Although the trees of the Missouri Botanical Garden might seem to be an anonymous backdrop for the luscious plants nearby, they are in reality a garden unto themselves. They do not appear where they are by happenstance. They were planted with the same scrupulous attention to design and botanical diversity as the Garden's myriad flowers and shrubs, and are an integral part of the Garden. Some of the trees are commonplace; others rare. Many carry a historical message. Others burst into eye-catching bloom at certain times of the year. Together, they form a garden within a garden, and each tree has its own story to tell of its botanical or historical interest, as noted on the interpretative sign it bears noting its history.

The Garden was virtually treeless when Henry Shaw began it in 1859 on the Missouri prairie. Now there are trees everywhere. As of Feb. 2010, the Garden's 79 acres consist of 5,383 trees; 1,093 tree taxa (different kinds of trees, including cultivars); and 587 tree species (not including cultivars), according to the Plant Records office of the Garden's Horticulture Division.

There are remnants or descendants of trees planted by Shaw himself or his staff a century ago. For example, Shaw planted Osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera) in the 1860s to line the carriage trail leading to his country home, Tower Grove House. Some of those trees or their offspring still stand near the Climatron® conservatory and within the Doris I. Schnuck Children's Garden, which opened in 2006. Although much of the original route is gone, with imagination you can trace the trail followed by Shaw and his guests.

No one knows which Garden tree is the oldest because of the lack of written records. The Garden has completed a project to draw a core of wood from representative trees and count the rings to determine its age. The coring project indicates that among the oldest are three bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) in the northwest corner of the Garden along Alfred Avenue, near the maintenance area gate. Tall and stately, they were part of Shaw's arboretum, which he personally began in 1861 in a project that marked one of the earliest tree-planting efforts in the Garden. The three most likely are offspring of the originals, but "there isn't any question about their being among the oldest trees in the Garden," said Chip Tynan of the Horticulture Answer Service.

More bald cypress are scattered throughout the Garden, with two rows by the lily pools between the Climatron and Spink Pavilion. Their characteristic of dropping leaves each winter – unusual among conifers, which generally are evergreens – may have saved the large trees. Leafless in the winter, they escaped the pollution during St. Louis's coal-burning days when coal smoke killed nearly all the evergreen conifers on the Garden grounds.

We also do not know which is the tallest tree, although a contender might be the white basswood (Tilia heterophylla) by the Museum Building near the Tower Grove House. It is one of three trees in the Garden declared by the Missouri Department of Conservation in 2008 as a "Champion Tree," a designation marking the largest of the species in the state. According to the state, the basswood is 103 feet tall and 12.4 feet or 149 inches in circumference. The other two champion nominees in the Garden are nearby: a possumhaw (Ilex decidua) and soapberry (Sapindus drummondii).

There are trees captivating for their showy blossoms, like the cherry trees near the Japanese Garden. Other bloomers include flowering crab apples, dogwood, redbuds and white redbuds and magnolias.

Some trees are noteworthy because they are simply striking to behold. One such tree is a huge Scotch elm (Ulmus glabra), just west of Tower Grove House. Based on the coring project, this elm dates to 1913. The huge tree, with its gnarled trunk, has branches so large and heavy that some have to be supported by wires.

Another is a very stout ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) by the Gatehouse. The species represents an evolutionary line that originated perhaps 280 million years ago, long before the earliest-known mammals and birds, according to "Know Our Trees," a booklet by the Missouri Botanical Garden, published in 1990. This gingko was possibly purchased by Henry Shaw in 1861. Ginkgoes were popular in America for their beauty, novelty, biological and historical interest and tolerance of unfavorable conditions, despite the foul outer layer of its seeds.

To view a "living fossil," see the Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) trees near the Lehmann Building to the west of Tower Grove House. This tree was unknown except through fossil records until 1941, when it was discovered growing in Asia by scientists who noticed a curious conifer. But Japan and China were at war, and the scientists who independently discovered the tree had to wait until the end of World War II before sharing information that led them to conclude the fossil did indeed live. The Missouri Botanical Garden's specimens came from seeds received 1947, which led to their planting by the Lehmann Building.

An example of a rare tree is the golden larch (Pseudolarix amabilis) by the Museum Building. It is the offspring of two trees that were in front of the Chinese Pavilion at the 1904 World's Fair. The trees, long forgotten, were re-discovered in 1953 when a woman wore a sprig from a tree in her yard in a corsage to a social event at the Garden. Her corsage created quite a stir, with the sprig identified as the rare golden larch. It was further learned that a previous owner of the woman's home had been a hostess at the World's Fair, and had handed out sprigs of the larches to visitors. The fact that the larches are "one generation from the 1904 World's Fair makes it very significant," Tynan said.

The Missouri Botanical Garden's mission is "to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life."  Today, 151 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science and conservation, education and horticultural display.

3/2010