Bob's News & Musings: ACS Beginnings p1

"The American Conifer Society has been around for a while, since 1983, to be exact. It was not the first attempt to start a plant society focused on conifers.

During the late 1930s, Col. Robert H. Montgomery tried to generate interest in forming a conifer society. He was an active conifer collector who had established a world-class collection at his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. I believe he came up with the idea after Arthur Slavin reported on the status of cultivated conifers in the United States, which he presented at the International Conifer Conference held by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1931.

Slavin was the Chief Horticulturist in the Bureau of Parks, Rochester, New York. He mentions the extensive collections of conifers at the Hunnewell Estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts (the oldest pinetum in the United States) and the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts (the second oldest pinetum) in his report. However, the report focuses on the Highland Park Collection (1896) and the Durand Eastman Park Collection (1912).

Hornibrook was busy updating his classic book on dwarf conifers. Montgomery thought the country was ready for a conifer society, especially since there were over 500 dwarf varieties described in Hornibrook’s new edition. Unfortunately, his call to begin a conifer society generated little interest."

Read the full article here.

Bob's News and Musings. Article presented courtesy of ACS member Bob Fincham, and originally posted at https://www.robertfincham.com/ .