The University of Michigan Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden is the largest collection of heirloom peonies in North America and now takes the lead role in an international initiative to preserve and catalog living historic peonies by aesthetic, cultural, and scientific criteria. Yet these abstract criteria quickly present very real and conflicting decision points about which peonies to save from extinction. Matthaei-Nichols Curator Dr. David C. Michener discusses these issues and the remarkable role the garden plays as a global reference collection. Audience members are invited to critique the decision process and the project trajectory following an illustrated presentation.

The Peony Garden, started in 1922 with a gift from Dr. W. E. Upjohn (UM Class of 1875), is being stewarded as a distinctive living collection in a museum context with deepening roles as a public icon, cross-cultural resource, genomic treasury and DNA-fingerprinted research tool. Public and academic users are being provided with unparalleled access to the living plants, their records and their literature. Visit the Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden website for more information: mbgna.umich.edu/peony/.