Rhododendrons and the Centennial Exposition of 1876
Rhododendron: The Hybrids / The Waterers by Bean’s Trees & Shrubs
http://www.beanstreesandshrubs.org/browse/rhododendron-the-hybrids-additional-notes/
(14th paragraph)
At Knap Hill the years 1860-90 saw the production of many splendid hybrid rhododendrons and it
is remarkable how many of them are still leading varieties today. Anthony Waterer I admired the
blotched or spotted upper petal inherited mainly from R. maximum which, in his opinion, gave form
and substance to the flower. His younger son Hosea Waterer II (1852-1927) emigrated to America
and settled in Philadelphia and it was no doubt with his help that Anthony was able to ship 1,500
hybrid rhododendrons to America and to exhibit them in flower at the Centennial Exhibition of
1876 in Philadelphia. The success of this exhibit was such that a spark of interest in rhododendrons
in the USA was fanned into flames. The plants were bought by Professor Charles Sargent, a staunch
friend of the family, and by H. H. Hunnewell and were planted at Brookline, Mass., and Wellesley,
Mass. Anthony had selected mainly hybrids of R. catawbiense for this venture. These were the first
of a series of ‘iron-clad’ hybrids which he raised primarily for the American market, and which
were likely in his opinion to withstand the rigors of winter in the Eastern States. Several of them
were named for members of Professor Sargent’s family.
(21st paragraph)
Anthony Waterer II was a bachelor. When he died in 1924 Hosea Waterer II inherited Knap Hill
and returned from America to manage it. He showed some of his brother’s named Knap Hill azaleas
and rhododendrons at the Royal Horticultural Hall in 1926. He died the following year and his
American sons sold the business to the present Knap Hill Nursery Ltd in 1931.
Ironclad Rhododendrons by Richard Murcott, New York Chapter of the ARS
http://www.richardmurcottgarden.com/ironclad-rhododendrons/
We now hear very little about a group of hybrid rhododendrons that, when I started collecting and
growing this genus in 1962, were the mainstay of the plants available. The Dexter Hybrids were
very sparingly available, really just sold as a favor to the purchaser. There were other cultivars
available, but the basic selection of rhododendrons available in garden centers were the Ironclads.
To understand where they came from and how they were designated, a little history is necessary.
Rhododendrons started to be hybridized in England in the early 1800’s. The English had by this
time obtained seed and plants of a few species native to Europe, the Caucus mountains and the
American species catawbiense and maximum. When the English saw the blood-red flowers
produced by plants grown from seed of the Asian species they went gaga. Their blooming about
1850 started a hybridizing frenzy. Many hybrids of ponticum, caucasicum, catawbiense,
maximum and arboretum were created.
The Centennial Exhibition of American Independence was held in 1876 in Philadelphia. It was there
at that exhibition that the American public first came to see hybrid rhododendrons as 3,000 hybrids
were brought in from England and used throughout the grounds as landscaping plants. They were
immensely popular. These plants were sold to local gardeners in the Philadelphia area at the end of
the show and I don’t doubt that some of them or propagations of them are still growing there.
Nurseries began to get many inquiries regarding hybrid rhododendrons. This started a 50-year love
affair for these plants, mainly by the wealthy as the plants were very expensive. Many nurseries
began to import plants and soon it became evident that not all hybrid rhododendrons were both
beautiful and hardy. The enormous variations in the climate on the East Coast made selection of
cultivars frustrating. A plant perfectly hardy in Philadelphia would succumb to the cold during its
first winter in Boston. This feature was not lost to the Arnold Arboretum. They had imported many
named hybrids from Anthony Waterer and had discovered the remarkable variability of the plant’s
hardiness.
In Pursuit of Iron Clads by Karen Madsen
http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/2000-60-1-in-pursuit-of-ironcladsrhododendrons-hardy-in-new-england.pdf
(Page 32)
Most Americans discovered rhododendrons in 1876 when Anthony Waterer brought 1,500 plants in
80 varieties to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. (He presented most of those plants to C. S.
Sargent, and in the 1880s sent what he thought to be his hardiest varieties to the Arnold Arboretum
for testing.) The Philadelphia display was an eye-opener: gardeners were smitten, Americans
ordered hundreds of thousands of plants from England and began hardiness trials in earnest. Lists of
the hardiest hybrids appeared frequently in garden magazines, not least in C. S. Sargent’s weekly,
Garden and Forest (1888-1897), and from 1911 the Arboretum’s Bulletin of Popular Information.
