The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden is a
botanical garden located on the
campus of Michigan State University in
East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is claimed to be the oldest continually maintained university botanical garden in the
United States and is open to the public without charge year-round during daylight hours.
The garden displays 1,800 plant taxa, in economic, systematic, landscape and ecological groupings.
The botanic garden was started by Prof.
William James Beal
William James Beal (March 11, 1833 – May 12, 1924) was an American botanist. He was a pioneer in the development of hybrid corn and the founder of the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden.
Biography
Beal was born in Adrian, Michigan, to William and ...
as part of the Department of Botany to serve as an outdoor teaching and research laboratory. Work towards starting the garden began in 1872 with a nursery, followed in 1873 by test plots of 140 species of
forage grasses and
clovers
in a portion of the garden referred to as "Sleepy Hollow". Shortly after founding the botanic garden, Professor Beal established an
arboretum
An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...
on campus in 1874 which began as two rows of swamp white
oaks. For the period of time from 1877 to 1924, the garden was known as "The Botanic Garden" or "Wild Garden" at Michigan Agricultural College. Shortly after Professor Beal's death on May 12, 1924, the garden was officially named for him on December 17, 1924, by the Michigan State Board of Agriculture upon the recommendation of the Department of Botany.
After Professor Beal's retirement in 1910, Professor H.T. Darlington was appointed director of the botanic garden in 1914 and served until 1930. The gardens developed from these starting points until 1950, when they were reorganized and redesigned by Prof. Milton Baron to form today's four main collections.
In 1954, the garden began participating in the international seed exchange program, publishing its first Index Seminum, and in 1961 was extended with a collection of acidophilous plants including
rhododendron
''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...
s,
azalea
Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the genus ''Rhododendron'', particularly the former sections ''Tsutsusi'' (evergreen) and '' Pentanthera'' (deciduous). Azaleas bloom in the spring (April and May in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, and Octob ...
s, and
ferns. More recently, a collection of
Michigan's endangered plants was added in 1986, and the non-flowering vascular plant collection was started in 2001 with
ephedras,
conifer
Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...
s,
ginkgo,
cycads,
ferns,
horsetails and
clubmosses.
File:W. J. Beal Botanical Garden - IMG 8944.JPG, Garden in winter
File:MSU_2014_Botanical_Garden_G.jpg, W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, 2014
See also
*
List of botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States
External links
Official website
References
Michigan State University campus
Michigan State Historic Sites in Ingham County
Botanical gardens in Michigan
East Lansing, Michigan
Geography of Lansing, Michigan
Protected areas of Ingham County, Michigan
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