The Morton Arboretum
Thousands of labeled trees, restored prairie, oak collections, woodland trails, research plots, and a maze turn a living laboratory into a four-season landscape.
Artwork inspired by Jens Jensen
Morton is an arboretum rather than a conventional flower garden: individual trees, taxonomic groups, provenances, and forest communities are the collection. Compare oaks across continents, look at bark and branching before leaves, then move into restored Schulenberg Prairie to see how woody and grassland systems compete and depend on management.
The east and west sides are too large to wander without a plan. Pick one collection and one habitat trail, record the nearest parking lot, and use the internal roads deliberately. Children’s Garden and Maze are destinations of their own, while the Center for Tree Science explains conservation genetics, urban forestry, and how a living collection produces research.
- Scale
- 1,700 acres
- Living collection
- More than 4,000 kinds of plants
- Research
- Center for Tree Science
Quick guide
- Pick a tree question
- Compare bark, bud, crown, leaf, or provenance across one labeled collection.
- Pair collection with habitat
- Move from curated specimens to prairie or woodland where competition and management become visible.
How to make The Morton Arboretum count
- Pick a tree question
- Compare bark, bud, crown, leaf, or provenance across one labeled collection.
- Pair collection with habitat
- Move from curated specimens to prairie or woodland where competition and management become visible.
- Remember the lot
- Photograph the parking number and trail junction; the two-sided campus is larger than it first appears.
- Visit in another season
- Winter architecture, spring buds, summer canopy, and autumn color reveal different traits.
Good to know
The grounds are open every day from 9 a.m. to sunset, with last entry one hour before sunset. Members may enter from 7–9 a.m.; the Visitor Center closes earlier than the grounds. Parking is included with admission and distributed across east and west sides. Note the lot number before hiking; the internal road system is extensive.
Notice these
- Schulenberg Prairie
- Oak collections
- Sterling Morton Library