Pennsylvania and the Centennial Exposition: The Final Report
https://archive.org/stream/pennsylvaniacent00penn/pennsylvaniacent00penn_djvu.txt
(very long searchable text)
Annex. — This was a temporary structure (No. 170), built of glass and iron, and located
immediately north of Horticultural Hall. It was designed for the display of specialties in flowers.
The exhibition of rhododendrons, one of the most attractive features during the early part of the
Exposition, was held in this Annex.
Philadelphia’s Museum of Art Azalea Garden photos
http://loveteamonline.com/azalea-garden-kelly-drive-philadelphia-art-museum/
The Azalea Garden is one of the most colorful and carefree places to spend a Spring or Summer day
while visiting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Located on the magnificent grounds of Philadelphia’s
Museum of Art, the Azalea Garden is Philadelphia’s most recognized garden with over four acres of
150 different species of azaleas and rhododendrons intermingled with irises, tulips, sycamores, oaks
and hundreds of blooming annuals and perennials.
Anthony Waterer’s Rhododendrons
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1876-PHILADELPHIA-Centennial-Exhibition-Worlds-Fair-ANTIQUEHISTORY-Exposition-/130738083377
(book on eBay)
Report on the Philadelphia International Exposition of 1876
https://archive.org/stream/reportsonphilad00deptgoog/reportsonphilad00deptgoog_djvu.txt
(very long searchable text)
The Horticultural Department consisted of a large ornamental conservatory, with lean-to stoves on
each side. In the interior, the placing of the exhibited plants was very properly entirely under the
direction of the Chief of the Bureau of Horticulture, who, however, was most obliging, and ready to
comply with every wish we expressed in the interest, of our exhibitors. Outside, the space was laid
out in parterres, some of which were occupied by British exhibitors, notably by Messrs. Veitch and
Sons, of Chelsea, whilst one of the most interesting features in the earlier period of the Exhibition
was the grand display of rhododendrons, made by Mr. Anthony Waterer, of Knapp Hill, in a large
framed tent similar to those now so familiar at the spring shows in London.
David Leach article referencing the 1876 Exposition
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v22n4/v22n4-leach.htm
The baffling delusion that rhododendrons of quality must have a pyramidal truss, firmly filled,
continues to mesmerize rhododendron hobbyists, show judges and, especially, commercial
nurserymen. Many erroneously believe that this is an official position of the American
Rhododendron Society. Actually, this splendidly nutty idea arose in this country solely because our
first garden rhododendrons, imported for the great Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876,
happened to be Waterer's catawbiense hybrids and so, naturally, they had trusses tightly filled to
formal outline. They became the standard of excellence at once, and their truss form has stubbornly
remained the ideal to many, despite the later introduction in mild climates of myriad
rhododendrons, far finer, which have florets in informal array.
John Wister article referencing the introduction of hybrid rhododendrons to the US
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v6n1/v6n1-wister.htm
Hybrid rhododendrons of the Catawbiense group have been popular garden favorites along the
Atlantic seaboard from Massachusetts to Maryland and Virginia for three quarters of a century.
Their fine flowers of white, pink, red, purple and magenta come in late May and early June in the
Philadelphia area. Their evergreen foliage is handsome the year around and the plants thrive in full
sun as well as in partial shade.
The group gets its name from the purple-flowered species, Rhododendron catawbiense which
grows wild in the mountains of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. Little appreciated in this
country, plants of this species were taken to England early in the last century and flowered there in
1809. Their good qualities were quickly recognized by keen British gardeners. Two years later,
Rhododendron arboretum, a red flowered, tree-like Himalayan plant was brought to England and in
1826 crosses were made between the two species, resulting in hybrids which soon evoked the
enthusiasm of British gardeners. Encouraged by the reception of the new hybrids, other crosses
were made between R. catawbiense and R. ponticum, a rosy purple species from Asia Minor. Later
R. maximum, a late-flowering white species native from Maine to Georgia, was also used as a
parent.
