Last updated on March 2, 2025
The historical importance of the ongoing biodiversity exploration and plant conservation work of the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) is coming into focus through a major archival project underway at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
During January and February, two student interns from Bennington College, Jay Clark and Jester Wren, spent their Field Work Term processing more than 2,000 documents, slides, and other materials submitted to the Arnold Arboretum Archives by NACPEC members and member institutions. As the institutional repository of the NACPEC archives, the Arboretum will steward these resources—including trip reports, field notebooks, correspondence, plant records, photographs, and other records and ephemera—for interdisciplinary scholarship and the work of future explorers.
Comprehensive archives of the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium are coming online
Funded by an Arboretum donor, the NACPEC Archive Project aims to preserve, synthesize, and inventory the modern-era China expeditionary holdings amassed by the Arboretum and NACPEC participants. This effort is crucial as the consortium’s staff members retire or pass away, risking the loss of their records and archives. The project also seeks to capture oral histories from those who witnessed China’s transformation and the rise of international cooperation among botanical gardens and associated scientists to study and preserve biodiversity.
Madeline Schill, Collections Fellow at the Arboretum and coordinator of the archive project, expressed her astonishment at the rapid progress made so far since the launch of the project this winter. She said, “We are incredibly fortunate to have Bennington interns during this first quarter of the NACPEC archival project. They made quick work of a tremendous task with their enthusiasm, efficiency, and remarkable attention to detail.” In addition to completing the cataloging phase of the project ahead of schedule, Jay and Jester helped identify gaps in the archives that Schill hopes to fill through additional outreach to participating individuals and institutions. “We want to make sure that the Arboretum can tell the comprehensive history of NACPEC online,” she said.
Jon Hetman
The Arnold Arboretum first sent plant explorers to China in the first decade of the twentieth century. The modern era of plant collecting in China (1980-2023) has seen the Arnold Arboretum conduct expeditions both independently and as a member of NACPEC. Founded in 1991, NACPEC is a multi-institutional association of North American and Chinese botanical gardens dedicated to studying, documenting, and collecting plants of Chinese provenance for research and ex-situ conservation. NACPEC has carried out 21 expeditions to China since its inception, with seven involving the Arnold Arboretum. The consortium has successfully engaged multiple generations of scientist-explorers to study and preserve China’s threatened flora.
“The NACPEC Archive project is a vital step in ensuring that the legacy of botanical exploration and collaboration between North America and China is preserved for future generations,” notes Miles Schwarz Sax, Assistant Curator and current NACPEC Chair. Once brought fully online, the comprehensive archive will be accessible to conservation biologists, curators, scholars, and ecologists, providing valuable resources for research and biodiversity preservation efforts.
This article was originally published on the Arnold Arboretum’s website and has been republished here with permission from the Arnold Arboretum.
