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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES Cuba Conference Highlights Botanical Garden Ties By June Carolyn Erlick
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba – Cuban botanists and historians avidly exchanged information with their U.S. academic counterparts in a two-day conference organized by Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and the Cienfuegos Botanical Garden (until 1961, the Harvard Botanical Garden). "This is the first meeting sponsored by our two institutions since 1961," said John Coatsworth, DRCLAS director. "It symbolizes the importance we attach to the renewal and strengthening of academic and scientific contacts not only between Harvard and the Botanical Garden but more generally between Cuba and the United States." Harvard is an important part of the Garden’s history, and the Garden forms part of Harvard’s history. Harvard’s name is still visibly carved into a palm tree at the entrance of what used to be called Harvard House, where the Nov. 12-13 meetings took place.In a surprise finale to the conference, the Cuban delegation planted two new palm trees in honor of Richard Howard, director of the Arnold Arboretum and professor of dendrology, emeritus. The two new palm trees, Washingtonia filifera, native to the United States, are now flanked by older royal palms – a fitting tribute to Howard, who first came to the Cienfuegos Botanical Garden as a student in 1940. At that time, the Garden was a department of the Arnold Arboretum with its own staff and budget. The land on which the Garden grounds are located had been donated to the University by Edwin F. Atkins, owner of the nearby Soledad Sugar Mill, in 1919. Atkins had originally approached Harvard in 1899 to start a program of sugar cane research. Harvard operated the Garden until after the U.S. embargo was imposed in 1961, two years after the Cuban Revolution. Fourteen members of the Atkins family, including former Congressman Chester Atkins, accompanied the academics on the trip to Cienfuegos. "It was really moving to be here and to see the way in which the Cubans have tended to this garden," said Chester Atkins between a conference session and a short visit to the former sugar mill property. Sessions were split between history and botany, with themes ranging from orchids to palms, from Cuban dietary patterns to the Spanish-American War, and from the history of the Garden to reflections on tropical ecology. In a session that received a standing ovation from both Cubans and North Americans, Richard Howard described how he first arrived in Cuba as a graduate student by taking a bus from Boston to Key West, then a ferry from Key West to Havana and then a night train, "because it was cheaper," from Havana to Cienfuegos, some 150 miles east of Havana. Harvard delegates included John H. Coatsworth, Monroe Gutman Professor of History; Otto Solbrig, Bussey Professor of Biology; Richard Howard; Gustavo Romero, keeper of the Orchid Herbarium; Noel Holbrook, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; and Timothy Stumph, the Center’s Cuba Program coordinator. Other academic institutions represented in the Harvard-sponsored encounter were the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, the College of New Jersey, and the University of Cologne (Germany). Cuban delegates came from a wide range of institutions, including the Garden, the Provincial Archive of Cienfuegos, the Academy of Science, and the National Botanical Garden in Havana. "This is like a dream come true to have this exchange become a reality," said Orlando Garcia, director of the Provincial Archive of Cienfuegos.June Carolyn Erlick is DRCLAS publications director.
Copyright 1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College |