This tree is 289 years old and it fits on a table. It was started in 1737, when Boston was still a colonial port, and it has spent every one of those years in a pot, watered and pruned by somebody, without a gap. Larz Anderson, a Harvard graduate and American ambassador to Japan, bought it from the Yokohama Nursery Company around 1913 with roughly 39 other bonsai and shipped the lot home to his estate in Brookline, where it stood on his terraces for 24 years. After he and his wife Isabel died, the collection passed to the Arnold Arboretum, which eventually built a pavilion to house it. A cutting taken in 2017 is displayed beside it, the same tree at nine years old and at 289. Two things to know before you go. The 1737 date comes from Anderson's own records rather than from any independent dating, so it is one careful line of evidence repeated by everyone since, not two. And the pavilion rotates around 30 trees through its display every two or three weeks from mid April to late October, so this particular one is not guaranteed to be out on the day you arrive; the pavilion posts what is currently on view. It is ten minutes on foot from Forest Hills, and the Arboretum around it is worth the trip whatever is in the display that week.
From people who stood here
No notes yet
Did you visit the tree? Leave a note for the next visitor.
Getting there
Bonsai and Penjing Pavilion, Dana Greenhouses, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1050 Centre Street
You can recognise it by the cutting shown beside it, the same tree at nine years old next to the same tree at 289. It stands in a pot in the Bonsai and Penjing Pavilion, on view only from mid April to late October.
Free, public arboretum. The bonsai itself is on view only mid-April through late October at the Bonsai and Penjing Pavilion, and staff rotate roughly 30 trees through the display every two to three weeks, so this specific specimen is not guaranteed to be out on any given visit; the pavilion posts what is currently on view.
Forest Hills MBTA station (Orange Line), roughly 10 minute walk to the Centre Street Gate, then a further 5 minute walk to the Dana Greenhouses
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.