22 June 2011

Scotland has set up a national arboretum based on a partnership led by the Scottish Forestry Commission and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It will involve collections of specimen trees at sites around the country.

Known as the National Tree Collections, the arboretum was launched last week by Scotland environment & climate change minister, Stewart Stevenson, who said Scotland has some of the finest tree collections in Europe. Around half of the world’s 650-odd conifer species can be grown in Scotland.

“At a time of global concern over encroaching climate change and ongoing habitat destruction, Scotland's tree collections are taking on a new educational and conservation significance. Many of the species featuring in the National Tree Collections are under threat in their own natural environments, so the participating sites are a vital reservoir of genetic material that will both safeguard against this threat of extinction and also help maintain the value of collections in the British Isles in general.”

Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, said he hoped the initiative would help improve understanding of the importance of trees and promote the many benefits that can be derived from their positive management.

The International Conifer Conservation Programme based at the Endinburgh Botanin Garden and was set up in 1991 to help conserve threatened conifer species and their habitats across the globe, through an integrated programme of taxonomic, conservation, genetic and horticultural research.

The National Tree Collections Scotland inaugural sites are:

• Benmore Botanic Garden, Argyll
• Dawyck Botanic Garden, near Peebles
• Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
• Kilmun Aboretum, Argyll
• Scone Palace Pinetum, near Perth.

A number of other locations across Scotland have been identified, and who have already indicated their willingness to get involved.

Tree collections were first established in Scotland more than 200 years ago by the ‘planting lairds’ at locations including Inveraray, Blair Atholl, Scone, Crathes, Dawyck, Drumlanrig, and Hopetoun. The quality of these and other listed Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes, amongst the finest in the land, owes much to these trees and policies.

Scottish plant hunters such as David Douglas later introduced trees from the spectacular forests of the Pacific Northwest of North America, including Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and giant redwood. Later 19th century introductions arrived from Australia (eucalyptus), all parts of the Americas (southern beech and various conifers), China and the Far East (Japanese cedar and Japanese larch) and further collections were established at places such as Crarae and Benmore in Argyll as well as in public parks and gardens including the RBG at Inverleith in Edinburgh and the Glasgow Botanic Gardens.

The Scottish Forestry Commission later set up its own trials and experiments and the Kilmun Arboretum near Dunoon now has one of the most important forest garden collections in Europe because of the range and variety of trees grown in stands and the extensive period of observation and trial.

Source: Forestry Commission Scotland media release