The Stanford University Arboretum is an 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 on the grounds of Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in Stanford, California

Stanford, California

Stanford is a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States and is the home of Stanford University. The population was 13,809 at the 2010 census....

. It is open to the public daily without charge.

The arboretum began with the indigenous live oaks on Leland Stanford

Leland Stanford

Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...

'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

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

 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

Jane Stanford

Jane Stanford was the co-founder of Stanford University with her husband, Leland Stanford, whom she wed in 1850. She was the daughter of a shopkeeper and lived on Washington Avenue in Albany, New York, before her marriage...

 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 Gum

Blue Gum

Blue 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 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 representing 150 genera and sixty families. The most common tree is the coast live oak

Coast Live Oak

Quercus agrifolia, the Coast Live Oak, is an evergreen oak , 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 Quercus agrifolia, the Coast Live Oak,...

, although valley, blue, and black oak

Black oak

Quercus velutina, the eastern 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 eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 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 Cedar

Lebanon Cedar

Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region.There are two distinct types that are considered to be different subspecies or varieties. Lebanon cedar or Cedar of Lebanon Cedrus libani is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean...

, California Washingtonia, California sycamore

California Sycamore

Platanus racemosa is a species of sycamore tree known by several common names, including California sycamore, Western sycamore, California plane tree, and in Spanish Aliso...

, Canary Island Date Palm

Canary Island Date Palm

Phoenix canariensis is a species in the palm family Arecaceae, native to the Canary Islands. It is a relative of Phoenix dactylifera, the true date palm....

, coast live oak

Coast Live Oak

Quercus agrifolia, the Coast Live Oak, is an evergreen oak , 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 Quercus agrifolia, the Coast Live Oak,...

, Deodar Cedar

Deodar Cedar

Cedrus 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 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...

, red mulberry

Mulberry

Morus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae. The 10–16 species of deciduous trees it contains are commonly known as Mulberries....

, Santa Lucia Fir, Torrey Pine

Torrey Pine

The Torrey Pine, Pinus torreyana, is the rarest pine species in the United States, an endangered species growing only in San Diego County and on one of the Channel Islands, endemic to the coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion in the U.S...

, and White Ash

White Ash

For another species referred to as white ash, see Eucalyptus fraxinoides.Fraxinus 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...

.

The Arizona Cactus Garden

Arizona Cactus Garden

The 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 , Stanford, California, USA, and open to the public daily without charge.-History:The garden...

 and Stanford Mausoleum

Stanford Mausoleum

The 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...

are located within the arboretum.