Morton Arboretum
Encyclopedia
The Morton Arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

, in Lisle
Lisle, Illinois
Lisle is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 22,930 at the 2011 census, and estimated to be 23,135 as of 2008. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, covers 1,700 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s (6.9 Square kilometres) and is made up of gardens of various plant types and collections of trees from specific taxonomical and geographical areas. It includes native woodlands and a restored Illinois prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...

. The Arboretum has over 4,100 different species of trees, shrubs and other woody plants from around the globe. In all, there are over 186,000 catalogued plants. The Arboretum has 16 miles (25.7 km) of hiking trails and nine miles (14 km) of roadways for driving/bicycling.

The Arboretum features a 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) interactive "Children's Garden" and a 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) "Maze Garden." Other special landscaped areas include the Fragrance Garden, Ground Cover Garden and Hedge Garden. The Schulenberg Prairie is one of the largest restored prairies
Prairie Restoration
Prairie restoration is an ecologically friendly way to restore some of the prairie land that was lost to industry, farming and commerce. For example, the U.S...

 in the Chicago suburban area.

The Morton Arboretum was listed in 2007 as one of the AIA Illinois 150 Great Places in Illinois
The Arboretum offers an extensive Education Program dedicated to a broader understanding of plants and nature, and ways to improve our world. Classes serve children/family/school groups, encompassing adult programs, certificate and training courses, and a cooperative botany degree program with regional colleges and universities.

Mission

The mission of The Morton Arboretum is to collect and study trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world, to display them across naturally beautiful landscapes for people to study and enjoy, and to learn how to grow them in ways that enhance our environment.

The Arboretum's goal is to encourage the planting and conservation of trees and other plants for a greener, healthier, and more beautiful world. (Source: The Morton Arboretum)

History

The arboretum was established on 14 December 1922 by Joy Morton
Joy Morton
, Joy Morton founded the Morton Salt Company and The Morton Arboretum.Morton grew to manhood in Nebraska City, Nebraska in Nebraska Territory. His mother, Caroline Joy, was an accomplished artist, musician, and gardener...

, founder of the Morton Salt
Morton Salt
Morton Salt is a United States company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of the German company K+S.-History:The company began in...

 Company. Joy Morton's Thornhill Estate, established in 1910, formed the basis of the Arboretum's original area. Mr. Morton's father Julius Sterling Morton
Julius Sterling Morton
Julius Sterling Morton was a Nebraska editor who served as President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture. He was a prominent Bourbon Democrat, taking the conservative position on political, economic and social issues, and opposing agrarianism...

 was the founder of Arbor Day
Arbor Day
Arbor Day is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. It originated in Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States during 1872 by J. Sterling Morton. The first Arbor Day was held on April 10, 1872, and an estimated 1 million trees were planted that day.Many...

.

Sterling Morton Library

Designed by noted Chicago architect Harry Weese
Harry Weese
Harry Mohr Weese was an American architect, born in Evanston, Illinois in the Chicago suburbs, who had an important role in 20th century modernism and historic preservation...

, the Sterling Morton Library constructed in 1963, is located on the east side of The Morton Arboretum adjacent to the Administration Building. Built to house the many resources of the Arboretum, this building honors the memory of Sterling Morton, son of founder, Joy Morton.

The Library’s current holdings include over 27,000 volumes of book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s and magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s, as well as tens of thousands of non-book items including prints
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

, original art, letters, photographs, landscape
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...

 plans and drawings. The collections focus on plant sciences, especially on trees and shrubs, gardening and landscape design, ecology with a special interest in Midwestern prairie, savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

, woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

, and wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

 ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

s, natural history and its art and illustration, both art history and techniques. Animal subjects include birds, mammals, and insects. Works abound on the history of plant exploration, and biographies of botanists
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, horticulturists
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...

, and botanical artists. The library’s historic and current nursery catalogs will assist homeowners in finding sources for plants of interest.

The Library's Suzette Morton Davidson Special Collections contains books, artwork, historic nursery catalogs, landscape drawings, photographs, letters, maps and institutional documents. Papers, photographs, manuscripts and other documents of May Theilgaard Watts
May Theilgaard Watts
May Theilgaard Watts was an American writer, illustrator, and teacher.Watts was the daughter of Danish immigrants. She grew up in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, but began a teaching career in a one-room schoolhouse outside of the city...

, Jens Jensen
Jens Jensen (landscape architect)
Jens Jensen was a Danish-American landscape architect.-Early life:Jens Jensen was born near Dybbøl in Slesvig, Denmark, in 1860, to a wealthy farming family. For the first nineteen years of his life he lived on his family's farm, which cultivated his love for the natural environment...

, Marshall Johnson, O.C. Simonds and Donald Culross Peattie
Donald C. Peattie
Donald Culross Peattie was a U.S. botanist, naturalist and author. He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday.-Biography:...

 are also part of the Special Collections.

The Sterling Morton Library is a member of the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries
Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc. (CBHL)
The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc. is the leading professional organization in the field of botanical and horticultural information services....

.

Visitor Center

Built in 2004, the 36000 sq ft (3,344.5 m²) Visitor Center is a wide-open portal to launch visitors into the Arboretum’s 1700 acres (6.9 km²) outdoor museum of trees. Designed by David Woodhouse Architects, its major elements are arranged to shape “inside-out/outside-in” spaces that take advantage of varied views of the Arboretum’s horticultural collections. “Gateway buildings are a [David Woodhouse] specialty, and this one, which shelters an information center, restaurant, gift shop and lecture hall, follows his custom of slipping smaller structures under a dramatic roof element.” The building’s design includes wood representing the Arboretum’s collections and incorporates sustainable features such as permeable pavers in the parking lots and local fieldstone salvaged from a predecessor building.

See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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