Nine miles of linked parks and parkways run from Boston Common to Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain, and you are walking into Frederick Law Olmsted's masterwork, the Emerald Necklace, at the Arnold Arboretum. Olmsted called it the Emerald Necklace, and he designed it between 1878 and 1895 as a comprehensive solution to three urban problems: drainage of the foul Muddy River, provision of open space for the city's growing population, and creation of a naturalistic landscape within the industrial city. The Arnold Arboretum, which you are entering, is the finest public arboretum in the northeastern United States, operated jointly by Harvard University and the city of Boston since 1872, its 281 acres containing more than 15,000 plants representing over 4,000 taxa.
The collection of Asian trees and shrubs, assembled in the late nineteenth century by plant hunter Charles Sargent, is among the most important in the world. Lilac Sunday, held in May each year when the arboretum's lilac collection blooms, draws tens of thousands of visitors. The Emerald Necklace as a whole — from the Public Garden to Jamaica Pond to the Arboretum to Franklin Park — represents Olmsted's most complete urban park design and the model for park systems across America.