The Arboretum Gaston Allard (7 hectares), also known as the Arboretum d'Angers and formerly the Arboretum de la Maulévrie, is a municipal 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...

 located at 9, rue du Château d’Orgement, Angers

Angers

Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....

, Maine-et-Loire

Maine-et-Loire

Maine-et-Loire is a department in west-central France, in the Pays de la Loire region.- History :Maine-et-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. Originally it was called Mayenne-et-Loire, but its name was changed to Maine-et-Loire in 1791....

, Pays de la Loire

Pays de la Loire

Pays de la Loire is one of the 27 regions of France. It is one of the regions created in the late 20th century to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful so-called "balancing metropolises" ¹...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It is open daily.

The arboretum was begun in 1863 by botanist

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...

 Gaston Allard (1838-1918) within the closerie Maulévrie, which was then his home. He continued planting until his death in 1918. The property was ceded to the city in 1960, and his former home now houses the Botany Department of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Angers.

Today the arboreum contains an excellent collection of trees: approximately 4,300 specimens represent 1,600 taxa

Taxon

|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...

, including 705 taxa of conifers and 50 of oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

s, with notable specimens of Quercus variabilis, Pseudocydonia sinensis, and Tilia mongolica. In 1980 the arboretum was augmented with a national collection of hydrangea

Hydrangea

Hydrangea is a genus of about 70 to 75 species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia and North and South America. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Japan, and Korea...

s, which now contains approximately 750 taxa. Three new gardens have been added: a shade garden (2000 m²), test garden (4000 m²), and garden of the five senses (1200 m²). All told these gardens contain about 20,000 plants.

The arboretum also contains a major herbarium

Herbarium

In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...

of more than 350,000 specimens dating from the 19th and 20th centuries.