Nature
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W. J. Beal Botanical Garden at Michigan State University in East Lansing is a five-acre garden widely regarded as the oldest continually maintained university botanical garden in the United States. Established by Professor William James Beal beginning in 1872 as a teaching and research space for botany, it evolved from nursery beds and forage test plots into a public garden with about 1,800 plant taxa arranged in economic, systematic, landscape, and ecological collections. Renamed for Beal in 1924, it was substantially reorganized in 1950 and later expanded through seed exchange, specialized plant collections, and conservation work, preserving a direct link to nineteenth-century botanical teaching while serving research, horticulture, and public education.
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East Lansing, Michigan · United States
