Photographic Collections
Over 25,000 images, dating from 1870 to the present, make up the library's photographic collection. These images document the Arboretum's living collections, record the development of taxa within the collections, and illustrate early expeditions to China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and other parts of the world from which Arboretum plants have been collected. Many of these photographs are cataloged in Harvard's Visual Images Access database, VIA. You may limit your search of VIA to the Arboretum’s holdings by Limiting repository to Arnold Arboretum Horticulture Library (Jamaica Plain) from the drop down menu.
The collection also includes four special online exhibits.
- The Arboretum Through Time, Historical Landscape Images which captures and records the evolution of this landscape and its living collections since 1889.
- Botanical and Cultural Images of Eastern Asia from the Arboretum archives
- Cienfuegos Botanical Garden, Cuba established in 1899 as the Harvard Botanic Station for Tropical Research and Sugar Cane Investigation which in 1932 became the Atkins Institution of the Arnold Arboretum.
- South Central China and Tibet: Hotspot of Diversity provides access to the natural history and ethnographic collections that resulted from Arnold Arboretum expeditions to China and Tibet between 1924 and the present.