Arnold Arboretum
Dr. Charles S. Sargent, first director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, visited the Rochester Parks often.
Sargent traveled widely to see trees, shrubs and flowers, and authored the monumental work, The Silva of North America." He was one of the greatest authorities on plants in the world.
Beginning in 1902, Sargent offered seedlings of trees and shrubs to the City of Rochester. Over 368 species of these trees and shrubs were received by the Rochester parks, resulting in a near duplication of the plant material found at the Arnold Arboretum. Highland was fortunate to have been the beneficiary of many of these donations.
(“Charles Sprague Sargent (1841–1927) was an American botanist. He was appointed in 1872 as the first director of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, and held the post untll his death. He published several works of botany. The standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he identifies.”) source: Wikipedia
Dr. Charles S. Sargent
“...W. J. Bean who, for twenty-seven years has been in charge of the tree and shrub department of the royal botanical Gardens in Kew, London ... came from England to see the Arnold Arboretum, but at the urgent request of Dr. Sargent, he came to Rochester to see the parks. Mr. Bean said that Highland Park contained the finest collection of trees and shrubs in the world, not as extensive as that of Kew Gardens or Arnold Arboretum at Boston, but being superior in richness of the collection and the excellent way in which the landscape gardening has been managed...”
Pages in this section:
Frederick Law Olmsted | Rochester's Park System | Arnold Arboretum | Lamberton Conservatory | The Poet's Garden | Warner Estate | Historical Images