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COREOPSIS'MOONBEAM'

it was named&) By Leonie Bell

A recent Wayside Gardens catalogexults: "Truly a treasure . . . werate this as one of the 10 all time

great perennials!" There has been muchspeculation about the plant's history andname. While the original source remainssomething of a mystery, I can explain howCoreopsis 'Moonbeam' got its name.

Many years ago we had a neighbor herein Spring Mill (outside Conshohocken, Pa.)who was a genuine tinker, a fabricator oftin. Our American term "roofer" hardlytouched upon the diverse skills of HowardChidester. Besides installing copper gutters,he rebuilt our porch and fitted yards ofbookshelves and cupboards to the crookedwalls of this old stone house. We shared thegreat songs of the Forties because he'dmoonlit in a band, playing clarinet and sax.But best of all, we were both avid gardeners.

One day he brought to work a berry-boxed plant of a small lemon-yellow daisyfound at a fanner's stand on the way homefrom Tom's River, New Jersey. Up untilthen, around 1960, I'd refused to admit theCoreopsis clan to the garden. Their color inJune, bright chrome yellow, clashed hor-ribly with the old roses that queen theplace, their stems leaned and their roots gotinto everything. This little thing looked likethe Threadleaf species, C. verticillata,except for the marvelous cool lemon color.

A month after planting it I thought, this isodd: lots of bloom with plenty of budscoming. Could it really be everblooming?By October we could still find a few palestars for the small nosegays our girls lovedto make.

Over winter I noticed how minisculedark bronzed rosettes marked its location

after the dry stems had been removed. Byspring the tufts had increased a bit, enoughto pry up pieces to share with a friend. Themoment she saw the sulfur daisies in Mayshe said, "This is the kind I've been lookingfor. At garden marts you can never tellwhich you'll get, they're all markedC. verticillata because they look the same atfirst." So it had been around for awhile. My1950 Gray's Manual was no help, no palevariants were described. Perhaps nursery-men could tell me more about it.

doesn't suckerThe first to consult was "Bill," owner of

Hildemere Nursery on Route 1 in Wawa,Pa. He had never heard of a lemon Coreopsisand when I added that it didn't suckermuch, he burst out with, "A Coreopsis thatdoesn't sucker? That'll be the day!" Still, hetook the proffered plant. (Years later whenI tried to find the Hildemere Nurserydirectly across from the Wawa Dairy, itseemed to have disappeared into thin air,the gentle slopes once checkered with bedshad left not a trace. Small wonder. On topof it now lies the Franklin Mint.)

Another start went up to Barre, Vermont,where Donald Allen had Sky-Cleft Gardens,a notable rock garden nursery, long gone.He had expressed interest in two plants Ihad, the Coreopsis, which was entirely newto him, and a dwarf everblooming form ofRosa arkansana plena 'Woodrow.' Whilethe rose refused to root, the Coreopsisresponded so well to "forced propagation"that he had enough stock to offer in his1965 catalog. When he asked, "What shallwe name it?" I wrote back, "Oh, somethingwith moon in it." And so it was listed:

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cene I jaftuary 1991

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Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' blends well with nasturtiums and Salvia farinacea 'Victoria' in a dooryardgarden in Plymouth Meeting.

Coreopsis 'Moonbeam,' no species given.The best way to insure the longevity of a

rare plant is to give some away. In the crushof work to complete a book in 1966,1 lostthe original 'Moonbeam' to some voraciousmatting perennial, when there was no timeto keep track of small defenseless treasures.Knowing Donald Allen had stock, I knew itcould be replaced. Yet plants, unlabeled,continued to surface in local nurseries. InApril you had to look very close to decide ifa potted plant was the ordinary C. verticil-lata, or the more compact, darker-green-leaved lemon-yellow version.

Inevitably, 'Moonbeam' attracted theinterest of botanists. Dr. Art Tucker of

Dover State College in Delaware sentmaterial to Dr. Edwin Smith at the Uni-versity of Arkansas, considered to be theworld authority on Coreopsis, for hisopinion. Smith's opinion is that 'Moon-beam' is not a form of C. verticillata at allbut one of a hybrid complex known as C. xdelphinifolia. This is made up of C. verticil-lata , C. tripteris, and possibly C. major,according to experimental crosses made byDr. Smith, and occurs in the wild only inSouth Carolina and Georgia. Whether theoriginal plant or anything like the lemon'Moonbeam' has been found there is as yetnot known.

Incredibly, the type of C. x delphinifolia

Take a bed of scarlet, magenta andorange, add a dash of 'Moonbeam,'and you'll have a smashing combina-tion.

was illustrated over 240 years ago byGeorg Dionysius Ehret, compeer ofLinnaeus, in 1749. Two other cultivarsnow thought to belong to his hybridcomplex are 'Zagreb' and 'Golden Showers,'both with the more usual chrome-yellowdaisies and greater height. Art Tucker andRick Darke, curator of plants at LongwoodGardens, are now working on a paperabout these.

I can't think of a tint that harmonizesmore agreeably with the most garish flowercolors than the sulfurous 'Moonbeam.' Insome lights the one-inch daisies have analmost greenish cast. Take a bed of scarlet,magenta and orange, add a dash of'Moon-beam,' and you'll have a smashing combi-nation. The first buds spread in late Mayand from then until frost, they never stop.For the garden's benefit if not its own,'Moonbeam' is probably sterile, whichwould explain why it keeps on blooming ina futile attempt to produce seed.

At peak bloom in September, a plant isabout 18 inches across and usually no morethan a foot high, often less, the dark stemsand leaves so wiry and fine that the eight-petaled flowers seem to float above atangled mass. Rebloom will occur whetheror not you shear the stems back in July orAugust. Although a sandy peat soil mixkeeps the plant compact, 'Moonbeam' willgrow well almost anywhere in full sun orpartial shade. Here is one American peren-nial that owes nothing to the "improve-ments" made by the English or theGermans.

All we can hope now is that someone inSouth Carolina or Georgia will come upwith the beginning of this story.

Lifetime gardener Lee Bell started with wild-flowers, moved on to weeds, and graduated toold roses, finding lost names for old kinds stillgrowing in this country. Bell is the current editorof Heritage Rose Group's quarterly Letter. Herphotographs now augment her superb botanicalillustrations made for many years.

the green scene /January 1991