Snowball Bush Viburnum
Common Name: Snowball Bush Viburnum, Whitsun-boss, Elder-Rose, Guelder-Rose, Love-Roses, Pincushion tree[1]
Scientific Name: Viburnum opulus
In 1794, Thomas Jefferson included "gelder rose" in his "objects for the garden this year."[2] On April 16, 1807, Thomas Jefferson further documented the planting of this shrub on the North East and South East shrub circle of Monticello Mountain.[3] He also lists the "gelder rose" in his 1804 plans for a garden or pleasure grounds.[4]
This sterile (fruitless) garden form was known in Europe by 1554 and has been a garden favorite ever since.[5] The flowers, described in 1770 as "balls of snow, lodged in a pleasing manner all over its head",[6] have inspired other common names such as Whitsun-boss, Love-roses, and Pincushion-tree. Bernard McMahon included "Viburnum opulus americanum Guelder Rose-leaved Viburnum," in his American Gardener's Calendar (1806).[7]
This shrub is a hardy, deciduous, late spring-flowering one with large, showy, spherical clusters of white or green-tinted white, sterile blossoms that sometimes turn pink and leaves become purple-tinted in autumn.
Primary Source References[8]
1791 May 8. (Jefferson to Mary Jefferson Eppes). "May 4th the gelder-rose, dog-wood, redbud, azalea were in blossom."[9]
1807 March 7. (Thomas Main sold to Jefferson). "2 Snowballs @ Do. [25 cents] .50."[10]
1812. (Planting Memorandum for Poplar Forest). "plant on each bank, right & left, on the S. side of the house, a row of lilacs, Althaes, Gelder roses..."[11]
Footnotes
- ↑ This article is based on a Center for Historic Plants Information Sheet.
- ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 208. Manuscript and transcription at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
- ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 334.
- ↑ See Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
- ↑ Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and their Histories (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 204.
- ↑ William Hanbury, A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening(London: printed for the author; and sold by Edward and Charles Dilly, 1770-71), 198.
- ↑ Denise Wiles Adams, Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640-1940 (Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc., 2004), 132 and McMahon, 596.
- ↑ Please note that this list should not be considered comprehensive.
- ↑ PTJ, 20:380.
- ↑ Ibid, 342.
- ↑ University of Virginia.
Further Sources
- Dutton, Joan Parry. Plants of Colonial Williamsburg. Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, 1979
- Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986
- Look for more of Jefferson's references in his Garden Book
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
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