‘A tree zoo’: endangered conifers a living legacy of Kent pinetum’s centenary

The pinetum was founded by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the Forestry Commission in 1925 after Kew complained rare conifers were choking in London’s smog. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

With the exception of Christmas trees, conifers are not widely cherished. People tend to associate them with antisocially high suburban hedges or ugly, nature-bereft blocks of industrial forestry.

But at the world’s most important collection of rare evergreens, which is 100 years old this spring, these often unfairly maligned trees are celebrated and revealed in a much more beautiful light.