Bernard M'Mahon

Bernard M'Mahon , often cited as Bernard McMahon or Bernard MacMahon (* 1775? In Ireland , † September 18, 1816 in Philadelphia ) was an American gardener and botanist of Irish origin. Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " M'Mahon ".

The gardener and entrepreneur

Despite his popularity in America, there is no reliable information about M'Mahon's exact origins and youth. The year of birth is given as 1775 , but there are no verifiable sources. M'Mahon is said to have left his native Ireland as a political refugee and came to Philadelphia in 1796. At first he received material support from Irish friends, including William John Duane (1780–1865), the influential editor of the newspaper "Aurora". In 1802 he opened a business for seeds and garden plants. Because of his excellent knowledge of horticulture , he quickly made a name for himself with plant collectors, botanists and gardeners in middle-class Philadelphia. His company and business relationships grew continuously. Two years after it was founded, he published a catalog that was more than 30 pages long and in which he offered over 800 different varieties of plants: A Catalog of Garden Grass, Herb, Flower, Tree & Shrub-Seeds, Flower Roots, etc. . (Philadelphia, 1804) - the first American catalog of its kind. He built greenhouses and in the winter of 1805/1806 also opened a specialist bookstore for botany , agriculture and horticulture. His shop, which he ran with his second wife Ann, became a meeting place for botanists like Thomas Nuttall , William Baldwin, William Darlington and Benjamin Smith Barton . Together with the latter he taught horticulture at Madame Rivardi's Seminary , an elite school for civic daughters . In 1806 his book was published with the title The American Gardener's Calendar, adapted to the Climates and seasons of the United States, containing a complete account of all the work necessary to be done in the kitchen-garden, fruit-garden, orchard, vineyard, nursery , pleasure-ground, flower-garden, green-house, hot-house, and forcing frames, for every month in the year (Philadelphia, 1806). It was the first ever American book on horticulture. The nearly 680-page work has become a fixture in garden literature for 50 years and has a total of 11 editions.

In 1809 he bought a large piece of land between Philadelphia and Germantown and laid out a private botanical garden there. Here he tried out new ornamental and vegetable plants and experimented with modern cultivation methods. In homage to the Swedish city of Uppsala , the center of life of the naturalist Carl von Linné , he named the garden “Upsal”. M'Mahon also played an essential role in the introduction of numerous types of fruit and the establishment of viticulture in North America.

Mahon and Thomas Jefferson

The American President Thomas Jefferson and M'Mahon had a friendly relationship for many years . Jefferson, an avid hobby botanist and gardener, owned extensive ornamental fruit and vegetable gardens on Monticello , his country estate near Charlottesville , Virginia . He obtained planting material and seeds regularly from M'Mahon and from him he took advice on all horticultural questions. Jefferson valued M'Mahon's experience and skills so highly that he entrusted him with the botanical yield of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806). Jefferson, as the company's primary sponsor, had access to the collected plants and seeds. M'Mahon, who had already been involved in the preparation with Barton , was given the task of sowing, cultivating and propagating the plants for further distribution, which he did reliably, after all, 25 of them were unknown to science, some very attractive Species such as gold currant ( Ribes aureum ), snowberry ( Symphoricarpus albus ) and milk orange tree ( Maclura pomifera ). However, the description and illustration of these plants was reserved for scientists. So published Frederick Traugott Pursh most novelties in 1814 in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis, or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America .

Honor taxon

The scientific plant name Mahonia (in honor of M'Mahon, who died two years earlier) for a genus of the barberry family was found by Thomas Nuttall in his book The genera of North American plants and a catalog of the species, to the year 1817 (Philadelphia, 1818) set up. M'Mahon has the merit of having for the first time raised shrubs of Mahonia aquifolium from seeds, cultivated them and offered them commercially. The seeds had been collected by Meriwether Lewis as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Rocky Mountains .

literature

• Joseph Ewan: Bernard M'Mahon (c. 1775-1816), pioneer Philadelphia nurseryman, and his American Gardener's Calendar . Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 3, pp. 363-380. 1960.
• Joel Munsell: The Every Day Book of History and Chronology . New York 1858.

Web links

• History of Horticulture - M'Mahon, Bernard 1775-1816 (approx) (Engl.)
• M'Mahon's American Garden Calendar
• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Bernard M'Mahon at the IPNI