Arbore´tum

(Lat. arbor , a tree), a place in which a collection of different trees and shrubs is cultivated for scientific or educational purposes. The largest arboretum in Britain, perhaps the finest in the whole world, is that of the Royal Gardens, at Kew, inaugurated in 1762, to which 180 acres are now devoted. Next in celebrity 218 are the arboreta at Edinburgh (Inverleith) and at Dublin (Glasnevin), the Botanical Gardens at Oxford, and the Botanic Gardens at Glasgow. Other arboreta are that of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and the Arnold Arboretum, at Jamaica Plain, Boston. The term arboretum has also been applied in a restricted sense, as in the Arboretum Fruticetum Britannicum , the monumental work by J. C. Loudon.