Historic Chamberlin Hall stands to the left; Lathrop Hall to the right. Across the street, construction crews continue working on a new development towering toward the sky. Buses and bicycles seem to ferry across University Avenue by the minute.
Quiet, but not forgotten, is the University of Wisconsin-Madison Botanical Garden, a small yet well-traveled green space on campus since 1961.
A favorite project of the late UW-Madison President Conrad A. Elvehjem, the Botanical Garden is home to a gazebo, benches, a dry riverbed, and a small waterfall among more than 500 species of plants. On warm days, classes and groups gather for discussion. This month, you can find sprouting tulips and crocus.
“The gardens boast tremendous aesthetic value,” says Mo Fayyaz, director of the UW-Madison Botanical Garden and Greenhouses.
The garden also boasts a one-of-a-kind design. Its layout is based on the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APGII) system of plant classification, meaning the garden is organized into 11 sections in a system that describes the evolutionary relationship between plants. Botanists today use the garden to study plants’ genetic relationships to one another and the garden is the first in the world to be organized based on this system.
“We need to keep green areas green with the goal of education in mind,” says Fayyaz.
But for most of the campus community and visitors, the Botanical Garden is a place to eat lunch, sketch, or read a book.
Fayyaz says one of his favorite parts of the job is giving garden tours to school groups. He estimates thousands of students have visited either the Botany Garden or the UW-Madison Botany Greenhouses on one of his tours over the past 30 years.
Other groups of prospective Badgers visit the garden, which is a stop for tours as part of the Visitor and Information Programs that bring 42,000 people to campus annually.
If you venture into this green space, Fayyaz points out two natural treasures that may go unnoticed. The first is the Newton Apple tree, a direct descendant of the original tree said to have grown the apple that instigated Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation. The tree was presented in 2001 to then Chancellor John Wiley as a gift from Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner.
“When the tree was planted in the garden, it was a 2-foot skinny plant,” says Fayyaz. “Today it’s monstrous.”
The second treasure is the shidare sakur, or snow fountains weeping cherry tree. This tree was planted in 2011 by a Japanese Tsunami Relief student group to serve as a memorial to honor the victims of the disaster. Blossoming with the start of the new school year in Japan (April), these trees symbolize new start and strength.
Story by Aimee Katz