South Korea’s Chollipo Arboretum opens new Botanical Library

The Carl Ferris Miller Botanical Library at Chollipo Arboretum in South Korea opened its
doors this June thanks to a generous gift from major Korean bank, KB Financial Group Inc.

The new library will benefit both staff and visitors, particularly botanical and horticultural experts and students outside of the Arboretum.

Chollipo Arboretum Foundation Director Kim Yong-Shik said opening the library was a historic day for the Arboretum.

“The late Dr Carl Ferris Miller, founder of the Chollipo Arboretum, always envisioned a library here. Together, we have helped to bring that vision to life. Our new library contains around 17,000 volumes of botanical and horticultural publications that Dr Miller collected during his lifetime,” Dr Kim said.

“The Carl Ferris Miller Botanical Library also features a botanical archive which will be developed over the next decade to preserve key documents from Chollipo Arboretum,” he said.

About Chollipo Arboretum

Chollipo Arboretum is internationally renowned for its extensive collections of magnolia, holly, camellia, maple, and Rose of Sharon. It was honourably selected as ‘Arboretum Distinguished for Merit’ by the International Dendrology Society in 2000, the first in Asia to be recognized.

Chollipo Arboretum began in 1962 when naturalized Korean, Dr. MIN Pyong-gal (Carl Ferris Miller) from the United States, purchased one hectare of land. From the early 1970s, he began cultivating the Arboretum on the once barren land. Dr. MIN Pyong-gal spent more than half of his life devoted to developing Chollipo Arboretum. Via plant exchanges with 315 botanical institutions from 36 countries and additional land purchases over the years, Chollipo Arboretum underwent a significant expansion. Today, it is 60 hectares in size and home to more than 16,900 different varieties of trees and shrubs, as well as herbaceous species.