As an introduction to the present book I would like to explain how it
was, that I, a commercial nurseryman, became so keenly interested in
Conifers and their nomen- clature. In August 1924 the Dutch
Dendrological Society was founded and at the same time a Committee for
Nomenclature of woody plants was set up and I served on this committee
as one of the members. Our first activity was to bring the catalogues of
the various leading nurserymen in the Netherlands into line with the
International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature and also to check their
nursery stock. Formerly these catalogues had shown a rather confused
nomenclature, nurserymen having usually made use of a variety of
inconsistent books as guides in compiling their catalogues. In the
course of the work a close co-operation between scientific and practical
workers developed. Although I had also fully contributed to the correct
naming of hardy shrubs and perennials, 1 was most interested in
Conifers. I had tried out several species, had grown a wide choice of
garden forms and selected types of particular merit for propagation. My
special love for Conifers lead to the publication of my Name-list of
Conifers (1937), which was adopted as a standard for varietal names at
the International Horticultural Congress in Berlin (1938). Later I
prepared my book 'Coniferen, Ephedra en Ginkgo' in the Dutch language
(1949); compiling the Conifers cultivated or known to be grown in the
Netherlands and Belgium at that time.
