Campus Arboretum Tours
University of Arizona Pima County Cooperative Extension
Old Main Tour
What makes Old Main so important? It’s the first building on the University of Arizona campus and has been a place of education and learning for over 130 years. But it’s also the site of beautiful and water-wise landscaping: it combines the best of desert and adapted trees and plants with water conservation practices suitable for our hot and dry climate. Join us to see how it’s done."
Arboretum History Tour
Learn the history and the heritage of Arizona's oldest University. Follow our guides as they show you beautiful places and tell you fascinating facts about the growth and development of the University, and how it came out of the sands of the Sonoran Desert to become the jewel of Arizona!
Sonoran Native Plants
When the University of Arizona was established, Dr. James Toumey, a botanist for the Agricultural Experiment Station, started a cactus display garden that, eventually became what we now know as the Joseph Wood Krutch (pronounced KROOCH) Garden. This tour features the Sonoran native plants in that garden and celebrates desert ecology and ethnobotanical wisdom.
Trees Around the World Tour
For more than a century the campus landscape has served as testing grounds for arid-adapted trees, supplying the Campus Arboretum with a collection of unusual but delightful specimens. Trees around the World features some of these unique trees and describes their native uses and interesting folklore.
Edible Landscapes Tour
This tour originated as a brilliant idea of an (undoubtedly hungry) undergraduate student, and has been customized for the benefit of all locovores. Join us to learn the identities of trees and plants with edible products which grow well in our campus landscape. The tour features arid-adapted introduced species as well as Sonoran desert native plants.
Medicinal Plants Tour
Plants have been used for centuries to treat and remedy all sorts of ailments; on this tour you will learn about some of the Sonoran Native medicinal plants found here on campus and the current science confirming their therapeutic properties for human health.