In search of monkey puzzles

A. araucana, Spanaway, WA.

It's National Tree Week and earlier in the week I posted something on Araucaria araucana, the Monkey Puzzle Tree and asked for readers to let me know of any interesting examples in their area.

The thing about the Monkey Puzzle is that it is so unique and unmistakable for any other tree species that it tends to stick out in peoples' mind where they see one. As one writer put it: because of their uniqueness, they seem more common than they actually are.

They are also enough of a botanical curiosity that they are often an indication of some historic botanical connection that can be unearthed. They make for some good stories!

Melanie Brisbane was in touch from Spanaway in Washington State in the US to send a photo of her A. araucana covered in snow. The tree is quite cold-tolerant, although the roots can be damaged by severe and extended cold snaps.

Mary Higgins from Waterford mentioned the Monkey Puzzle at Doneraile Park in North Cork. The gardens at Doneraile Court and the plant collecting activities of Mary St. Leger are worthy of a post of their own. The tree is apparently still there but I don't have an image to hand. A trip North is on the cards, I think!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 12/03/2012: Having travelled to Doneraile this weekend in search of A. araucana, I can safely say that if there was one in the park, it's gone now! More details in due course.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
TriploidTree commented on the specimen tree located at Tramore Road in Cork City (between Musgraves and CMP). CMP is gone from that location but at least one Monkey Puzzle is still present on the site.

Monkey Puzzle at Tramore Road, Cork

The size of the tree indicates that it has been located on the site for much longer than the current occupiers. A quick check of some old maps confirms the site was a plant nursery in the middle of the 19th Century and the tree was positioned at the entrance to the establishment. Surely a great way to impress prospective customers, by exhibiting one of the botanical curiosities of the age at the front gate.

c.1840 map of the Tramore Road Nursery site showing approximate position of the Monkey Puzzle tree (red dot)

OpenPlaques brought my attention to a tree at the bottom of Malone Road in Belfast which must surely be associated with the nearby Botanical Gardens? A quick search hasn't shown up anything there at the moment. Can any Belfast readers shed some light on the matter?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 12/03/2012: Prof. John Pilcher from Queens University, Belfast contacted me recently to tell me that, as far as he knew, there was no Monkey Puzzle in the Gardens now. "Some of the old Belfast postcards seem to show one near the Malone road gate (near the Kelvin statue)" says John. "There are some specimens of [the related species] Araucaria heterophylla, one in the Tropical ravine and I think two in the Palm House".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, one other specimen of note is the fine example to be found at what is now Mahon Point in Cork City. This tree is all that remains of the once impressive Lakelands Demesne built by none other than William Crawford. As we've already learned, he was a keen plantsman and developed spectacular gardens on the site now occupied by suburban housing, a shopping centre and a dual carriageway. Sic transit gloria mundi.

I'll write more on Lakelands and Crawford's botanical exploits at a later date, but for National Tree Week it's good to know that this unique tree can act as a reminder of Crawford's Lakeland gardens.

A. araucana at Mahon Point, Cork

Science in Stone

Hidden away in the courtyard of a building close to Cork's Saint Finbarre's Cathedral is a unique reminder of Cork's scientific heritage crafted by one of Ireland's greatest craftsmen.

The piece is made up of 3 individual limestones panels each measuring 74 x 94 cm. Arranged one above the other, with a chiselled limestone surround the panels are unmistakeably the work of the Cork stonecarver Seamus Murphy.

Born near Mallow, Co. Cork in 1907, Murphy went on to become an award winning sculptor and stone carver, crafting some of Ireland's most important public art - including the O'Donovan Rossa plaque and Countess Markievicz bust at St. Stephan's Green, Dublin; the bust of Michael Collins at Fitzgerald Park, Cork.

From top to bottom, the Crawford panels are:
CEIMHIOCHT A FISIC, bearing the symbols of chemistry and physics.
INNEALTÓIREACHT, bearing the symbols of engineering.
FOIRGNÍOCHT, bearing the symbols of building and construction.

The work is located at the Crawford College of Art and Design on Sharman Crawford Street, Cork and is a reminder of the former use of the building - as the Crawford Technical School (built as the then Cork Municipal Technical Institute in 1909).

