelphia is decidedly not country: none of the 1700 bears shot in Pennsylvania last year resided in the city, whereas Philadelphia lost 361 of its human residents to gunshot wounds in the same period. But "greene" Philadelphia certainly is. The city is lush with trees and plants, a fact that continues to amaze visitors and newcomers. You can actually find walnuts on Walnut Street, pines on Pine, and graceful gingkos everywhere. Three seasons of the year flowers bloom in private and public gardens all over Philadelphia. The city owes some of its pleasant reputation as the nation's greenest big city to the University's Morris Arboretum, a living collection of plants used for research and display. The Arboretum sits on 166 acres in Chestnut Hill, and, as its name suggests, is a sanctuary for trees and other woody plants. Over 6,200 of them are labeled for visitors who have always wanted to know the difference between sugar and silver maples. The Arboretum's outreach mission also includes providing beautiful flower gardens for people to enjoy: right now more than 8,000 bulbs await spring, while an award-winning rose garden gathers strength for its summmer show. Ornamental grasses and a woodland garden also delight visitors. For those of you getting desperate for signs of spring, wait no longer: snowdrops and Chinese witch hazel are blooming this week on the Arboretum's grounds. The Arboretum contributes to the greening of Philadelphia in several other ways, too, however. It runs a plant clinic which took over 900 calls last year from people with questions on plant identification and requests for remedies for ailing plants. The staff, who include both botanists and horticulturalists, provide advice and information to amateur and professional gardeners, offering classes that range from wetlands ecology to integrated pest managment. The Arboretum provides consulting services for urban landscapers, including those who designed Penn's Blanche Levy Park, better known as College Green. Arboretum staff designed the International Garden of Franklintown, at 16th and Vine, which Arboretum director Paul Meyer describes as "a green presence in center-city Philadelphia." Arboretum horticulturalists continue to maintain the International Garden, and use it to train their staff and interns in urban gardening. Two classes at the University this semester are taught by Arboretum staff: Field Botany in the Department of Biology, and Urban Horticulture in the Graduate School of Fine Arts. Dr. Ann Rhoads, the Arboretum's director of botany programs, teaches Field Botany. Her fifteen upperclass students spend Wednesdays from noon until five studying plants in their environments. They learn plant taxonomy, the identification and classification of plants by their evolutionary relationship to each other. Rhoads notes that the study of botany is becoming increasingly popular as students seek majors that will prepare them for jobs that help the environment. "The loss of biodiversity has created a great need for people with taxonomic skills," said Rhoads. "There are tremendous numbers of plants in the tropical flora that have not been described and that are disappearing." The Arboretum is also a center for plant research, and topics range from the susceptibilty of hemlocks to wooly adelgid to the improved propagation of plants with medicinal properties. Arboretum director Paul Meyer researches biodiversity in landscape environments, just the kind of work that keeps Philadelphia green. Plants can improve city air only if they can stand it themselves, and urban life is getting harder, even for them. "We try to create environments in which plants don't just survive, but actually thrive," said Meyer. "Well-adapted plants can ameliorate some of the stresses of the urban environment." Rhoads's botany research centers on the development of a computer catalog of the plants of Pennsylvania, a project that will result in a checklist, atlas and field guide of the state's flora. The Flora of Pennsylvania project underscores yet another of the Arboretum's roles: it is the official arboretum of the Commonwealth, a distinction which Governor Robert Casey seems to have forgotten last week when he proposed cutting Morris Arboretum's entire state allocation. If the cuts remain, their effects will be "absolutely devastating," according to Meyer. "We're already operating as a very lean organization," he said. Make that lean and green. Do yourself a favor: visit Morris Arboretum. You can get there on the Chestnut Hill regional rail lines, the L bus, or the 23 trolley. You'll get to see see spring, weeks before its arrival downtown. And you'll get to see how much plants contribute to the quality of human lives. Then, do the city a favor: call Governor Casey's office and tell him you strongly oppose the cuts to Morris Arboretum. Tell Governor Casey that in case he hasn't heard, the world can't afford to lose any more plants, and neither can Philadelphia. Let him know Philadelphia needs an arboretum. Without it, even William Penn wouldn't recognize the city he founded. Elizabeth Hunt is a doctoral candidate in History and Sociology of Science from Bloomington, Indiana. "One Man's Meat" appears alternate Thursdays.