A vast, sprawling arboretum - with more than 400 kinds of trees and hundreds of other plant species - sits smack in the heart of Tucson. Admission is free. The place is open every day of the year.
It's the University of Arizona campus. The entire 400-acre site was designated an arboretum in 2002 by the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta.
"The campus is the oldest continuously maintained green space in Arizona," says Elizabeth Davison, director of the Campus Arboretum. "It goes back more than 100 years. Some of the olive trees here were planted in the 1890s."
A stroll on the campus amounts to a sort of botanical odyssey through a green, brightly flowered, blessedly shaded wonderland of familiar and seldom-seen plants.
Pines and palms, ocotillos and saguaros, figs, mesquites, desert willows, eucalyptus, maples, palos verdes, cedars, oaks, ginkgo biloba, silk floss, monkey ears, jacarandas and bizarre-looking boojums are just a few of the species that line the roads and walkways of this unique urban park.
"All this greenery makes the campus beautiful and homey," says Danielle Edelman, a 19-year-old UA freshman. "I love the great grassy areas, the shade from the trees. It's so much better than seeing a lot of concrete."
Dirk Harris, who works on campus as a network administrator in the Anthropology Building, points out an added benefit of the abundant vegetation. "We love having all these trees because they make great wildlife habitat," Harris says. "We have Cooper's hawks in these trees right here. They moved in and built a nest."
Davison says the arboretum amounts to a living record of a wide variety of plantings that have been popular over the years. "It's a good documentary of historic landscape styles in the Southwest," she says. "In the historic area on the western side of the campus, you'll see some things that aren't politically correct anymore" - such as allergenic olive trees and plants that require quite a bit of water, she notes. "But that's the history. And many of these plants have been here for more than 80 years."
Although the idea for arboretum designation germinated quite recently, in 1999, Davison says many of the trees have been in place for decades, thanks to the work of several key plant experts.
Among them are:
° Robert Forbes, who planted olive trees around the turn of the 20th century that still thrive along North Campus Drive.
° Steve Fazio, a professor of horticulture from the 1940s to the 1980s, who consulted on tree care and introduced new species to campus. ° Warren Jones, a professor and landscape architect who installed hundreds of species on campus from the 1960s to the 1980s.
° Chuck Raetzman, who directed Grounds Services from the 1960s to the 1990s and planted numerous conifers on the campus.
Davison says designation of the entire campus as an arboretum came because of the size and diversity of the plant collection, and because the campus met requirements of the Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. The requirements include having all trees correctly identified, being open to the public, having an educational component and being engaged in conservation of the collection.
Maintaining that collection in garden-quality shape is largely the task of the university grounds staff. "We have about 65 people doing the work here and in outlying campus areas," says Janine Corbin, grounds supervisor. "A lot of it is keeping the grass green and keeping the trees trimmed." Corbin has her favorites. "I really like that Chinese pistache tree over there by the Communication building," she says. "It gives beautiful reddish color in the fall."
Davison notes that some of the outstanding specimens and unusual trees are identified with small descriptive signs. One uncommon and outstanding specimen is the so-called Bicentennial Moon Tree growing east of Flandrau Planetarium. It's a London plane tree that germinated from seeds that went to the moon with the Apollo 14 flight in 1971. The space-traveling seeds were planted on the campus in 1976, the Bicentennial year, so scientists could test the effects of gravity on seed performance. So far: All systems go.
Other trees of special interest include a flaky-barked rock fig tree from Baja California that has flourished on the southwest side of the UA Main Library. Desert vegetation gets special play in the Joseph Wood Krutch Cactus Garden on the mall southeast of the Student Union Memorial Center, and in areas around Old Main.
Davison says many arboretum visitors just walk the campus and enjoy the vegetation in a casual way. Those who want a more structured tour can find recommended routes and additional tree information on the arboretum's Web site.
For a lasting connection with the arboretum, anyone may adopt what's called a Heritage Tree by making a $5,000 donation. A name plaque will identify the tree and honor the donor or a designated person or group. Funds from Heritage Trees are used to care for the tree collection.
More information is available at arboretum.arizona.edu or by calling 621-1582.
° Contact reporter Doug Kreutz at dkreutz@azstarnet.com or at 573-4192.
- Updated:
May 10, 2004
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