Hoyt Arboretum is a public park in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, which is part of the complex of parks collectively known as Washington Park. The

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

is located atop a ridge in the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown Portland. Hoyt has 12 miles of hiking trails, two miles of accessible paved trails, and is open free to the public all year. About 350,000 visitors per year visit the arboretum.

History

Hoyt Arboretum is sited on steep slopes, straddling the SW Fairview Boulevard ridge above the

Oregon Zoo The Oregon Zoo, originally the Portland Zoo and later the Washington Park Zoo, is a zoo in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is located in Washington Park, approximately southwest of downtown Portland. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest zoo ...

and the Portland Japanese Garden. The elevation of the arboretum ranges from 650 feet to 900 feet, and there are several

ravines A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, g ...

within the arboretum. The hilly terrain of the arboretum was once in private hands. The United States government had granted land to

American pioneers American pioneers, also known as American settlers, were European American,Asian American, and African American settlers who migrated westward from the British Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America to settle and develop areas ...

through the

Donation Land Claim Act The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, sometimes known as the Donation Land Act, was a statute enacted by the United States Congress in late 1850, intended to promote homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory. It followed the Distribution-Pre ...

of 1850 for farming and logging, but the homesteads failed; by 1865, the land was owned by

Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland metropolitan area. The state's smallest and most populous county, it ...

. In 1889, the area was ravaged by a forest fire, and part of the burned land was used to build the

Multnomah County Poor Farm The Multnomah County Poor Farm is a former poor farm located in Troutdale, Oregon, United States. Established in 1911, the building and its surrounding grounds operated as a poor farm housing the ill and indigent populations in the Portland metr ...

Hillside Farm west of Washington Park. After the Poor Farm closed, in 1922 Multnomah County sold the land to the City of Portland, which created Hoyt Arboretum in 1930. The city commissioned John W. Duncan, superintendent of parks for

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

, to design a plan for the new arboretum. He completed the plan in 1930, and included locations for nearly forty families of trees planted in a naturalistic landscape.

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

crews cleared the forest and built the roads and paths winding through the arboretum in 1930 and 1931, although some native trees that had grown in the wake of the 1889 fire were left in place. The arboretum was planted according to Duncan's plan from 1931 to 1944. Many trees needed to be replaced after the

Columbus Day Storm of 1962 The Columbus Day storm of 1962 (also known as the big blow of 1962, and originally in Canada as Typhoon Freda) was a Pacific Northwest windstorm that struck the West Coast of Canada and the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States on Octobe ...

. Hoyt Arboretum was founded to conserve endangered species and educate the community. The property has increased in size through additional donations and acquisitions to (76 ha).

Gardens and collections

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The arboretum has approximately 6,000 individual trees and shrubs of more than 2,300 species from all around the world, 63 of which are vulnerable or

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

. Most have labels identifying

common Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Com ...

and scientific names and region of origin. The arboretum has one of the most extensive

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

collections in the United States. The conifer collection includes a dawn redwood, one of only a few known

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

conifers (needle and cone bearing trees that lose their leaves in the winter). The species was once thought extinct and known only in fossils, but was rediscovered in a remote valley in

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

in 1944. The species was reintroduced to the western hemisphere in 1948, with the Hoyt Arboretum as one of the first recipients. In the fall of 1952, the Hoyt arboretum's dawn redwood became the first in the Western Hemisphere to produce cones in about 6 million years. The arboretum contains a nationally recognized

magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...

collection, recognized as an official participating site in the North American Plant Collections Consortium. Hoyt's winter landscape shows interesting colors, textures and shapes, and winter blooms of

hellebore Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants in the family (biology), family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave i ...

viburnum ''Viburnum'' is a genus of about 150–175 species of flowering plants in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae. Its current classification is based on molecular phylogeny. It was previously included in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae. The memb ...

s, and

witch-hazel Witch-hazels or witch hazels (''Hamamelis'') are a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America ('' H. ovalis'', '' H. virginiana'', and '' H. vernalis''), and one each in Japan ('' H.&n ...

s. In 2016, the arboretum opened their Bamboo Forest featuring 30 species of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

Features

The arboretum has of trails (two miles (3 km) of which are wheelchair accessible), marked with over 250 trail signs and interpretive panels. The Wildwood Trail which leads north to Forest Park and the Marquam Trail which leads south to Marquam Nature Park meet in the arboretum; both trails are segments of the Portland area's 40-Mile Loop trail network. The visitor center is located at the center of the park and contains a small nature center and research library where visitors can find information about the park and its trees; the visitor center is also the starting point for periodic volunteer-guided tours. The research library has over 800 books ranging from technical floras to beginner gardening books, and is accessible to the public. The Stevens Pavilion is a covered

A-frame An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a Structural load, load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized Beam (structure), beams, arranged in an angle of 45 degrees or less, attached a ...

picnic shelter with wooden beams and stone floors, nestled in a grove of Douglas-fir trees.

Public art

* ''House for Summer'' is a living sculpture of Himalayan birch trees planted by artist Helen Lessick in 1987. The sculpture reflects the shelter of the forest canopy and changes with the seasons. Park

arborist An arborist, or (less commonly) arboriculturist, is a professional in the practice of arboriculture, which is the Plant cultivation, cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants in dend ...

s maintain the work under a joint agreement with Portland's Regional Arts and Culture Council. * ''Basket of Air'' is a stainless and galvanized steel spherical sculpture by Portland artist Ivan McLean, inspired by bamboo baskets. It is suspended over the pond in the arboretum's bamboo garden and was installed in 2016.

History

Gardens and collections

Features

Public art

See also