The institute was built on a site donated by Mr. AF Sharman Crawford (whose grandfather was William Crawford of Lakelands who had already proven himself a great benefactor of science and art on Cork), Chairman of the Cork Technical Instruction Committee and a managing director of Beamish and Crawford, brewers.

The old Arnotts brewery that previously occupied the site was partially demolished and a new building of Little Island limestone, brick from Ballinphelic, Co. Cork, Galway granite, as well as marble from Connemara, Cork, Mitchelstown and Beaumont Quarry in Ballintemple was erected.

From November 1911, the Institute taught electrical and mechanical engineering, building construction, typography, painting and decorating, chemistry, domestic science, carpentry, plumbing, botany, tailors’ cutting, cooking, laundry, shirtmaking, dressmaking, millinery and needlework.

Seamus Murphy's stonework was installed in  1967 and now serves as a permanant link between the Crawford Technical School and the Crawford College of Art and as a tribute to the philantrophic activities of several generations of the Crawford family in art and science.

Unfortunately, while the artwork has survived well, despite being exposed to the elements for over 40 years it is now almost obscured from view by an unsympathetically positioned metal smoking  shelter. Surely such a fine piece of craftsmanship should be worthy of a little bit more respect?

As we begin Science Week 2011, the theme of which is 'Chemistry of Life' we could do worse than reflect of Murphy's interpretation of the science in stone.

WH Crawford: Patron of Art and Science

In scientia veritas, in arte honestas.
In science truth, in art honour.

The gates at the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork give an nice indication of the connected history of art and science in Cork and elsewhere.

The collection the gallery contains began to be formed in 1819 and the former Custom House of Cork became home to the collection in 1825 when the Royal Cork Institution took control of the building. The RCI was a forerunner of University College Cork. The building was extended in 1884 (when these gates were erected) and again in 2000.

William Horatio Crawford (1812-1888) was a great benefactor of the construction of the gallery extension in the 19th Century. Crawford's father had founded the Beamish and Crawford Brewery in Cork, now no longer a working brewery.

William Crawford of Lakelands (Crawford Gallery Collection)

The family home was at Lakelands near Blackrock- a site now largely occupied by the Mahon Point Shopping Centre.

Crawford was an eminent gardener and horticulturalist, collecting and growing plants at Lakelands from around the world. He had at Lakelands a 'perfect arboreatum...richly planted...with rare shrubs and trees'.

In 1810, West described Lakeland as " one of the most neat and handsome (house and estate) that opulence could desire. The plan, elevation and everything about it, forms a complete picture, being build upon a rising ground, commands a most extensive view at every point, and exquisite rows of beech interspersed with a variety of ever green, descends to the brink of the lake, from which this seat took its name of ... Lakeland. It was lately the residence of Benjamin Bonffield, esq. a gentleman of considerable literary ability... and this elequent mansion is now occupied by William Crawford, esq." (West, 1810).

Crawford's plants included Himalayan and Andean species, magnolias, rhododendrons and cordylines. The Himalayan Magnolia campbellii flowered for the first time in the British Isles at Lakelands.
He was best known for his Brownea species, many of which were bequeathed to Kew and the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin.

Brownea crawfordii was a hybrid of B. grandiceps and B. macrophylla which Crawford produced at Lakelands. It was donated to Kew on his death (from heart disease) and named in his honour.

Little of Lakelands remain except the ruins of a few out buildings and some magnificent monkey puzzle trees which mark the site of the house itself. Other gardens also recieved bequests from the Crawford estate, including Queen's College Cork (now University College Cork).

That wasn't the only thing Crawford left to the College. William Horatio Crawford provided much of the funding for the construction of the Crawford Observatory at UCC in 1878. Still the only observatory on any university campus in Ireland, it was designed by one of the finest scientific instrument makers of the 19th Century, the Dubliner Howard Grubb. The Duke of Devonshire of Lismore Castle in Waterford also provided funding for the observatory.

Crawford also provided significant funding towards the erection of  greenhouses at the Botany Department at UCC.