The Arnold Arboretum is a botanical research institution and free public park affiliated with Harvard University and located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston.

[5] The Arboretum was founded in 1872, when the President and Fellows of Harvard College became trustees of a portion of the estate of James Arnold (1781–1868), a whaling merchant from New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Benjamin Bussey (1757–1842), a prosperous Boston merchant and scientific farmer, donated his country estate Woodland Hill and a part of his fortune to Harvard University "for instruction in agriculture, horticulture, and related subjects".

Bussey had bought land from fellow patriot Eleazer Weld in 1800 and further enlarged his large estate between 1806 and 1837 by acquiring and consolidating various farms that had been established as early as the seventeenth century.

After an initial visit several years prior, in 1877, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned to prepare a road and pathway system.

[8] Sargent and Olmsted would delineate the collection areas by family and genus, following the then-current and widely accepted classification system of Bentham and Hooker.

Her early training in the 1890s included time with Charles Sprague Sargent and Jackson Thornton Dawson, the chief propagator and superintendent.

[18] The annual operating budget is largely derived from the endowment, which is based primarily on private philanthropy and managed by the university.

Public transportation to the Arboretum is available on the MBTA Orange Line to its terminus at Forest Hills Station and by bus (#39) to the Monument in Jamaica Plain.

The Arboretum's southwest gate is very close to the turn between Weld and Walter Streets on the #51 bus line between Cleveland Circle/Reservoir and Forest Hills.

Historically, this research has investigated the global distribution and evolutionary history of trees, shrubs and vines, with particular emphasis on the disjunct species of East Asia and North America.

Today this work continues through molecular studies of the evolution and bio-geography of the floras of temperate Asia, North America and Europe.

This diversity of scientific investigation is founded in a continuing commitment to acquire, grow, and document the recognized species and infraspecific taxa of ligneous plants of the Northern Hemisphere that are able to withstand the climate of the Arboretum's 281-acre (1.14 km2) Jamaica Plain/Roslindale site.

As a primary resource for research in plant biology, the Arboretum's living collections are developed, curated, and managed to support scientific investigation and study.

To this end, acquisition policies place priority on obtaining plants that are genetically representative of documented wild populations.

For each taxon, the Arnold Arboretum aspires to grow multiple accessions of known wild provenance in order to represent significant variation that may occur across the geographic range of the species.

Curatorial procedures provide for complete and accurate records for each accession, and document original provenance, locations in the collections, and changes in botanical identity.

Currently the Arboretum uses a suite of ESRI Desktop and Mobile GIS software applications to manage, analyze, query, capture, manipulate, and display geographic information.

The Dana Greenhouses Archived 2011-01-01 at the Wayback Machine, located at 1050 Centre Street (with a mailing address of 125 Arborway), were completed in 1962.

The Arboretum's herbarium in Jamaica Plain holds specimens of cultivated plants that relate to the living collections (approximately 160,000).

The Arboretum's education programs offer school groups and the general public a wide range of lectures, courses, and walks focusing on the ecology and cultivation of plants.A team of horticulturists, arborists, gardeners, seasonal employees, and summer interns maintain the grounds.