Hi All: Several years ago (about 8 if memory serves) Jane McGary, Robert Pries, Jim Shields and I informally discussed the challenges of incorporating private plant collections into botanic gardens and/or the NAPCC. The challenges identified back then are still valid today - and they have done an excellent job of elucidating them. The point that Dennis Kramb makes about the longevity of his collections related to their hardiness in his climate has corollaries in the botanic garden world as well. Non-hardy containerized plants are more susceptible to over/under watering and heating systems that break down in winter, as well as other environmental factors critical to survival, and for this reason Chicago Botanic Garden (and I believe most if not all of the other NAPCC collection holders) have avoided them (Paul Licht, can you think of any exceptions?). The American Public Gardens Association organized and maintains the North American Plant Collections Consortium. It is the closest thing we have to the British National Collections in the USA and Canada. An important part of the collection application requires the legal commitment of the Board of Directors to provide the resources needed to maintain the Collections indefinitely or until they can pass the collection onto another institution. The absence of the equivalent of a Board of Directors for private collection holders is not an issue that can be easily overcome. As a result of the discussions with Jane, Rob and Jim, I mentored several private collection holders in an effort to create the kind of documentation that needs to be passed onto future care holders. Most of them did not have the resources (time, interest and/or knowledge of computer databases/spreadsheets) necessary to create these records. The missing piece of the puzzle wasn't the scientific or biological value of the collections or the knowledge of the critical information about each accession but rather an individual who was interested and able to work with the collection holder over a period of time to get all of the information recorded on their behalf. A database for this purpose doesn't have to be fancy. In fact, for most private collections, I would recommend using a spreadsheet application like Excel. From my perspective, the *critical* point is that all private collection holders must utilize a template that incorporates the names for the fields (columns) that is current usage in the botanic garden/biological collections world. This insures that if an opportunity presents itself in the future to more formally recognize these collections and make their data available to the scientific community the information would be easily transmissible. Best wishes to all from a very snowy and cold Chicago. Boyce Tankersley Director of Living Plant Documentation Chicago Botanic Garden On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net>wrote: > Robert Pries wrote > >There is a new initiative occurring in the American Public Gardens > >Association. It is a system of National Collections similar to the > >British System. These collections are meant to preserve the genetic > >diversity within the nation. The USA is far behind in this effort, > >compared to the British. A major component of the system is a will > >that allows for the transfer of a collection to another new or > >existing National Collection Holder. Many years ago I tried to talk > >with the Association of Botanic Gardens and Arboretums. They were > >not interested in working with private plantsmen. I believe this is > >partly due to a vocal scam artist who was milking plantsman at the > >time for plants he could sell in his nursery by claiming to run a > >National Collection System. > > The aforementioned person also contacted me, but I found him so > annoying that I turned him away. > > I'm sure our British members will have things to say about the > National Collections program. I've heard a lot about it and also have > a book on it. I know that some of the British National Collections > are wonderful, well-curated resources, but I've also encountered > people who had, or wanted to have, a National Collection but seemed > not to know enough about what they were collecting. Such a program is > vulnerable to various kinds of conflict. > > On the other hand, the idea of a database of private collections has > been discussed previously on this forum. I wouldn't mind contributing > my data to a project like that. > > Jane McGary > Portland, Oregon, USA > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >