The University of Arizona Campus Arboretum |
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Plant collection offers research opportunities By Susan McGinley
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The University of Arizona campus is the oldest continually-maintained
green space in Arizona. For more than 100 years, UA students, faculty, staff and visitors have
enjoyed the beautifully landscaped campus in the heart of the Sonoran
Desert. This unique collection of trees and shrubs provides educational
and research opportunities for students and faculty, historical examples
of plants from arid and semi-arid climates around the world, and restful
shady places for study or retreat. The campus is an outdoor classroom
for students and faculty from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences;
College of Science; and College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
Architecture. Students learn plant origins, botanical interrelationships, landscape
principles, and human/plant history, says Elizabeth Davison, lecturer
in the Department of Plant Sciences and director of an effort currently
underway to designate arboretum status for the campus landscape. Because its situated in the unique, richly diverse Sonoran
Desert ecosystem, the UA campus serves as a resource for desert plants
with potential for food, fiber, medicines and landscape uses,
Davison says. Examples of such useful plant sources on campus include
carob trees (chocolate substitute), cassia shrub and tree species (anti-bacterial
properties, cough suppressant, root knot nematode killer), eucalyptus
(cosmetic and medicinal oils), jojoba (waxes and oils), willow (aspirin),
and salvia (cosmetic and medicinal oils). Davison is spearheading the effort to obtain arboretum status for the
campus. Step one is to correctly identify every plant on campus
with signs, she says. She and her team are conducting a full plant
inventory and collecting botanical notes and historic documentation.
The official arboretum designation would qualify the campus arboretum
to seek funding for conservation of existing valuable plants, additions
of new and important arid-tolerant species, student projects, and enhanced
horticultural efforts. The designation would also help protect significant
and/or vulnerable trees that have research potential. Cataloging trees and shrubs on campus would give faculty and
students better information on the potential of plants in the campus
collection that may be useful for study, analysis, and extraction of
compounds, Davison says. Most of the plants in the UA collection
were installed before 1993 by faculty and students who traveled the
world, botanizing in arid countries.(The Convention on Biological
Diversity, which went into effect worldwide in 1993, but has not yet
been ratified by the United States, mandates that the patent or ownership
rights to any plant material taken after 1993 from non-native species
must revert to the country of origin.) Davison hopes to hire staff and students who will assist in managing the campus plant collection. She has already conducted plant walks and lectures around campus, and will be a featured speaker at a homeowner tree clinic on campus in spring 2002.
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