Tequesta : Number - 50/1990 - FIU Digital Collections

fine cycad - a Dioon spinulosum growing in a large tub - he loaded
it on his pickup truck and delivered it to me.
This cycad was one of the most striking plants on our five acres.
Whenever I passed it, I was likely to think of Henry Coppinger, forever
smoking a cigar as he worked in his jungle of plants, growing in tubs or
in halves of oil drums. I also thought about the history of the cycad
family, which covered much of the earth during the time of the
dinosaurs, pterodactyls and other incredible reptiles. Somehow it made
me feel that collecting cycads and wrestling reptilian alligators was
esthetically right.
Even at his age, Coppinger was a singular man. Day after day, he
worked among his collection of cycads and other plants with amazing
energy and unstinted devotion. While I liked plants, I sought to use
them not so much as individual "collector's items" but as an integral part
of a unified landscape, an effect I sought to achieve at Montgomery
Drive.
To Be Continued