Page 15 - Free State Summer 2023

IT'S TIME FOR SHARING A Jerry Faulring

Box Tree Moth

(Cydalima perspectalis)

Many of you likely know Lynn Batdorf based on his long world’s most complete boxwood collections. The arboretum
affiliation with boxwood. He has written several books is operated by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the
about boxwood. As the Official Registrar for Buxus Cultivars chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of
from his base at the U.S National Arboretum, Washington, Agriculture. He also maintains the largest authoritative list of
DC, Lynn Batdorf steadily worked through the increasing boxwood known.
numbers of old and new Buxus cultivars which required
The following article first appeared in the Boxwood Bulletin
botanical clarification and descriptive citation before official
last spring. I solicited Lynn’s permission to reprint the article
Registration.
here to which he gave an enthusiastic yes! I found the article
Lynn R. Batdorf has searched far and wide for boxwood very informative about our newest threat to the most widely
in efforts to diversify the collection he curated at the U.S. purchased landscape plant in the United States. They have
National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. appeared just a few miles from where I grew up in Western
New York, coming from Canada. There will be a surprise in the
Batdorf, a horticulturalist, has been curator of the
arboretum’s National Boxwood Collection since 1977, carefully article should you choose to read – not telling!
tending about 150 different species and cultivars in one of the Jerry

Since 1859, Cydalima perspectalis, the Box Tree Moth (BTM), has been a minor pest in its
native habitat of the temperate and subtropical regions East Asia, primarily China, Japan

and Korea. However, when introduced into a new environment, the effects can be very
devastating. Cydalima was first reported in Europe (SW Germany and the Netherlands) in

2007, then quickly recorded in 30 European countries.
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