$1.4 million donation help creates Texas Arboretum

 

The gift from an anonymous fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation at the request of Mollie Steves Zachry will allow the Wildflower Center to develop some of its most scenic acreage into an outdoor museum of Texas' natural heritage and cultural history. 

 

The Mollie Steves Zachry Texas Arboretum will display all 53 species of oak trees native to the ecologically diverse state. The 16 acres will also feature descendants of significant trees that helped shape Texas history in the "Hall of Texas Heroes," such as Austin's Treaty Oak, the Alamo Live Oak and the Sam Houston Kissing Bur Oak.

 

Other features will include a collection of iconic native trees like black walnut, bald cypress, pecan and sycamore and a demonstration of native trees recommended for use beneath power lines.

 

"Trees provide shade, shelter and nourishment. They reduce heating costs, store carbon in their roots and filter pollutants out of water," said Susan Rieff, executive director of the Wildflower Center. "We plan to honor Mollie Zachry's commitment to nature and to the Wildflower Center by developing a world-class arboretum for understanding and preserving these natural treasures."

 

The arboretum is expected to open in 2012, the centennial year of Lady Bird Johnson's birth.

 

"We intend the arboretum to be one of the state's premier nature education resources," said Damon Waitt, the center's senior botanist who is guiding the arboretum's development. "It will be a place for tree identification, landscape design inspiration and field trips - a centerpiece for tree-related programs in Central Texas and another jewel in Austin's environmental crown."