Curation of Living Collections

Curating RBG’s Living Collections

RBG maintains and develops over 40 living plant collections spread throughout the Arboretum, Rock Garden, Laking Garden, Hendrie Park and RBG Centre. Of particular note are iris, rose, lily and lilac collections, the latter of which is one of the world’s largest and most diverse lilac collections and a global reference point for this genus. Collections may be displayed on their own, for example the Lilac Collection, or integrated with other plants, for example the Lily Collection. Some collections such as the Japanese Flowering Cherries may form a multi-site collection held both in more than one garden area (the Arboretum and Rock Garden).

What is a Living Collection?

RBG defines a Living Collection as a group of plants grown, assembled and displayed for a predetermined purpose. The horticulture team accessions and assembles plants according to the following categories:

• Taxonomic (by plant genus) e.g. Lilac Collection
• Geographic (by geographical location or range) e.g. Mediterranean Garden
• Horticultural (with horticultural significance) e.g. Magnolia Collection
• Morphological (by form, traits or plant characters) e.g. Weeping Tree Collection
• Display (with an aesthetic function) e.g. Scented Garden
• Economic (plants with ethnobotanical interest) e.g. Medicinal Garden
• Conservation (rare or endangered species both wild and cultivated) e.g. rare plants within RBG’s Living Collections
• Other (for example, heritage plants) e.g. Barbara Laking Heritage Garden

The Lilac Collection, for example, is categorized as a taxonomic, horticultural and display collection.

Purpose of the Living Collections

RBG’s Living Collections support our core mandates of science, horticulture, education and conservation. As with a museum, the Living Collections dedicate RBG to improving the understanding and knowledge of all plants held within the collections. By accumulating, generating and disseminating this knowledge, RBG promotes humanity’s understanding of the relationship between the plant world, society and environment, and create awareness that all life is dependent upon plants.

Curator of Living Collections

The role of the Curator of Living Collections within a botanical garden is often diverse and may vary from garden to garden. Here at RBG it can be defined as being involved with the following areas of work:

• Governing collections – to guide and limit what is collected normally through the creation or revision of curatorial guiding documents such as a Living Collections Policy and a Living Collections Management Plan. These policies and plans ensure RBG’s collections have meaning and are current with RBG’s mandate mission and vision.
• Developing Collections – collections evolve over time so it is essential to acquire new plants to ensure the collections are current, meaningful and have value for the future. Plants may be acquired through field collection, exchange via other gardens, purchase or donation.
• Plant Documentation – without minimum standards of documentation a collection (or plants within a collection) have little value, relevance and tell no story. The information added to the RBG plant records ensures the collections are distinguished from a random assemblage of plants with no meaning to collections with high horticultural, scientific, conservational, educational and cultural value.
• Preserving Collections – making sure that adequate management plant care and horticultural practices are in place with emphasis on preserving and protecting the collections for future generations.
• Research – the search to discover new plant knowledge and to record, interpret and disseminate this information.
• Interpretation and Programming – to support collections based interpretation, programming and outreach and in order to make the collections accessible physically and intellectually.

Plant Identification

RBG curates the Living Collections to make sure that plants are correctly identified, current taxonomic and classification schemes are applied and that correct nomenclature is being used. This is accomplished by:

• Preparing voucher specimens and adding to the RBG Herbarium (HAM).
• Receiving herbarium specimens of nomenclatural standards for registered cultivars.
• Weekly meetings of RBG’s Taxonomic Working Group to resolve nomenclature and taxonomy challenges.
• Networking with horticulturists, scientists, taxonomists, botanists and scholars with expertise in a particular plant family or genus.
• Dealing directly with plant breeders at a cultivar level whenever possible.
• Working closely with flower societies with expertise within a particular genus.
• Reviewing current up to date curatorial references and botanical literature