A brief history of "the plants"

If nothing else, all visitors to Paul's office in 841 Latimer Hall remember the plants: most of all a split-leaf philodendron (Monstera deliciosa), but perhaps also an avocado (Persea americana), and, in the early days, a Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata). Visitors to this site may be interested in knowing their history and what eventually happened to them.

Paul acquired the fern his first week at Berkeley as an assistant professor, back in the summer of 1973. It had four leaves when he bought it. It hung in Paul's office for most of its life, although eventually it had to retreat to Paul's home when the philodendron took over. It has survived various re-pottings, regular trimmings, and even a scale infestation 30 years ago, but as the photo below shows, it is still going strong 50 years later!



The avocado plant had the traditional origins: grown from a pit, kept indoors and thus unmated and unproductive all its life. Always overshadowed by the philodendron, it didn't have much presence and, in the end, was simply tossed out when Paul left his office in 2004...

The philodendron was a gift from Willy Shih, one of Paul's first graduate students, who donated it to the group in 1974. It started out as a regular lab plant, in a wooden box retrieved from Receiving as a planter. As the plant grew, its aerial roots were guided into more such boxes of dirt. These boxes first made a row against the back wall with the rain-forest wall poster, but eventually were placed in all the corners of the office. With one wall of the office comprised of south-facing windows, and with copious amounts of fertilizer (Willy started it on ammonium nitrate and potassium phosphate, then Paul used fish emulsion once a week...), the philodendron grew to fill the entire 400-square foot office. The overhead pipes provided a convenient scaffold from which to hang the branches as the plant reached out to the windows. Every five years or so, a major operation was required to cut back the old part of the plant, untie and move the growing parts away from the windows, and thread the aerial roots (some more than 20 feet long) around the pipes appropriately. Eventually there were no plant stalks emanating from the dirt planters - everything living was fed by the aerial roots.



When Paul retired and had to pass the office on to Richmond Sarpong, the big philodendron - by then, many separate plants! - had to go. And go it did! Having posted notes around the Department to let people know of the opportunity, Paul cut the philodendron up into fragments, each with one or more aerial roots, donating them to anyone who wanted a piece; more than 65 people made off with a cutting! Richmond inherited a piece of the plant as well, which now is back in 841 Latimer and, no doubt, ready to take over the space again.

Paul kept a reasonably large piece of the philodendron for himself, which he took home to Oakland and installed in a downstairs recreation room. True to its character, however, it wasn't long before it got too big again, and with no overhead pipes to enable it to grow as it had in Latimer Hall. Happily, Paul and Yumi's long-time friends Brian and Heather Metcalf have a house in Moraga with a magnificent, tall entry hall and staircase, and they were happy to take possession and responsibility for it. It is doing magnificently - and furthermore remains the sanctuary of the papier-mache parrot that lived in its branches for many years. The picture below was taken in July, 2011: