Mary Daisy Arnold — USDA Pomological Watercolors

109 restored plates, 1910–1940, from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — with a biography from the archival record.

Mary Daisy Arnold (c. 1873–1955) was a Washington-born botanical artist whose fruit studies form one of the three largest groups in the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection. She studied painting in New York and in 1904 joined the Department of Agriculture, where she worked for some forty years. The National Agricultural Library holds more than a thousand of her watercolours, dated from 1908 to 1940 — apples and strawberries above all, with stone fruit, citrus, figs, papayas and persimmons — making her, with Deborah Griscom Passmore and Amanda Newton, one of the three painters responsible for about half the collection.

Her USDA duties also included mounting and colouring lantern slides, and outside the office she painted landscapes in oil. Little else is recorded: her pre-1921 personnel file was among those destroyed. She died at Takoma Park, Maryland, on 13 August 1955; the Washington Evening Star’s notice called her simply a former illustrator at Agriculture.

The plates

Every plate in our restored set credited to Mary Daisy Arnold, by fruit then variety. Each has its own anchor (for example #blenheim-apple). This is our holding, not the painter’s complete output; the National Agricultural Library holds the rest.

Fruit	Variety	Year	Plate
Apple	Blenheim	1913
Apple	Blenheim Orange	1931
Apple	Cox Orange	1931
Apple	Delicious	1925
Apple	Doctor Walker	1912
Apple	Dulaney	1927
Apple	Dumbo	1929
Apple	Earlham	1938
Apple	Fameuse	1912
Apple	Iowa Blush	1912
Apple	Jersey Black	1913
Apple	Malinda	1934
Apple	Manor	1912
Apple	Northwestern Greening	1917
Apple	Norton Red	1913
Apple	Okabena	1924
Apple	Oxford Orange	1915
Apple	Rouge Der Laudel	—
Apricot	Acme	1915
Apricot	Barry	1911
Apricot	Schologi	1915
Apricot	Stanford	1914
Avocado	Dr. Weldun	1917
Avocado	Estelle	1916
Avocado	Lyon	1917
Avocado	Taft	1916
Cherry	Buttners Yellow	1917
Cherry	Cleveland	1915
Cherry	Downer	1916
Cherry	Early Morello	1916
Cherry	Elton	1912
Cherry	Geante de Hedelfinger	1915
Cherry	George Glass	1912
Cherry	Ostheim	1915
Cherry	Perry	1914
Cherry	Stuart Bigarreau	1912
Cherry	Timme	1913
Citrus	Blood Tardiff	1912
Citrus	Thompson	1913
Citrus	Thornton	1935
Fig	Magnolia	1913
Fig	Silver	1911
Gooseberry	Duplication	1912
Grape	Beltvina	1913
Grapefruit	Isle Of Pines	1914
Grapefruit	Silver Cluster Seedless	1916
Grapefruit	Walters	1915
Lemon	Bizarrie	1915
Lemon	Sperryola	1936
Mango	Bombay Yellow	1913
Orange	Temple	1916
Peach	Arp	1916
Peach	Butler Late	1910
Peach	Carman	1936
Peach	Caroline	1916
Peach	Early Mamie Rosa	1911
Peach	Early Smock	1913
Peach	Early Wheeler	1940
Peach	Ellis	1938
Peach	Eureka	1910
Peach	Fisher	1940
Peach	Georgia Cling	1913
Peach	Greensboro	1936
Peach	Lippiatts Late Orange	—
Peach	Masons Orange	1914
Peach	Slappy	1913
Peach	Stump	1913
Peach	Woolsey Cling	1911
Pear	Anjou	1932
Pear	Baseck	1932
Pear	Bloodgood	—
Pear	Cayuga	1937
Pear	Clairgeau	1911
Pear	Cobert	1936
Pear	Coreless	1911
Pear	Cornice	1935
Pear	Dana Hovey	1932
Pear	Desportes	1913
Pear	English Jargonelle	1912
Pear	Fitzwater	1911
Pear	Forella	1911
Pear	Glout Morceau	1915
Pear	Kieffer	1932
Pear	Treyve	1913
Persimmon	Eureka	1917
Persimmon	Fuyugaki	1915
Persimmon	Yemon	1932
Plum	Alexander	1937
Plum	Delicious	1911
Plum	Early Rose	—
Plum	Femmouzi	1915
Plum	Henry Berter	1916
Plum	Straug	1917
Plum	Upright	1915
Plum	Wachampa	1911
Raspberry	Black Pearl	1911
Raspberry	Brinkles Orange	1915
Strawberry	Earliest Of All	1914
Strawberry	Early Giant	1916
Strawberry	Early Jersey Giant	1916
Strawberry	Early Miller	1914
Strawberry	Epsey	1911
Strawberry	George Washington	1913
Strawberry	Gill	1914
Strawberry	Haverland	1916
Strawberry	Hazel	1913
Strawberry	Helen Davis	1913
Strawberry	Rewastico	1914
Strawberry	Riehls Perfection	1915

By period

Plates per year (this set)

Sources & citation

• Mary Daisy Arnold — Wikipedia
• Mary Daisy Arnold — Wikidata
• Mary Daisy Arnold — Database of Scientific Illustrators 1450–1950, University of Stuttgart
• White, J. & Neumann, A. (1982), 'The collection of pomological watercolors at the U.S. National Arboretum', Huntia 4(2): 103–124 — Appendix I, 'Some U.S.D.A. artists'
• Pomological Watercolor Collection — Wikipedia (per-artist counts, citing the National Agricultural Library)
• Watercolor paintings by Mary Daisy Arnold — Wikimedia Commons (the NAL digitisation)
• USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — National Agricultural Library (the originals, with catalogue records)
• USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — finding aid (NAL ArchivesSpace MS0184)
• The collection on Wikimedia Commons

The original watercolours are in the public domain. The restorations shown here are Madten’s, at web resolution. 4 plates carry no year on the record. To cite this page: Madten, “Mary Daisy Arnold — USDA Pomological Watercolors,” https://www.madten.com/reference/mary-daisy-arnold-usda-watercolors, 2026-10-29.