Japanese species were slowly making their way 
into Boston and New York but had yet to see 
wider availability.'* 
Meehan created an arboretum of over seven 
hundred trees for the Exposition. Local newspa- 
pers described it as a “grand miniature forest” 
that was especially noteworthy for its collec- 
tion of “trees and shrubs of the United States.” 
Other prominent nurserymen had displays 
nearby, including Josiah Hoopes (whose display 
included twelve hundred evergreens and forty 
varieties of ivies), Robert Buist (showcasing trees, 
shrubs, and herbaceous plants), and S.B. Parson 
& Sons (who were reported to have “remarkable 
Japanese plants, maples, evergreens, azalias [sic], 
new shrubs, and half hardy plants”).!° 
After the Exhibition, Meehan and the other 
nursery owners provided portions of their out- 
door collections to Philadelphia’s Fairmount 
Park. Therefore, the diversity of their displays 
is suggested in Joseph Rothrock’s catalogue of 
the trees and shrubs in Fairmount Park, pub- 
lished in 1880. The catalogue documents early 
introductions of Asian species, including Japa- 
nese maple (Acer palmatum), Asian magnolias 
(like Magnolia campbellii and M. denudata), 
panicle hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata), and 
the lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana).'’ After 
the event, the diversity of plant offerings from 
Japan rapidly increased, and by the end of the 
1800s, many now-familiar plants, and many 
that we still think of as “rare and unusual,” 
were regularly offered for sale. 
Meehan was quick to recognize the impor- 
tance of these introductions. When he wrote 
about the other nursery displays at the Exhibi- 
tion in Gardener’s Monthly, a magazine that he 
had edited since 1859, he remarked on the “spe- 
cial bed” of Japanese plants shown by S.B. Par- 
sons & Sons. Among the most striking plants, 
he reported, was the red-leaved Japanese maple 
(now Acer palmatum forma atropurpureum).!® 
By 1882, Meehan’s nursery catalogue offered 
one-foot-tall specimens of this for two dollars, 
then among his most expensive offerings. On 
the back cover of the same catalogue, he proudly 
advertised the “Japan Snowball” (Viburnum 
plicatum), claiming that his nursery had been 
first to introduce it into the United States. This 
claim was accompanied by the only illustration 
in the catalogue, suggesting that Meehan fully 
Thomas Meehan 55 
recognized the commercial importance of these 
newcomers.!? By the 1890s, Meehan’s nurseries 
were offering a weeping Japanese cherry (what 
would now be considered Prunus subhirtella}, 
Asian magnolias and maples, and even umbrella 
pine (Sciadopitys verticillata) and Hiba false- 
arborvitae (Thujopsis dolabrata).*° 
In some sense, Meehan’s nursery served as 
a laboratory for him to study plants. A perfect 
example of this is the daimyo oak (Quercus 
dentata). At a meeting of the Academy of Natu- 
ral Sciences of Philadelphia in 1886, Meehan 
presented a short description of the floral struc- 
ture of Quercus dentata, grown from seed that 
he had received from Japan at the time of the 
Centennial Exposition.”! By 1895, the daimyo 
oak was offered by his nursery, described as “a 
rich addition to our list of oaks ... in May the 
yellow flowers, in long aments, make it attrac- 
tive in a way no other oak is.”””” 
Despite his ever-increasing interest in non- 
native species, Meehan maintained a strong 
affinity for native plants. In the same 1895 cata- 
logue in which he advertised the daimyo oak, 
Meehan wrote that “for twenty years or more 
we have been trying to impress upon Ameri- 
can planters the importance of using Native 
Oaks in landscape works ... and finally, after 
all these years, planters began to realize that 
we were right and to recognize in the American 
Oak, the ‘King of Trees.’””? And while Meehan 
is often most associated with woody plants, 
his catalogues have a large diversity of native 
herbaceous perennials and hardy ferns—many 
sought out by today’s keen gardeners. 
Meehan’s nursery distributed plants to botan- 
ical institutions, including the Arnold Arbo- 
retum where a few dozen specimens are still 
alive. The most historically significant are two 
Franklin trees (Franklinia alatamaha, acces- 
sion 2428-3* A and *B), propagated in 1905 from 
a plant that Meehan provided about thirty years 
earlier. These are believed to be the oldest liv- 
ing representatives of the species.?+ Other Mee- 
han plants at the Arboretum include a group of 
five black oaks (Quercus velutina, accession 
1237), acquired in 1873, when the Arboretum 
was only a year old, and a Southern red oak (Q. 
falcata, accession 3333* A). These North Amer- 
ican oaks are now living reminders of Meehan’s 
commitment to the “King of Trees.” 
