Friday, March 2, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Conifers Around the World
In 1975, dendrologist Zsolt Debreczy and nature photographer István Rácz (then still a university student) set themselves a goal: to search out and document all the conifers in the world’s temperate zones and their adjacent regions — if possible in their most pristine natural habitats. Over the next thirty years, and with the eventual assistance of over a hundred nature-loving volunteers, generous financial supporters, and field associates from hundreds of regional and local institutes and organizations, Debreczy and Rácz spent almost 2,000 days (over five continuous years) in the field on the trail of conifers. They were able to visit and document the world’s most inaccessible conifer taxa and to include the accompanying flora and vegetation in their documentation. They compiled a collection of 340,000 photographs representing thousands of taxa and backed with precise documentation. This collaborative effort produced Conifers around the World in which they present 500 species of conifers of 52 genera, including several that were new to science. Join the Arnold Arboretum on Friday, March 2, from 5:30 – 7 at the Weld Hill Research Building in celebrating this accomplishment, seeing some of these exquisite images, and hearing about this grand search for conifers. Free, but registration requested at www.arboretum.harvard.edu.
