The
Stanford University Arboretum is an
arboretumAn arboretum is a collection of trees. 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...
located on the grounds of
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
in
Stanford, CaliforniaStanford is a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 13,315 at the 2000 census. Stanford is an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County and is adjacent to the city of Palo Alto. Stanford, California is a valid postal address, and has its own...
. It is open to the public daily without charge.
The arboretum began with the indigenous live oaks on
Leland StanfordAmasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:Stanford was born in the town of Watervliet, New York on March 9, in 1824; in what is now the town of Colonie. He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford...
's estate, which later became the university campus, augmented by a variety of trees that he collected. In 1885 Stanford contracted with noted landscape designer
Frederick Law OlmstedFrederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, landscape designer and father of American landscape architecture, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City...
to plan the grounds. An 1888 memorandum by Olmsted, and signed by Stanford, states that the then-extant University Forest and the Arboretum were to be combined, and that "In this enlarged Arboretum it is desired that there shall be exhibited to advantage all the trees and wood plants of the world that may be expected to grow to mature natural forms under the climatic and other conditions of the locality." As
Jane StanfordJane Stanford , was the daughter of a shopkeeper and lived on Washington Avenue in Albany, New York. She wed Leland Stanford in 1850. They headed west, first to Wisconsin and then to California...
said in her 1903 address to the Stanford trustees:
- No buildings of any kind whatever should ever be erected within the grounds of the original Arboretum.
The
Stanford University Arboretum is an
arboretumAn arboretum is a collection of trees. 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...
located on the grounds of
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
in
Stanford, CaliforniaStanford is a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 13,315 at the 2000 census. Stanford is an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County and is adjacent to the city of Palo Alto. Stanford, California is a valid postal address, and has its own...
. It is open to the public daily without charge.
The arboretum began with the indigenous live oaks on
Leland StanfordAmasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:Stanford was born in the town of Watervliet, New York on March 9, in 1824; in what is now the town of Colonie. He was one of eight children of Josiah and Elizabeth Phillips Stanford...
's estate, which later became the university campus, augmented by a variety of trees that he collected. In 1885 Stanford contracted with noted landscape designer
Frederick Law OlmstedFrederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, landscape designer and father of American landscape architecture, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City...
to plan the grounds. An 1888 memorandum by Olmsted, and signed by Stanford, states that the then-extant University Forest and the Arboretum were to be combined, and that "In this enlarged Arboretum it is desired that there shall be exhibited to advantage all the trees and wood plants of the world that may be expected to grow to mature natural forms under the climatic and other conditions of the locality." As
Jane StanfordJane Stanford , was the daughter of a shopkeeper and lived on Washington Avenue in Albany, New York. She wed Leland Stanford in 1850. They headed west, first to Wisconsin and then to California...
said in her 1903 address to the Stanford trustees:
- No buildings of any kind whatever should ever be erected within the grounds of the original Arboretum. It should always be retained in its present condition as a Park for drives and walks so long as the University exists. This Park was a favorite project of my husband and carried into effect twenty-eight years ago. There are many miles of drive[s] within, or connected with shaded avenues, with this beautiful park. The choicest trees are there planted from all parts of the world, and as the years roll on and this most beautiful valley of Santa Clara becomes, as I have no doubt it will, the educational center of our State and thickly settled with beautiful homes, this park will be unique and of itself memorable and monumental. It should, accordingly, always be sacredly preserved from mutilation.
However, these plans for a major tree collection within the arboretum grounds did not materialize. A report by the Olmsted Brothers (May 8, 1914) states:
"The so-called 'Arboretum' extends on either side of the main approach from the County Road. At present the name Arboretum is a misnomer as the name implies that a great variety of trees in botanical order are to be found there. It consists, as a matter of fact, mostly of a thick plantation of Blue GumBlue Gum usually refers to the subspecies or the species in Eucalyptus globulus complex, however it may also refer to a number of other species of Eucalyptus in Australia. Confusingly, in Queensland it usually refers to Eucalyptus tereticornis, which is known elsewhere as Forest Red Gum.* Gippsland...
s and Monterey Cypress." Subsequently the Department of Botany was given supervisory control of the arboretum in order to utilize it more fully for scientific purposes. During the twentieth century the arboretum was sometimes under development, but seldom given great attention.
