The Stanford University Arboretum is an arboretum located on the grounds of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. It is open to the pubic daily without charge. An arboretum is a botanical garden primarily devoted to trees and other woody plants, forming a living collection of trees intended at least partly for scientific study. ... For other meanings of Stanford, see Stanford (disambiguation). ... Downtown Palo Alto Palo Alto is a city in Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA, named for a tree called El Palo Alto. ...

The arboretum began with the indigenous live oaks on Leland 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 Olmsted 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 Stanford said in her 1903 address to the Stanford trustees: Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824–June 21, 1893) was an American business tycoon, politician and founder of Stanford University. ... Frederick Law Olmsted, oil painting by John Singer Sargent, 1895, Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was a United States landscape architect, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park in New York City, the countrys oldest...

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 Gums 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. Cypress is the name applied to many plants in the conifer family Cupressaceae (cypress family). ...

At present the arboretum contains over 350 species representing 150 genera and sixty families. The most common tree is the coast live oak, although valley, blue, and black oaks 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 eucalyptus 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 a blue atlas cedar, California fan palm, California sycamore, Canary Island palm, coast live oak, deodara cedar, Hampton oak, red mulberry, Santa Lucia fir, Torrey pine, and white ash. Orders & Families Cordaitales † Pinales   Pinaceae - Pine family   Araucariaceae - Araucaria family   Podocarpaceae - Yellow-wood family   Sciadopityaceae - Umbrella-pine family   Cupressaceae - Cypress family   Cephalotaxaceae - Plum-yew family   Taxaceae - Yew family Vojnovskyales † Voltziales † The conifers, division Pinophyta, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxa within the Kingdom Plantae. ... Species About 600; for a full list, see Wikispecies:Eucalyptus Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of trees (rarely shrubs), the members of which dominate the tree flora of Australia. ... Species Cedrus deodara Cedrus libani    var. ... Look up Palm on Wiktionary, the free dictionary The word Palm has several meanings: The central region of the human hand and an ancient unit of length based thereon. ... Sycamore is a name applied at various times and places to three very different types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. ... Missing image image:ccaa-canary. ... Look up Palm on Wiktionary, the free dictionary The word Palm has several meanings: The central region of the human hand and an ancient unit of length based thereon. ... Southern live oaks on Skidaway Island, near Savannah, Georgia Live oak is a common name for a number of unrelated oaks in several different sections of the genus Quercus that happen to share the character of evergreen foliage. ... Species Cedrus deodara Cedrus libani    var. ... Species See List of Quercus species The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus. ... Species See text Mulberry (Morus) is a genus of 10–16 species of deciduous trees native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa and North America, with the majority of the species native to Asia. ... FIR may stand for: finite impulse response (a property of some digital filters) far infrared, i. ... Binomial name Pinus torreyana Parry ex Carr. ... Species Many, see text. ...

See also

• List of botanical gardens in the United States

This list of botanical gardens in the United States is intended to include all significant botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States of America. ...

References

• Trees of Stanford and Environs, Ronald N. Bracewell, Stanford Historical Society, 2005.