Inventory
Overview of the Living Collections
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is the oldest public arboretum in North America and is recognized as one of the world's leading centers for the study of plants. Since its founding in 1872, the Arboretum’s goal has been to acquire woody plants (trees, shrubs and vines) from around the world that would be potentially hardy in the Boston area. To accomplish this, the Arboretum has long supported botanical exploration programs to collect germplasm from documented wild sources. In particular, the floristically rich regions of Eastern Asia and North America are well represented in the living collection. Many plants have also been received from colleagues at sister institutions and correspondents, as well as commercial sources.
As of March 2009, the living collections comprised 15,467 individual plants (including nursery holdings) belonging to 10,316 accessions representing 4,030 taxa. Taken together, the collections are considered to be one of the largest and best documented woody plant collections in North America and the world. Many of these accessions or accession lineages are of historical and botanical importance, representing the original North American introductions of Eastern Asian plants collected by Arboretum staff and affiliates such as Charles Sprague Sargent, Ernest H. Wilson, John G. Jack, Joseph Rock, and William Purdom.
Searchable Plant Inventory
The Arnold Arboretum's living collections database, BG-BASE™, is online and can be searched by entering one or more words from the scientific or common name:
- Use * or ] as a wildcard character.
- For example, to search for all values starting with Gent, enter gent* or gent].
- Multiple search criteria should be separated by a comma.
- For example, to look up both Gentiana acaulis L. and Rhododendron lepidotum Wall. ex G. Don, enter Gentiana acaulis, Rhododendron lepidotum.
- Omit authorities or cultivar indicators eg. cv.
- Entries can be either upper or lower case.
Living accessions can be located on the grounds by referencing the grid numbers and directional quadrants within them. For instance, for one of our tupelos (Nyssa sylvatica) the grid is number 22 and the quadrant within it is SW. This location—22-SW—can be matched to the 200-foot-by-300-foot area on the grounds using this location key.
Locations for plants that do not fall within numbered grids are abbreviated as follows:
- BRC = Eleanor Cabot Bradley Collection of Rosaceous Plants
- DGB = The beds surrounding the Dana Greenhouse / nursery complex
- LARZ = Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection
- LG = Leventritt Garden
More detailed information on plant locations can be obtained from the staff in our visitor's center.
Multisite Searches
The Arnold Arboretum collaborates with other institutions to offer a single interface that allows users to search 24 living collections and conservation databases at once. The multisite search functionality is hosted by the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
Printed Inventory
An updated, paperbound edition of the living collections inventory was published in 2007. It lists alphabetically, by both genus and species, the 4,099 different kinds of plants (excluding nursery holdings) that were growing in the main collections of the Arnold Arboretum at that time. Printed copies are available for $15.00, or digital copies are available for free here (pdf). Please do not order by electronic mail; send your order with payment in U.S. funds to
Inventory Orders
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
125 Arborway
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-3500
U.S.A.