arbor

Latin arbor meant tree, and the suffix -ētum denoted a place where something grew: olivētum (olive grove), rosētum (rose garden), arborētum (tree garden). The Romans used the word casually for any grove, but the modern arboretum is a deliberate, scientific institution—a living collection of trees planted for research, education, and conservation.

The first modern arboretum was likely the one established by John Tradescant the Elder in Lambeth, London, in the early 1600s. Tradescant was a plant collector for the English aristocracy, and his garden contained specimens from his travels across Europe, North Africa, and Virginia. After his death, his collection passed to Elias Ashmole and eventually became the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

The Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, founded in 1872 and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, became the model for research arboreta in America. Its 281 acres contain over 15,000 plants, organized by taxonomic family. The arboretum was both a scientific laboratory and a public park—Olmsted insisted that beauty and research were not in conflict.

Arboreta have become critical to conservation as forests shrink worldwide. The Global Trees Campaign, launched in 1999, uses arboreta as living gene banks for endangered species. A tree driven to extinction in the wild may survive in an arboretum, its genetic material preserved for future restoration. The Latin word for tree now names the last refuge for trees that have no other home.