Curatorial Practices for Botanical Gardens

CURATORIAL PRACTICES FOR BOTANICAL GARDENS By Timothy C. Hohn Horticulture Department Edmonds Community College Contents ii Acknowledgments iii I. Introduction.......................................................4 II. Governing Collections..........................................16 Collections Management Policy 17 Collections Management Plan 35 Collections Management Manual 37 Special Collections and Concepts 39 III. Building Collections.............................................49 Gifts 51 Loans 52 Purchases 52 Exchanges 53 Field Collecting 57 Plant Propagation 73 Personal Collections 74 IV. Documenting Collections ....................................78 Introduction 79 Pre-Entry Stage 87 Entry Stage 94 Accession Stage 95 Registration Stage 100 Catalogue Stage 106 Output Stage 109 Exit Stage 110 Standards 111 Automated Documentation Systems 114 Retrospective Documentation and Inventory 120 Preserving Documentation 122 V. Preserving Collections........................................130 Introduction 130 Plant Collections 134 Gene Bank Collections 142 Plant Propagation and Production Programs 147 Preserving Exhibits, Displays and Landscapes 148 VI. Collections Research…..………..................………155 Introduction 155 Research Policy 159 Research and Basic Programming 161 Special Programs 167 VII. Collections and Public Programs……….........……..190 Introduction 190 Public Programming Policy 191 Interpretation 192 Educational Programs 195 Displays and Exhibits 195 iii Acknowledgments The inspiration for this text came from a deep respect for and interest in the role of botanical gardens and their contribution to our understanding of plants. I credit the campus arboretum and W.J. Beal Botanical Garden of Michigan State University with kindling my interest in botanical gardens. The Longwood Graduate Program of the University of Delaware, Longwood Gardens, and the staff of many public gardens throughout North America with whom I have become acquainted have fueled my interest and nurtured my respect for these institutions. This text was made possible by the support of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. In particular, my sincerest thanks to Sue Lathrop, former director of AABGA, Sharon Lee, Assistand Director of AABGA, and the many members of the 1994-96 AABGA Collections Committee without whose editorial support and assistance this text could not have been possible. Thanks are also due to the dedicated librarians of the Edmonds Community College Library for their help in locating journals and books and procuring them through interlibrary loan. Finally, my deepest gratitude to my wife Lynda and my sons Samuel and Bryce for their patience and sacrifices in support of the time I spent working on this project. Timothy C. Hohn September 2004 4 I. Introduction: Museums, Public Gardens, and Collections. I’d venture that in every human habitation there is a collection of something –- tools, cookware, family heirlooms, artwork, you name it. Many of these collections are utilitarian, some purely aesthetic. Regardless, people simply like to collect things. These collections often help to define who we are as individuals, family groups, regional populations, and societies. If you’re a gardener you will inevitably grow a collection of your favorite plants. I have a penchant for monocots and my garden is strewn with a decidedly unorganized and eclectic array of them. This apparent human proclivity to collect helped to shape the first function of our most comprehensive public gardens: the botanical garden. Botanical garden collections, however, are more than just an institutional expression of a human trait. Collecting and collections are the heart and soul of a botanical garden’s purpose to save, understand, and interpret plants. This purpose is more widely shared by museums in an effort to understand and interpret who we are, how we live, our history, our natural surroundings, and our technological and creative endeavors.1 My preoccupation with botanical gardens can be attributed to the countless enjoyable hours I spent on the campus of Michigan State University and most particularly at the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden. I marveled over the huge and seemingly ancient specimens of Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Phellodendron amurense that were surrounded by serpentine beds of taxonomically ordered herbaceous and woody specimens. My first encounter with Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis sporting its fragrant flowers on a mild February day left an indelible impression. The campus arboretum and the botanical garden served as a captivating context for discovery and learning about plants. This text is written from the perspective that botanical gardens are a special type of living museum. Many of the approaches and practices presented here are derived and adapted from the field of museum studies, or museology. From this perspective, I will first try to define and describe a museum and its collections before turning my attention to botanical gardens as a subset of these institutions. So, what exactly is a museum? Museums are unique institutions that acquire and preserve collections. The collections held in public trust by museums are what sets them apart from other cultural or scientific institutions.1 After spending some time searching through the museology literature and several dictionaries, I prefer the following amalgamated definition: a permanent institution for the purpose of acquiring, preserving, researching, and interpreting to the public for its instruction and enjoyment 1 American Association of Museums. Museums For A New Century (New York: American Association of Museums, 1984, p. 35. 5 Curatorial Practices for Botanical Gardens objects and specimens of cultural, scientific, historical, technological, and natural history value.2 I also like this old description from a 1925 publication on ethics by the American Association of Museums: Museums, in the broadest sense, are institutions which hold their possessions in trust for humankind and for the future welfare of the [human] race. Their value is in direct proportion to the service they render the emotional and intellectual life of the people. The life of a museum worker…is essentially one of service. 3 There is also a wonderful quote in Ed Alexander’s essential book, Museums in Motion, An Introduction to the History and Function of Museums: Museums generally derive most of their prominence and importance from their collections, and these holdings constitute the primary difference between museums and other kinds of institutions. The collections, whether works of art, artifacts or specimens from the natural world, are an essential part of the collective cultural fabric, and each museum’s obloigation to its collections is paramount.4 Perhaps we could simply agree that a museum exists to make important educational, research, and aesthetic use of permanent collections.5 Among the vast array of museums, a large segment includes those institutions that focus exclusively on natural history. This group contains a special niche occupied by natural history museums that collect and preserve living specimens: zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, and other similar institutions. I prefer a slightly modified version of the above definition to define botanical gardens: a permanent institution for the purpose of acquiring, preserving, researching, and interpreting to the public for its instruction and enjoyment plants of cultural, scientific, historical, technological, and natural history value. With this definition, you can see that botanical gardens, like museums, are set apart by the centrality of their collections to their purpose and programs –- they are living museums. Dr. Richard Lighty points out some useful distinctions: 2 Edited version of definitions used at one time by the American Association of Museums and the Canadian Association of Museums. 3 American Association of Museums (1925) Code of Ethics for Museum Workers, Washington, DC: AAM. 4 Alexander, E. Museums in Motion, An Introduction to the History and Function of Museums (Nashville: American Association of State and Local History, 1986). 5 Burcaw, G.E. Introduction to Museum Work (Nashville: American Association for State & Local History, 1975). Introduction 6 An institution primarily involved in research on plants over which it does not exercise ownership and continuing stewardship should be called a botanical institute. A display garden with unrecorded or temporary collections is really a park. And an institution that teaches people about plants without using a carefully assembled and recorded group of objects to do this is a school. 6 As living museums, botanical gardens are subject to many of the same tenets of museum practice, or museology, common to all museums. Very often their challenge is even greater in that living museums must employ a diverse and specialized approach to the task of developing and managing –- curating -- their collections. With this text it is my goal to familiarize you with a range of both standard and specialized museological concepts and practices useful for the management, or curation, of botanical collections. Before moving ahead with a discussion of curatorial practices, I would like to define just what a “collection” is, identify the elements of curatorial practice, and the garden professionals responsible for it. First of all, the use of the term “collection” often occurs without regard for the possible difference between the meaning of its singular and plural forms. Museum collections

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