Jefferson, Roland M.

Source:

 African American National Biography

Jefferson, Roland M.

(3 Sept. 1923– ),

research botanist and plant collector, was born in Washington, D.C., the second son of Edward Wilson Jefferson and Bernice Cornelia Bond, both U.S. government employees. Although his father held two jobs to support his family during the Depression, he found the time to carefully tend a flower garden, the pride of his neighborhood. A six-year-old Roland watched with interest as seeds his father planted sprouted and grew. When his family visited Potomac Park to see the famous Japanese cherry trees in bloom, Roland came to love the trees, not imagining that he would become an international authority on flowering cherries. After attending public schools in Washington, Jefferson served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Following his discharge, he entered Howard University under the G.I. Bill of Rights and received his BS degree in Botany in 1950 and then pursued graduate study. Searching for employment as a botanist without success, he spent several years in clerical jobs.

In 1956 Jefferson would find employment making plant labels at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Arboretum. Soon the persistent problem of deteriorating plant display labels engaged his attention. After careful research, he found a solution by using a durable photosensitive metal, a design still used in many arboreta and parks. Promoted to junior agricultural assistant in 1957 and assigned to keeping records of plants at the arboretum, he developed a new recording system that the arboretum and many other botanical and horticultural institutions would adopt. While still responsible for the correct identification and labeling of plants, keeping plant accession records, and preparing plant location maps, Jefferson made an intensive study of the arboretum's new collection of crabapples. He published the results of his research in articles in the American Horticultural Magazine in 1966 and 1968. That year he was promoted to botanist, a title he held until retirement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture published his scholarly work, History, Progeny, and Locations of Crabapples of Documented Authentic Origin, in 1970.

In 1973 Jefferson began to compile extensive historical and scientific data about the cherry trees planted in 1912 in Washington's Potomac Park as a gift to the United States from Japan. After he had completed four years of meticulous research at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and other repositories, the Department of Agriculture published his work in 1977. This piece, coauthored with Alan E. Fusonie, The Japanese Flowering Cherry Trees of Washington, D.C., would become the definitive study on the subject. While recording data at Potomac Park, Jefferson observed that many of the original trees planted as a symbol of friendship in 1912 were dying. Between 1976 and 1979 he took cuttings from many survivors, including the commemorative tree planted by Mrs. William Howard Taft, and propagated over one hundred trees to avoid losing them forever. Japanese officials, who were concerned because they had lost the parent stock of many cherry trees they had given to the United States, dispatched a delegation to the National Arboretum in 1980 to ask Jefferson's assistance in restoring these lost trees. As a result of Jefferson's work, in January 1981 the National Arboretum presented Japanese officials with 3,000 cuttings from some of the original flowering cherries. At a White House ceremony, which Jefferson attended, First Lady Nancy Reagan presented to the Japanese Ambassador a three-foot cherry tree Jefferson had propagated from the commemorative tree that Mrs. Taft planted in 1912. Called the “President Reagan Cherry Tree,” it would become a major attraction in Tokyo.

In addition to these activities, Jefferson published a comprehensive study, “Boxwood Round the Lincoln Memorial,” in American Horticulturist in 1975. He also traced the source of century-old confusion about the names of two commercially important privets in “Differences between Ligustrum Japonicum and Ligustrum Lucidum” in the American Nurseryman in 1976. He was an instructor in plant materials from 1974 until 1987 at the George Washington University Continuing Education Center and from 1975 until 1987 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School.

Jefferson accepted an invitation from Japanese officials to lecture about ornamental cherries and to study cherry trees with Japanese scientists in 1981. Beginning in the south, they followed blossoming cherries northward for five weeks, observing hundreds of wild and cultivated selections. Jefferson returned to Japan in 1982 and collected seeds and cuttings from superior ornamental cherry trees he had identified earlier. Like most of his research expeditions, this trip was privately funded. Beginning in the south at Kyushu in March, he reached northernmost Hokkaido in August, documenting trees that he would return to in 1983 for seeds that could supply disease-resistance, hardiness, and heavy-textured blooms. Jefferson was concerned about collecting enough seeds before the birds took them and suggested that Japanese children might collect cherry seeds in exchange for dogwood seeds from the United States. Adults and children in Japan collected many thousand cherry seeds that were presented to American children during a ceremony at the National Arboretum. Later Jefferson participated in a ceremony at the American Embassy in Tokyo where American children gave two million dogwood seeds to Japanese children.

While observing flowering cherries in Asia, America, and Europe, Jefferson noticed that horticulturists were using different names for the same trees. Since confusion about correct names made serious study impossible, he decided to organize available information about ornamental cherries. After surveying 728 scientific institutions for cherry holdings, he found a logical solution to the problem and wrote Nomenclature of Cultivated Japanese Flowering Cherries: The Sato-zakura Group, published by the National Arboretum in 1984. In 1986 Jefferson undertook plant exploration in northern Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan, collecting cherry seeds for research in the United States. He lectured at Youngnam University in South Korea and participated in a botanical garden symposium sponsored by the National Taiwan University. Collecting in mountains in Taiwan, he faced rough roads, steep cliffs, rock falls, and poisonous snakes. Dr. Frank N. Santamour, writing in the Journal of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta in 1987, called Jefferson's work from 1982 to 1986 “perhaps the most extraordinary example of focusing in plant collecting.” He cited the 400,000 seeds distributed to researchers throughout the United States and the 2,000 seedlings growing in test plots at the National Arboretum as evidence that Jefferson had gathered “the finest collection of germplasm ever.”

By the time of his retirement in 1987, Jefferson had brought into the United States approximately half a million seeds. Yet his work continued. The Flower Association of Japan invited him to lecture and serve as a research panelist in 1989 and 1990 at international symposiums on flowering cherries. When he returned to Japan in 1998 to speak at a symposium, Flower Friends published his lecture. As guest lecturer at the Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan, Jefferson spoke about the dying Potomac Park cherry trees problem—only 200 of the original 3,020 remained. His “History of the Cherry Blossom Trees in Potomac Park” was published by the Center in its 1995 Lecture Series. In 1997 a Washington Post staff writer saw Jefferson's lecture and his photographs of the deplorable condition of the original trees and wrote a feature article urging the preservation of the genetic heritage of the Potomac Park trees. In response, the National Arboretum offered to take cuttings from the remaining original trees and grow seedlings for the Park Service. At a 1999 ceremony in Potomac Park attended by the secretary of the interior and representatives of the Japanese Embassy, the arboretum presented to Park Service officials 500 young cherry trees that could replace the dying ones. Jefferson's dream of reestablishing trees propagated from the original 1912 gift had become reality.

Although his early contributions to plant records and labeling and his study of crabapples are of great value, Jefferson will be remembered chiefly for his work with flowering cherries. His efforts revitalized interest in ornamental cherries and brought diversity to cherry breeding stock that will enable horticulturists to introduce trees of great beauty for varied landscapes throughout the United States. In addition, preservation of the historical lineage of the cherry trees in Potomac Park is largely the result of his efforts.

As of 2007, Jefferson was the first and only black botanist to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Arboretum. From his home in Honolulu, he and his wife traveled widely, observing flowering cherry trees in bloom wherever they grow.

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