Bulletin of Remarkable Trees Vol. 1 No. 1

Hello and welcome!

Welcome to the first issue of Bulletin of Remarkable Trees! Pull up a chair, grab some warm tea, maybe settle in with your fave potted plant

Pecan (Carya illinoinensis)

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I’ve been thinking about starting this newsletter for a while now and mulling over how to incorporate what I’ve been reading about my grandfather, his career with the Morton Arboretum, and his love of plants and trees into a project worth sharing. Ever since discovering that my parents still had boxes of his journals sitting in storage in their basement, I’ve wanted to investigate the history of my grandfather and his work. I’m looking forward to doing a deep dive into not only his journals but his writings for the Arboretum and his correspondence with other naturalists and figures from midcentury Chicagoland (and, of course, tell you about some remarkable trees along the way.)

First off, let me introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me:

My name is Sarah, and I’m a writer, health communication specialist, and inadvertent professional sick person. Most of my writing focuses on disability, chronic illness, and navigating the wonky US healthcare system (you can find that writing here.)

This newsletter will be a bit of a departure from my typical themes, but it’s a project I’m incredibly excited about!

So who was my grandfather anyway?

My grandfather on my dad’s side, E. Lowell Kammerer, graduated with a degree in landscape architecture from the University of Illinois in 1929. Shortly after graduating, he started work as an arboriculturalist and later curator of collections at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. If you’re unfamiliar, the Morton Arboretum was established in 1922 by Joy Morton (whose family name you might recognize from the eponymous salt company.) Joy Morton’s father also held the first Arbor Day in Nebraska in 1872. Needless to say, the Morton family had quite a deep connection to and appreciation for trees.

Back to my grandfather: E. L. Kammerer spent his entire career at the arboretum, from 1929 until his death in 1966. He passed away decades before I was born, and for most of my life, I didn’t know much about him other than a few stories I'd heard from my dad and the general knowledge that he’d worked at the Arboretum.

Sometime in the last few years, I saw that the Arboretum was digitizing its physical library collection, including publications, photos, and correspondence. The number of documents related to my grandfather that were suddenly available online was enormous. I felt there had to be a lot of cool information waiting to be found in these documents and writings.

More recently, I started thumbing through his personal journals and looking through the copious amount of keepsakes, notes, and travel paraphernalia of his that my parents had stored away. All of this amounts to a pretty impressive set of primary sources about my grandfather, his life, and his work.

For this newsletter, I plan to focus on his arboretum-related work and his deep connection to plants and trees. I’m very much not an expert on these topics besides taking a few biology prereqs in college. But the more I’ve perused his writings, the more I’ve started to see the plants around me in a new way. I hope to transmit some of my excitement and fascination for our tall leafy friends to you through the Bulletin of Remarkable Trees!

What to expect in future issues

In the weekly newsletters following this one, I’ll delve into specific trees and plants that captured my grandfather’s interest, the history of the Morton Arboretum during his time working there, and what he (and his coworkers at the arboretum) thought about land use, conservation, and preserving plants native to Illinois (hint: they cared deeply about conserving natural ecosystems.)

I’ve found a variety of cool items, documents, and such that I’ll highlight as I go. I’m also planning to focus on one or two plant species that pique my interest each week, which I’ve found mention of in various journals or publications, then learn more about them and report back to you all.

These newsletters will likely be somewhat chronological since that’s how I’m working through the journals and publications, but sticking to the timeline is not a hard and fast rule. If there’s something I find that I can’t wait to write about or something that fits with the current season (like, for instance, Christmas, which is coming up soon and for which I’ve already found some great material), I have no qualms about jumping around a bit.

Coming up next week

In the next issue, coming out a week from today, we’re going back to Bio 101 to learn about plant taxonomy, or the naming and classification of plants using a hierarchy (I’m sure, like me, many of you had to memorize this in school: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.)

In my grandfather’s journals, he often refers to the taxonomic name of the plants he was planting in his garden or working with at the Arboretum.

These names were all Greek to me (Latin, technically), so I figured it would be worth spending time on a short refresher of why someone might use these names rather than a common name, how to interpret them, and who came up with the system we use to name plants (and animals) today.

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