Plant Exploration

Jackson Dawson, our first propagator, was a master plantsman. During his 43 years at the Arboretum, he raised and distributed throughout the world 450,718 plants and 47,993 packets of seed and received in return from collectors, arboreta, and botanic gardens, 174,200 plants and 27,729 packets of seed. A truly impressive record! 

During the ten years that plant explorer Ernest Henry Wilson spent exploring eastern Asia, he collected more than 1,000 unique accessions for the Arnold Arboretum. He sent back around 16,000 herbarium specimens (not including duplicates sent elsewhere) and 2,500 large-format photographs. Today, about 320 plants growing in the Arnold Arboretum’s landscape bear Wilson’s name as the collector.

Stephen Spongberg and Richard Weaver’s 1977 collecting trip to Japan and Korea made 505 collections, representing 327 taxa. Today there are 225 plants or descendants of those plants living on our grounds. We can preserve plants that might be in decline by taking cuttings and repropagating them. The new plants are clones and are genetically identical to the plants from which they were derived. 

Since 1991, the North America–China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) has brought together plant collectors from Chinese and American botanical institutions for 17 expeditions. At the Arnold Arboretum, these collaborations have amassed more than 700 distinct collections, with about 940 plants living as of 2020.