At present the arboretum contains over 350
speciesIn biology, a species is:* a taxonomic rank or* a unit at that rank ....
representing 150 genera and sixty families. The most common tree is the
coast live oakThe Coast Live Oak is an evergreen oak, highly variable and often shrubby, native to the California Floristic Province. It grows west of the Sierra Nevada from Mendocino County, California south to northern Baja California in Mexico. It is classified in the red oak section...
, although valley, blue, and
black oakEastern Black oak , or more commonly known as simply Black Oak is an oak in the red oak group of oaks. It is native to eastern North America from southern Ontario south to northern Florida and southern Maine west to northeastern Texas...
s are also represented. For some years the arboretum was neglected, though in recent years there has been greater interest in its care. There has been some loss of diversity from the original tree and shrub plantings of the 1880s and 1890s, which is well-documented for conifers. Although the
eucalyptusEucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia, and a very small number are found in adjacent parts of New Guinea and Indonesia...
collection is still prominent, over the past quarter century there has been a significant loss of Eucalypt species, from over 100 to 51 today. Some of the older tree specimens in the arboretum are an
Atlas CedarCedrus libani , is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region, in Lebanon, western Syria and south central Turkey, with varieties of it in southwest Turkey, Cyprus, and the Atlas Mountains in Algeria and Morocco in northwest Africa.The Cedars Conservancy parks...
, California Washingtonia,
California sycamoreCalifornia Sycamore, also called Western Sycamore or Aliso, is a Plane tree, with the botanic name of Platanus racemosa. It has palmately lobed leaves and ball-like, hairy fruit clusters, and bark that flakes off in large patches. It is informally also called "buttonball" or "buttonwood".In keeping...
,
Canary Island Date PalmPhoenix canariensis is a species in the palme family, Arecaceae, native to the Canary Islands. It is a relative of Phoenix dactylifera, the true date palm....
,
coast live oakThe Coast Live Oak is an evergreen oak, highly variable and often shrubby, native to the California Floristic Province. It grows west of the Sierra Nevada from Mendocino County, California south to northern Baja California in Mexico. It is classified in the red oak section...
,
Deodar CedarCedrus deodara is a species of cedar native to the western Himalayas in eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, north-central India , southwesternmost Tibet and western Nepal, occurring at 1500-3200 m altitude...
, Hampton
oakAn oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 400 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
, red
mulberryMorus or Mulberry is a genus of 10–16 species of deciduous trees native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, with the majority of the species native to Asia....
, Santa Lucia Fir,
Torrey PineThe Torrey pine , also called "Del Mar pine" and "soledad pine," is a broad, open-crowned pine growing to 8-15 m tall, with 20-35 cm long leaves in groups of five. The cones are stout and heavy, typically 8-15 cm long and broad, and contain large, hard-shelled, but edible, pine nuts.The...
, and
White AshFraxinus americana is a species of Fraxinus native to eastern North America found in mesophytic hardwood forests from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, south to northern Florida, and southwest to eastern Texas....
.
The
Arizona Cactus GardenThe Arizona Cactus Garden , also known as the Stanford Cactus Garden, is a botanical garden specializing in cactus and succulents. It is located on the campus of Stanford University , Palo Alto, California, USA, and open to the public daily without charge.-History:The...
and
Stanford MausoleumThe Stanford Mausoleum, located in the northwest of the Stanford University campus in the Stanford University Arboretum, holds the remains of the university's namesake Leland Stanford, Jr. and his parents Leland and Jane Stanford....
are located within the arboretum.