Exhibits
Guided Tours
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Join us for an interactive look at all the tiny critters that crawl, fly, or slither through the Arboretum landscape. We will have sweep nets and bug boxes to catch bugs in Kent Field, digital microscopes to get a closer look, some fun bug crafts, and an entomologist to help us identify everything we find. This is an all-ages, interactive program: come prepared to move around and get up close with some bugs and insects!
In 2016, the Donald Pfister lab at Harvard University discovered a new species of mycorrhizal truffle at the Arboretum, related to the famed culinary truffle but genetically distinct. Nine years later the lab is still making new discoveries in the field of mycorrhizae: the fungi that form symbiotic associations with plant roots and provide the plants with extra water and nutrients from the soil in exchange for a steady supply of sugars.
Join Professor Don Pfister for a research spotlight on mycorrhizae and the Arboretum truffle, and learn about the biology of mycorrizae, how the Arboretum truffle and other mycorrhizae disperse their spores, and how to go about finding mycorrhizae in the landscape. The group will also take some soil cores and look for evidence of mycorrhizae in the soil. Maybe we’ll find a truffle!