arboretum
An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pen ...
and is open to the public without charge.
The arboretum was dedicated in 2003. It contains more than 200
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of trees and woody bushes including collections of '' Aceraceae'', ''
Aquifoliaceae
''Ilex'' () or holly is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen or ...
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Arecaceae
The Arecaceae () is a family (biology), family of perennial plant, perennial, flowering plants in the Monocotyledon, monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbing palm, climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly k ...
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Betulaceae
Betulaceae, the birch family, includes six genera of deciduous nut-bearing trees and shrubs, including the birches, alders, hazels, hornbeams, hazel-hornbeam, and hop-hornbeams, numbering a total of 167 species. They are mostly natives of ...
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Caesalpiniaceae
Caesalpinioideae is a botanical name at the rank of subfamily, placed in the large family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. Its name is formed from the generic name ''Caesalpinia''. It is known also as the peacock flower subfamily. The Caesalpinioideae ar ...
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Cornaceae
The Cornaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Cornales. The family contains approximately 85 species in two genera, '' Alangium'' and '' Cornus''. They are mostly trees and shrubs, which may be deciduous or evergreen, ...
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Cupressaceae
Cupressaceae or the cypress family is a family of conifers. The family includes 27–30 genera (17 monotypic), which include the junipers and redwoods, with about 130–140 species in total. They are monoecious, subdioecious or (rarely) dioecio ...
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Ebenaceae
The Ebenaceae are a family of flowering plants belonging to order Ericales. The family includes ebony and persimmon among about 768 species of trees and shrubs. It is distributed across the tropical and warmer temperate regions of the world. It i ...
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Ericaceae
The Ericaceae () are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with about 4,250 known species spread acros ...
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Euphorbiaceae
Euphorbiaceae (), the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of Euphorbia, the type genus of the family. Most spurges, such as ''Euphorbia paralias'', ar ...
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Fabaceae
Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...
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Fagaceae
The Fagaceae (; ) are a family of flowering plants that includes beeches, chestnuts and oaks, and comprises eight genera with around 1,000 or more species. Fagaceae in temperate regions are mostly deciduous, whereas in the tropics, many species ...
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Ginkgoaceae
The Ginkgoaceae is a family of gymnosperms which appeared during the Mesozoic Era, of which the only extant representative is ''Ginkgo biloba'', which is for this reason sometimes regarded as a living fossil. Formerly, however, there were several ...
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Hamamelidaceae
Hamamelidaceae, commonly referred to as the witch-hazel family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Saxifragales. The clade consists of shrubs and small trees positioned within the woody clade of the core Saxifragales. An earlier system ...
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Hippocastanaceae
Hippocastanoideae is a Family (biology), subfamily of flowering plants in the Sapindus, soapberry family Sapindaceae. The group was formerly treated as the separate families Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae. molecular phylogeny, Molecular phylogene ...
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Juglandaceae
The Juglandaceae are a plant family known as the walnut family. They are trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia.
The nine or ten genera in the family have ...
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Magnoliaceae
The Magnoliaceae () are a flowering plant family, the magnolia family, in the order Magnoliales. It consists of two genera: '' Magnolia'' and ''Liriodendron'' (tulip trees).
Unlike most angiosperms, whose flower parts are in whorls (rings), ...
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Moraceae
Moraceae is a family of flowering plants comprising about 48 genera and over 1100 species, and is commonly known as the mulberry or fig family. Most are widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, less so in temperate climates; however, their ...
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Nyssaceae
Nyssaceae is a family of flowering trees sometimes included in the dogwood family (Cornaceae). Nyssaceae is composed of 37 known species in the following five genera:Averyanov, L. V. & Hiep, N. T. (2002). ''Diplopanax vietnamensis'', a New Speci ...
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Oleaceae
Oleaceae, also known as the olive family or sometimes the lilac family, is a taxonomic family of flowering shrubs, trees, and a few lianas in the order Lamiales. It presently comprises 28 genera, one of which is recently extinct.Peter S. Gree ...
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Pinaceae
The Pinaceae (), or pine family, are conifer trees or shrubs, including many of the well-known conifers of commercial importance such as Cedrus, cedars, firs, Tsuga, hemlocks, Pinyon_pine, piñons,
larches, pines and spruces. The family is incl ...
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Rosaceae
Rosaceae (), the rose family, is a family of flowering plants that includes 4,828 known species in 91 genera.
The name is derived from the type genus '' Rosa''. The family includes herbs, shrubs, and trees. Most species are deciduous, but som ...
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Salicaceae
The Salicaceae are the willow family of flowering plants. The traditional family (Salicaceae ''sensu stricto'') includes the willows, poplars. Genetic studies summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) have greatly expanded the circumsc ...
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Sciadopityaceae
Sciadopityaceae, commonly called umbrella pines, are a family of conifers now endemic to Japan but in prehistoric times they could also be found in Europe and China. The sole living member of the family is ''Sciadopitys verticillata'' (the kōyam ...
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Taxodiaceae
Taxodiaceae is a formerly recognized conifer family. It is today recognised as a paraphyletic grade of basal lineages within the Cupressaceae. It contains the following living genera:
*'' Athrotaxis''
*''Cryptomeria''
*'' Cunninghamia''
*'' Glyp ...
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Theaceae
Theaceae (), the tea family, is a family of flowering plants comprising shrubs and trees, including the economically important tea plant, and the ornamental camellias. It can be described as having from seven to 40 genera, depending on the sour ...
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Ulmaceae
The Ulmaceae () are a family (biology), family of flowering plants that includes the elms (genus ''Ulmus''), and the zelkovas (genus ''Zelkova''). Members of the family are widely distributed throughout the Temperate, north temperate zone, and ha ...
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In 2003, the college gained membership in the
American Public Gardens Association
The American Public Gardens Association, formerly the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, is an association of public-garden institutions and professionals primarily in the United States and Canada. Over the last six decades, ...
. This formalized the college's status as an arboretum, opening the way to development of public education, outreach, and research programs, as well as continued conservation of the area.
Ernst and Mary Behrend, the original owners of the Penn State Behrend property, began acquiring many exotic trees, including trees from Asia, when they lived on the site. The first major gift to the arboretum was from th Carrie T. Watson Garden Club which donated flowering crabapples in 1952.