From the vibrant flowers in the azalea collection, to a field of native ferns and the blooming trees in the dogwood section, the U.S. National Arboretum offers the serene natural beauty of a public garden. But government scientists in charge of the 452-acre (183-hectare) complex have a top-priority mission: shore up the U.S. economy by making sure that this critical type of agriculture continues to thrive.
“What we do is support the American nursery industry … which is really one of the largest forms of agriculture,” says Richard Olsen, director of the National Arboretum. “You have ornamental landscapes, horticulture, turf — all of that occurs in every county, in every state of the union. So, it forms a large portion of American agriculture and therefore, an important part of the economy.”
The ornamental and landscape plant industry generates $13.8 billion in sales each year, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Established by Congress in 1927, the arboretum plays a leading role in researching and developing trees, shrubs, flowers and grass, with a particular focus on woody landscape plants like trees and bushes.
“We are, first and foremost, a premier scientific institution, science-based research facility and public garden,” Olsen says. “It's somewhere around 650-plus plants that we have bred or released. … [including] more than 450 azaleas for American landscapes. But they include maples, viburnums, lilacs, camelias, American elms, hemlocks. … We’ve released quite a few across the board, usually out of our breeding programs [since 1927].”
The arboretum is home to one of the largest collections of preserved seeds in the world. The National Arboretum Herbarium houses around 700,000 specimens, including those from species that the U.S. Department of Agriculture views as economically important.
“One of the things that we focus on is collecting the genetic diversity within those species, and both native and non-native. So, our role, our goal and our mission is to conserve as much of the genetic diversity of those species as possible,” says Kevin Conrad, the arboretum’s lead horticulturist.
The reason for collecting that data is to protect plants from adverse situations such as climate change, altered habitats and other new and potential risks.
“We never know what the emerging threat will be. There is a chance that a gene from any of those collections would help resolve that issue,” Conrad says. “There are examples throughout the USDA history, in conservation and plant collection, where the gene in a wheat plant or a grape plant has been able to thwart a disaster, a catastrophic event, a collapse of a critically important agricultural crop.”
