The first North American Plant Collection Consortium's multi-institutional application for the genus Quercus (Oak) was approved in late August. Fifteen institutions from throughout the US are participating in this collaborative, multi-site collection. They include Chicago Botanic Garden, Cornell Plantations, Denver Botanic Gardens, Holden Arboretum, Landis Arboretum, Missouri Botanical Garden, Morris Arboretum, Morton Arboretum, Mount Auburn Cemetery, New York Botanical Garden, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Scott Arboretum, UC Botanical Garden – Berkeley, UC Davis Arboretum, and University of Washington Botanic Gardens.

NAPCC's new multi-institution application provides a forum for institutions to collaborate on the ex situ preservation of plants, particularly those taxonomic groups that have diversity sufficient to encourage preservation across a wide range of geographic and climatic conditions in North America. A multi-site approach can more adequately represent genetically diverse and/or regionally adapted plant groups than can be represented with a single institutional collection. Currently being tested during a pilot phase, this new approach will offer another option for those interested in applying to participate in the NAPCC.

The development of the multi-site Quercus initiative was facilitated by Dennis Collins, Horticultural Curator at Mount Auburn Cemetery. He contacted institutions with significant Quercus holdings to gauge their interest in participating in this collaboration. Institutions signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to participate in developing the application. Dennis gathered data on each institution's holdings into a combined inventory. Initial decisions needed to be made regarding plant name synonomy, although addressing taxonomic issues within the genus will remain an on-going activity of the group. The ex situ holdings were compared with North American taxa listed by IUCN as threatened or endangered and future expansion of the group will target the missing taxa. The NAPCC application included components for each participating institution to address, while other aspects were completed by the facilitator with input from the group. This process took many months until Dennis assembled all the required information for the application in December. The institutions were then peer-reviewed during onsite visits during spring and early summer.

The newly-formed NAPCC Quercus Curatorial Group met this summer at the Annual Conference in Washington D.C. The role of coordinator will be rotated among several of the gardens every 2-3 years. Emily Griswold, Assistant Director of Horticulture at UC Davis Arboretum, is currently facilitating the group's activities. For more information, email Emily at ebgriswold@ucdavis.edu.