At least 60,000 people will visit the holiday flower show in St. Paul's Como Park this month, fulfilling a long-ago dream that the horticulture conservatory become a premiere indoor gathering place in winter.

The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, with its signature glass dome, has survived several calamities in its 95-year history and remains a rare cultural attraction even in Minnesota's coldest months.

"The Twin Cities should wear this as a badge of honor," said Tina Dombrowski, the conservatory's horticulture manager. "Very few cities have been able to maintain their crystal palaces, as they were known at the time."

The conservatory's history is now featured in a new book, "Jewel of Como," that details a dramatic undertaking to create a "botanical temple" rivaling anything found in coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco. Cottage Grove horticulturist Gordon Bailey, in the book's foreword, describes winter in the conservatory as "the poor man's trip to Florida."

The book, published by Afton Press, documents St. Paul's abiding interest in sustaining a conservatory that today contains more than 10,000 plants in its permanent collection.

This year's holiday flower show, which runs through Jan. 18, brings a wash of indoor color to contrast with the outdoor snowscape. The poinsettia is the star of the show, bred in various colors and textures to simulate holiday tastes and aromas.

There's the peppermint twist, which is a light pink poinsettia. The cinnamon stick has a mottled, grainy appearance. Eggnog has a creamy white color with a frothy appearance. The conservatory has others, too, like orange spice and another called "visions of grandeur," which Dombrowski said might more suitably be called "visions of sugarplums dancing in your head."

Begonias in orange, blush pink, warm creamy yellow and cinnamon, and accented with yellow and orange, also will be on display.

Holiday flower shows began at the conservatory about 1925, she said. Now the combination of special shows and the conservatory's vintage collection draws nearly 1.9 million visitors a year.

"We try very hard to make every day fresh," Dombrowski said.

It wasn't always hearts and flowers for the conservatory, however. "Jewel of Como" leads the reader through eras of financial struggle and periods of disaster that nearly ruined it for good.

Much of the conservatory closed during the Great Depression, and then it fell into terrible disrepair by the 1950s when humidity inside the greenhouses had rusted many of the struts that held the glass. In 1962, a devastating hail storm smashed hundreds of panes of glass, injuring the plants below with cascades of shards.

But those are the sad stories. The good news for the conservatory, say authors Leigh Roethke and Bonnie Blodgett, is that hundreds of people worked together to help it survive.

"The building has traveled a long road from dazzling to derelict and back again," the authors wrote. "Annual flower shows entertain and delight, fountains spout and trickle, and the scent of rosemary and jasmine wafts through the air. All who come find comfort in a warm place on a chilly day. Today, Como Park's jewel shines brighter than ever."

Kevin Giles • 612-673-4432

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

THE BOOK

"Jewel of Como," by Leigh Roethke and Bonnie Blodgett, Afton Press, 120 pages, $40. Details at www.aftonpress.com.

THE FLOWER SHOW

Admission is free. Details are available at www.comozoo conservatory.org or 651-487-8200.