American gardeners knew nothing of these new plants until Anthony Waterer, an English
nurseryman, brought 1,500 plants to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876. They
created a sensation, were quickly sold, and were followed by larger quantities shipped by Waterer
and other nurserymen in the ensuing years. Old collections are to be found around Baltimore,
Philadelphia, in the New Jersey and the Long Island suburbs of New York City, in Connecticut,
Rhode Island and even in Boston.
In, the 1890's and early 1900's, the largest public collection was at the Arnold Arboretum. Here
after long trial, during which many varieties were winter-killed, those which survived were called
"Ironclads."
There was little American propagation except by Samuel Parsons on Long Island, he raised
several seedlings, plants of which are still grown. Most nurserymen bought young plants in England
and Holland and resold them. This continued until importations were stopped by Plant Quarantine
No. 37.
When this quarantine went into effect in 1919, there evidently were only two or three
American nurseries propagating rhododendrons in any quantity. As these nurseries could supply
only a small part of the demand, other nurseries took up the work. Today many thousands of plants
are being produced yearly on both coasts, mostly by grafting on ponticum stocks. A few nurseries
propagate also by layering. One or two have been successful with stem cuttings and leaf bud
cuttings. Most of the varieties grown date back half a century or a century. The few more recent
hybrids which are reliably hardy apparently differ little from the earliest ones.
1876 Newspaper Article about the Philadelphia Exposition. (many scanning
errors)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/96159470/
(long searchable article)
One of the most attractive things I know of on the grounds is something that a great many people
not see at all. In a sort of tent near Horticultural Hall there is an exhibition of rhododendrons in full
bloom, and ... sufficient to say that the flowers are of nearly all colors and shades of colors. from
white and delicate pink and purple up to the deepest and darkest red. ' The bushes are a mass of
flowers, and look like a collection of bouquets … They remind one of the rhododendrons that one
sees in our mountain regions, with the difference that they are larger than those usually seen in open
air. Such a mass of rich color is rarely seen anywhere: the exhibit in Horticultural Hall cannot rival
it in this respect, and it would be. difficult, to find a greenhouse in the whole country that could do
so. The collection is an English one; it comes from the Knap Hill Nursery of Mr. Anthony Waterer,
Woking, Surrey, England, and is pronounced by horticulturists the finest ever seen in America.
There is another show of rhododendrons in the Open air, on another side of Horticultural Hall,
belonging to the Centennial Commission. They were' presented by the' establishment of James
Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea; London, and would be considered excellent if they were not cast in the
shade by the very large exhibit of Mr. Waterer. Many persons who have heard of the rhododendrons
in the tent have gone in that direction, and mistaken the smaller one for the larger. They go away
satisfied, and think they have had a fine treat. And so they have, but there is a still finer one, which
would cost them nothing if they would only go a little farther, and use their eyes for a quarter of an
hour.
1893 Article on the Chicago World’s Fair
https://books.google.com/books?id=J6cgAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=Anthony+W
aterer+Exposition+Rhododendron&source=bl&ots=vTQpOImGe_&sig=3qJQnRKtWhD-5seAaSrovwyUdI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW4oWG2JnQAhVL4iYKHcE7DhYQ6AEITDAM#v=
onepage&q&f=false
Annals of Horticulture in North America – The World’s Fair
https://books.google.com/books?id=GDYLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=Anthony+
Waterer+Exposition+Rhododendron&source=bl&ots=qJHDnWKmET&sig=Q6b1ouG1uwzj75Yz4kyRodWmEM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW4oWG2JnQAhVL4iYKHcE7DhYQ6A
EIQDAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Waterer Article about Knapp Hill Nursery sending plants to Washington in
1860s
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v4n1/v4n1-waterer.htm
(8th paragraph)
It was probably in the 1860's that Downing imported plants from Knap Hill for the Capitol grounds
at Washington. An American publication has described how, after Downing's death, the unpaid bill
for plants was found among his papers by his executor Henry Winthrop Sargent of Fishkill. Sargent
was a school friend of Charles Sumner and with his help he succeeded in obtaining from Congress
an appropriation to pay this bill. From this arose a lasting friendship between Anthony and H. W.
Sargent. Many "ironclad" rhododendrons raised at Knap Hill were named after members of the
Sargent family. In 1876 Anthony exhibited 1500 of his hybrids in Philadelphia, most of them being
hardy enough to stand the climate of the Eastern States. He was well liked in America and it was a
great pleasure to him to build up a considerable trade across the Atlantic.