Charles Sprague Sargent

Biography

Charles Sprague Sargent served for decades as the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum, nurturing it into a world-renowned centre for the study and cultivation of woody plants. His precise botanical scholarship, global collecting expeditions, and advocacy for scientific forestry helped to shape American horticulture in an era of rapid urban growth.

He guarded the Arboretum’s mission with a steady hand, combining artful landscape sensibility with rigorous science so that future generations might learn from the living museum he championed. His legacy endures in the meticulously arranged collections and the flourishing trees whose canopies still shade visitors today.