Saturday, July 01, 2006
The Battle of Gettysburg, invasive species, and art history
Greenman Tim spots a flaw in a famous painting of Gettysburg. He weaves together the history of that momentous battle, the study of invasive species (a favorite topic of my family, which includes several experts on the subject), and art history, all in one very bloggy post.
2 Comments:
By 
Sissy Willis, at
Sun Jul 02, 08:42:00 AM:
What a fabulous blog! I did find one nit to pick and left it over in Mr. Abbott's comments. FYI, here's what I wrote:
Wonderful post, but here's a question for you. According to the plantsman's bible, Michael A. Dirr's Manual of Landscape Woody Plants, Berberis vulgaris was introduced -- from Korea -- into the US in 1905.
It's hard to tell from the above image, but could the plant in the painting be our own native Berberis canadensis, American Barberry?
By GreenmanTim, at
Sun Jul 02, 11:03:00 AM:
I am humbled by the heavy traffic and attention that this link has provided to my site, TH, and also commend Sissy Willis for the astute questions asked. I have responded at Walking the Berkshires, but in brief:
The auhority I used for the introduction of Japanese barberry in the United states is the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England http://invasives.uconn.edu/ipane/
but I admit to some inside baseball here as I served on the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group with both researchers from the Arnold and from IPANE and heard it directly from the horses' mouths as well.
Berberis canadensis or Allegheny barberry might well have occurred at Gettysburg in 1863 - its historic continguous range reached its extreme northern extent in south central PA, but it is today considered endangered and has been completely extirpated in both PA and MD. Unless I underestimate the estimable Mr. Troiani's historic knowledge of the flora of PA, it is highly improbably that he painted a native plant that is today absent from the site when there was so much Japanese barberry close at hand.
