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On the Origins of Philodendron x evansii

(Last Edit: 2008/7/29)

The huge beautiful ruffled leaves of Philodendron x evansii has always attracted the attention of aroid lovers and laymen alike. Indeed, the path to my obsession with the meconostigma aroids was paved by my visit to Huntington Gardens in California in 2005, when we chanced upon several grand specimens of this aroid, one in full bloom.

And yet the origin of this Philodendron, and in fact its very parentage, has sometimes been cast in doubt. This article is an attempt to put together some of the facts concerning the origins of this enormously appealing aroid. It will always be a work in progress as more facts are uncovered, but as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand li begins with one's first step.

And this journey, strangely enough, begins with a most unusual setting, the lavishly landscaped parks of DisneyLand in California, where in 1954, a man by the name of Morgan "Bill" Evans was enjoined by Walt Disney with the unenviable task of transforming the local landscape into a botanical paradise, a mission which Bill Evans undertook with much zeal and ingenuity. His background must have certainly provided much comfort and confidence in Disney, as Bill Evans lived a life thoroughly immersed in the botanical and horticultural sciences.

He was born on June 30, 1910, in Santa Monica, California, to a father who also had close affinities to the natural world and who managed a large garden whose denizens must have seemed magical to the younger Evans. Emboldened by his curiosity about plants, Bill Evans joined the merchant marine in 1928 and travelled around the world in the S.S. President Harrison. In his travels, he gathered botanical materials from such faraway places as Singapore, Hong Kong, the West Indies, Trinidad, Tahiti, the South Pacific, Australia, Europe, South Africa, and the Suez Canal.

Once he returned home he studied at Pasadena City College, and then Stanford, where he majored in Geology, only to be interrupted by the Great Depression. Undeterred by this setback, he transformed his father's gardens into a wholesale business that specialized in providing rare and exotic plants in 1931, and then opened a landscaping business called Evans and Reeves Landscaping in 1936 with his brother Jack and a man named Jack Reeves. Their clients included such luminaries of the day as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, and Elizabeth Taylor, who marvelled at the exotic plants they provided, which included Schefflera pueckleri (Tupidanthus calyptratus), Chamelaucium uncinatum, Tibouchina urvilleana, thirty-five species of araliads, thirty species of bamboo, twenty-four bougainvilleas and Philodendron 'Evansii', a cross between P. speciosum and P. bipinnatifidum carrying the family name ¹

From this description, it thus seems likely that P. x evansii is a hybrid between P. bippinatifidum and P. speciosum, a hypothesis that certainly makes some sense. The huge leaves of P. x evansii do seem to be a blending between the pinnatifid look of P. bipinnatifidum and the undulating but nonetheless entire leaf contours prevalent in P. speciosum. Simon Mayo in his seminal work on Meconostigma aroids in 1991 concurs, stating that the hybrid P. x evansii is derived from these same two species ².

It also seems that P. x evansii may have been introduced at least during the 1950s. The Annotated Checklist of Cultivated Plants of Hawaii by Clyde T. Imada, George W. Staples, and Derral R. Herbst lists P. x evansii as part of the garden collections in several Hawaiian gardens since 1954.

Emboldened by my research so far, I dug up more references, and found that catalogs from the Evans and Reeves nurseries in 1942 do not contain references to this hybrid, although it does mention that it stocks "PHILODENDRONS - We grow and stock a variety of these handsome decoratative subjects, particularly P. pertusum, P. trifoliatum". It thus seems as if Philodendron x evansii was introduced between the early 1940s and the early 1950s ³.

I should mention that it is fairly easy in today's internet age to find even the most archaic bits of information, and several google searches finally brought me to a page which contained information on the special collections library of UCLA, which among other bits and pieces of noted that the collection included in box 8 and folder 2, the following materials: Evans & Reeves Nurseries. The Grapevine, Santa Monica & Los Angeles. May [1950], June [1950], August [1950], December [1950], August 1951, September 1951, October 1951, November 1951, December 1951, January 1952, February 1952, March 1952, April 1952, May 1952, June 1952, July 1952, August 1952, September 1952, October 1952, November 1952, December 1952, January 1953,. March 1953, April 1953, June 1953, July 1953, August 1953, September 1953, February 1954.

