From palm fronds to poppies: The Jews who brought them to L.A.

An advertisement for the Germain Seed & Plant Co., circa 1919.

As we celebrate Sukkot with all its greenery and bounty, its also a good time to remember a couple of Jewish Johnny Appleseeds who added variety and color to the Los Angeles landscape. From the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, Eugene Germain, along with Manfred Meyberg, supplied the city with a wide range of plants that included poppies and roses, as well as the jacarandas and coral trees we still grow today.

In Southern California, palm fronds are commonly used as sukkah roofs. We buy them on street corners or at flower shops, get them from neighbors or even cut them from trees growing in our own yards.

In 1900, if you wanted to grow a palm tree, you could choose from 10 varieties of seed, including the still-popular Washingtonia or California fan palm ordered from the Germain Seed and Plant Co. store in downtown Los Angeles, or from their catalog.

Looking for something extra growing in your yard to beautify that sukkah? If you find a bird of paradise, then you have Manfred Meyberg (pronounced MY-berg) to thank. Meyberg started working at Germains as an office boy when he was 19 and eventually become the companys president; he was such a promoter of the bird of paradise, he got it declared the City of Angels official flower in 1952.

Although the Germain company was bought out by an English company in 1990, it is still a significant name in agribusiness. Meyberg is commemorated by a waterfall at the Los Angeles County Arboretum. Yet the two names, important to the development of the citys horticulture, largely have been grown over by the tangle of time.

Fortunately, Harriet Ashby, a great-niece of Eugene Germain, has helped cut through the brush by researching her family roots and writing about them. The family name originally was Bloch, she said in an interview, saying it was changed by Nathan Germain, Eugenes father.

Eugene Germain was born on Nov. 30, 1849, in Moudon, Switzerland, where he was educated in public schools and attended college at Lausanne, Ashby wrote in 1970 for Western States Jewish History. He first went to New York in 1868, then came to Los Angeles in 1870. He married Caroline Sievers in 1872, and together they had five children.

His first L.A. business was a restaurant; then he opened a grocery and poultry store in 1874, at 128 N. Main St., from which he began to package and ship large quantities of fruit and other food items.

By 1884, his business had grown so large that he reorganized, and the Germain Fruit Co. was born. Key to the business was selling seeds, nursery stock and wines, and also running a fruit-packing plant in Santa Ana.

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From palm fronds to poppies: The Jews who brought them to L.A.