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Medicinal Plants
"Tripterygium, in the bittersweet family, is a relatively small genus of three or four species that occurs in eastern Asia," explains Stephen A. Spongberg, horticultural taxonomist at the arboretum. "It has for many, many years been utilized, as so many Chinese plants have been utilized, in their traditional medicine. It was originally used as a tonic, perhaps in much the same way as ginseng." A visiting Chinese botanist, listening in as Spongberg speaks, nods confirmatively. "The Chinese recognized," Spongberg continues, "I'm not sure when, that if the distilled extract of Tripterygium was administered to men, they became sterile, that Tripterygium functioned as a spermicide. Moreover, when the drug was no longer administered, sperm counts returned to normal, or nearly normal. The Chinese began to look into Tripterygium as a source of a drug that could be used as a male contraceptive. The World Health Organization became interested and has been working with the Chinese to develop a marketable pharmaceutical that could pass muster in the Western world.

"One of the individuals the World Health Organization involved was a phytochemist from Thailand and another was an Englishman. They didn't know anything about the plant or the genus that was involved. By some means, they got my name.

Tripterygium regelii, REGEL'S THREEWINGNUT

I was able to give them a thumbnail sketch of the genus and to tell them that we were actually growing one of the species here in the living collection. The fellow from Thailand came to the arboretum to lay eyes on the plant. He became excited and wanted materials to take back to Thailand to begin chemical analysis. He later said he found it ironic that he had to come to the Arnold Arboretum to see Tripterygium when it's a commonplace plant just a hop, skip, and a jump from Thailand."

Tripterygium regelii is a shrub with vining tendencies, a so-called scandent shrub. It has angular, warty, brown stems and yellowish-white flowers. "J.G. Jack brought the plant back from Korea and we introduced it," says Peter Del Tredici. "I think we were the only botanic garden in America that grew that plant. Charles Sargent thought it had little horticultural merit. But we try not to show discrimination toward any plant. You can never predict what is going to be important 50 years in the future. We're not looking only for the best ornamental plants. Our mission is to facilitate scientific research in the present and the future. So what if a plant is a horticultural dog? It's a good thing we have it in our collection."

Pathology
Children come to the Arboretum in semi-organized squadrons to study nature. The staff is eager to help them, and their teachers, learn. "Our schools are failing to provide students with even the most basic understanding of science," says Robert Cook '68,

HEMLOCK HILL. IS THE ENEMY LURKING?

director of the arboretum. "What better place than the arboretum to take the scholarship and expertise of a great university and translate it into effective programs to support local teachers?" Cook has recently launched a program that hooks up students from 10 local schools with each other and with arboretum scientists on the Internet.

A favorite venue for children on actual visits is Hemlock Hill. This is the forest primeval. It is about to be violated, almost certainly. The hemlock woolly adelgid, which looks like a mealybug and is related to the aphid, was first reported on the East Coast in Virginia in the early 1950s. It has moved northeastward relentlessly, devastating stands of the native hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, and is now widely reported in Massachusetts. The bug sucks sap from young twigs. Defoliation and the death of the tree can occur within several years. One can spray a hemlock in one's backyard, but one cannot spray a forest. The arboretum is an active participant in efforts to find a control for this plague-perhaps a biological one-but at present there is little to be done.

Natural disasters come with the territory if you run an arboretum. Your chestnuts die of blight. Dutch elm disease wipes out your collection (except for a few resistant individuals). The 1995 drought lasts from February to September, doing damage that will not be fully revealed for years.

The hurricane of 1938 felled 1,490 trees at the arboretum in four hours. On Hemlock Hill the disaster is embedded in the landscape. Scattered through the woodland are telltale hummocks, the remains of upturned hemlock root masses. School children may look at those hummocks and learn that in arboretums, as in life, one never knows what the new day may bring.

Christopher Reed is managing editor of this magazine.

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