I contacted the special collections library via email, and the helpful people in this esteemed organization obliged by providing me with the final clue in my quest. ⁷

The quest for the origins of Philodendron x evansii had finally led me to a brochure from the Evans and Reeves catalog called The Grapevine. In particular, an issue from February of 1952 (vol 2 #10) grandly proclaimed on its front cover the introduction of a new hybrid. In big bold letters, the title of the announcement said "Have a Cigar! It's a Hybrid! Introducing Philodendron Evansii".

The article started by noting that the nursery had introduced Philodendron selloum a year ago, but that this formerly "rare" plant was now quite common, and seeking to leave the competition, the nursey had therefore continued in its quest to introduce better plants.

Now we want to introduce a completely new Philodendron born here at the nursery. It is not only new but really sensational, we're sure you'll agree! The plant is an outdoor type (indoors if you have enough room) with a sturdy upright habit rather than climbing, producing huge elephant-ear-like leaves, with scalloped margins in a rich green. The father, P. speciosum boasts leaves over 1.2 m long by 0.76 m across - come and measure them yourself in our lath house....On the maternal side we have the above mentioned P. selloum imparting top decorative and constitutional genes. The offspring, in the creation of which we take pardonable pride, combines the best qualities of the parents, the largest and hardiest Philodendrons of which we know.

Junior is a rare plant, and is likely to remain so much longer than his mother did, for the marriage which produced him, while not made in heaven, is also a rare occurrence and not likely to be duplicated soon because of a definite scarcity of eligible bachelors! Our new Philodendron is so exceptional that we consider the price, $15 a bargain. Ask for PHILODENDRON EVANSII.

With the first origins of this spectacular hybrid thus revealed, the story of P. x evansii now shifts across the continent, to St. Petersburg, Florida, to a little known botanical garden called Sunken Gardens which used to be immensely popular and in fact ranked as one of Florida's top ten commercial attractions in the 1950s and 1970s. It begins in 1903, when plumber and avid gardener George Turner Sr. purchased the site, including a shallow lake 3 meters below sea level, which he drained to form his private "sunken" garden. Turner started planting papayas and citrus fruits along with other exotic plants on the rich soil surrounding his home. By the 1920s, Turner had opened a nursery and began selling fruits, vegetables, roses and other plants, and visitors were paying a nickel each to stroll through the gardens. In the fall of 1935, he fenced his garden and started charging an admission fee of 25 cents ⁴

Rising like a whale among dolphins in the Sunken Gardens

I visited this garden about two years ago, and well within the maze of the garden pathways lay huge P. x evansii specimens, their gnarled trunks slithering among the undergrowth while huge leaves thrusts high above the surrounding foliage. These particular specimens may have been planted during the heyday of Sunken Gardens in the 1950s, and I could easily imagine Mr. Turner perusing over the Evans catalog of rare and exotic plants, and chancing upon a picture of this most exotic aroid, and thinking about what a wondrous thing it would be to have such a beauty in his newly-created sunken gardens.

The hybrid continued to be popular as time passed. In 1986, the Marie Selby Botanical Garden obtained a plant of Philodendron x evansii from Oak Glan Nursery in Miami ⁵, and by at least 1999, the hybrid had been placed into tissue culture by Rancho Tissue Technologies, allowing the mass production of these plants ⁶. However, for some reason or the other, retail access to these plants remained difficult for end consumers.

TO BE CONTINUED.

References

¹ Pacific Horticulture, Fall 1996)

² Mayo S. A revision of Philodendron subgenus Meconostigma. Kew Bulletin 46(4): 601-681

³ Thanks to Ms. Horn of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society

⁴ Wikipedia

⁵ Thanks to Harry Luther of MSBG

⁶ Thanks to Dewey E. Fisk of THE PHILODENDRON PHREAQUE

⁷ Thanks to Lilace Hatayama, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.