Conifer Garden

The Conifer Garden, located on the east side of Burnett Hall on the Armstrong campus, contains over 140 different conifers representing 24 genera. Conifers are the most numerous and widespread of the gymnosperms living today with fifty genera and about 550 species. They grow from the subarctic to the subtropics. Conifers represent many superlatives in the plant kingdom including the world’s tallest, largest, thickest and oldest living things. The tallest is a Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), with a height of 378 feet. The largest is a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), with a volume 52,509 cubic feet. The thickest, or tree with the greatest trunk diameter, is a Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), thirty-seven feet in diameter. The oldest is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) nicknamed ‘Methuselah’ believed to be 4,700 years old. Conifers excel at growing in stressful environments. They can survive drought, high winds, searing heat and numbing subzero cold.

Last updated: 6/26/2018