"There is
something noble and pure in a taste for the beauty of vegetation.
The one who plants a tree plants for posterity and he exults it
will continue to flourish long after he shall cease to enjoy his
paternal fields."
-- Marshall Painter, 1857 (who began
planting at the present Tyler Arboretum in 1825)
Purposes of the Lovett Pinetum Foundation
at the Pearson Creek Unit
"An experiment is never a failure soley because it fails to achieve the predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don't prove anything one way or another." -- Robert M. Pirsag, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance
(1) Creation of preserves of many conifer species and the development of practical methods for establishing sustainable conifer collections outside their normal geographic ranges, thereby discovering new conifer species which will add to urban and rural botanic diversity and habitat diversity.
(2) Study of conifer diseases and insect damage and practical methods of control.
(3) Definition of specific species survival possibilities in different hardiness zones, climates, soil units, etc.
(4) Preservation of endangered conifer species.
(5) Study of ecological relationships of newly established conifer collections, such as commensal and symbiotic relationships, pathogens, spontaneous propagation.
Present Pinetum Locations