Unlike city recreational parks, the Arboretum is quite and peaceful, with ample sitting areas and quite refuges. While winter will bring the beauty of snow-graced tree branches, autumn offers comfortable weather and colorful trees and plants.

Tourists Paul W. and Alice E. Wood visited the Arboretum last weekend.

"I love the variety of the trees; some don't grow in Southern climates," Paul W. Wood said.

Within the past 20 years, Arboretum staff has joined in expeditions to the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, North Africa and regions of North America in search of plants for the Arboretum's collections. However, the staff concentrates mostly on collecting plants from the Boston region. Many of the accessions are the original plant introductions into North America from eastern Asia. All plants and trees are labeled.

The Arboretum also manages the University's Herbaria at 22 Divinity Ave. with about 1,268,000 specimens and a botanical library of 95,000 volumes and archival and photographic collections, which are research facilities not open to the public.

Due to expanded planning, rising economic and political costs of land use conflicts, and shifting responsibility for land use decisions in landscape management, the Arboretum established the Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies last fall. The Institute supports management of landscapes with a history of human use by integrating research and experience from historic preservation, natural areas conservation and land use planning. It is currently working on historic plant inventories, farmland conservation in New England, managing park-neighborhood relations in urban areas and public-private partnerships for cultural landscapes.

Also in the visitor's center, is the permanent exhibit, "Science in the Pleasure Ground," which details the history behind the development of the Arboretum.

Members of the Friends of the Arnold Arboretum receive free admission at more than 100 botanical gardens nationwide, discounts on courses, lectures, workshops and Arboretum bookstores purchases and a subscription to the arboretum's quarterly magazine, Arnoldia. Student memberships are available for $20, while others can purchase memberships staring at $35.