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Arnoldia
1927 Map of the Arboretum

Library and Archives

View of the southwest corner of the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library. James Arnold's round pietre dure table may be seen in the center of the photograph. Its top is inlaid with slices of semiprecious stone. Lisa Pearson, 2022.
View of the southwest corner of the Arnold Arboretum Library with James Arnold's pietre dure table in the center.

Introduction to the Horticultural Library and Archives

The Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library and Archives is a specialized research collection devoted to the study of temperate woody plants. We collect works on botany, horticulture, floras, landscape studies, garden history, and dendrology. The library stewards more than 40,000 volumes in Jamaica Plain and at the Harvard Book Depository. The Visual Image Collection contains more than 80,000 photographs, including a significant historical image collection. The Archive Collection documents the Arboretum’s history and is a repository for nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century horticultural and botanical collections.

Sections

A rare 1934 autochrome lantern slide view of Rhododendron Dell. Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.
An autochrome view of Rhododendron Dell with white, pink, and red Rhododendron flowers in bloom.
A botanical illustration of eastern white pine Pinus strobus from Andre Michaux's North American Sylva. Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.
Botanical illustration of eastern white pine Pinus strobus from Michaux's Sylva.
An exhibit of archival materials having to do with the Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection. We regularly mount exhibitions from our archival collections. Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.
An exhibit of archival materials having to do with the Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection.

Related Stories

Aerial view of the Arnold Arboretum looking north from Peters Hill, 1927.

The Arnold Arboretum from the Air

History