Abstract

The accession data quality and record keeping at 21 botanic gardens, 35 gardens with National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens (NCCPG) collections, and eight other significant gardens in the UK was surveyed in January 2001, with special reference to Hebe.Nearly half of all the gardens in the survey had no written policies or procedures on accessions. This correlated significantly (p<0.05) with poorer quality accession data. Only 14% of botanicgardens and 17% of NCCPG gardens recorded all the minimum accession data fields recommended by the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). Only a third of all types of garden stored all their data on computer; a third of the botanic gardens updated their data less frequently than every two years, and the information transferred from the accession records to labels was sometimes scant. There was a significant negative correlation between the average number of accessions per member of staff, and accession data quality — more than 250accessions per member of staff often corresponding to poor data quality.We challenge the view that botanic gardens should only concentrate on plants from the local indigenous flora (Action Plan for Botanic Gardens in the European Union, BGCI 2000) becauseit restricts the educational role and research potential of the garden and limits the world-wide collections of endangered species being kept safe from indigenous hazards. However, with a need to limit the plants in gardens to a manageable number with good records, criteria will be needed to select which species to represent in collections. A list of criteria, developed from areview of the Hebe collection in the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, is suggested for all plants in botanic and similar gardens.

Highlights

  • Animal and plant collections in zoological and botanic gardens have many common aims, the most important being display for educational purposes, conservation of the species in their charge and the maintenance of reference collections for research

  • A survey of 119 European botanic gardens in 29 countries in 1999 found that the majority of the plant collections were small; they contained a large proportion of non-wild origin accessions and many of the collections had poor accession data (Maunder et al, 2001)

  • Two gardens used a Global Positioning System (GPS) in the garden and yet half the gardens that sent expeditions used a GPS device to identify the location of the habitat, in conjunction with a description or map grid reference

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Summary

Introduction

Animal and plant collections in zoological and botanic gardens have many common aims, the most important being display for educational purposes, conservation of the species in their charge and the maintenance of reference collections for research. A survey of 119 European botanic gardens in 29 countries in 1999 found that the majority of the plant collections were small; they contained a large proportion of non-wild origin accessions and many of the collections had poor accession data (Maunder et al, 2001). A review of ex situ collections in botanic gardens world-wide, reported in 2001 by The World Conservation Union (IUCN) (BGCI, 2001), estimated that in the UK 70-80% of these collections were set up before the Convention on. Nicholas Wray is the Curator of the University of Bristol Botanic Garden. Address: University of Bristol Botanic Garden, Bracken Hill, North Road, Leigh Woods, Bristol BS8 3PF

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