The Arboretum at Penn State Behrend in Erie, Pennsylvania, encompasses 725 acres and serves both as a public arboretum and the campus landscape. Its origins lie in the estate of Ernst and Mary Behrend, who introduced many unusual trees, including specimens from Asia, creating an unusually diverse planting history. In 1952, a donation of flowering crabapples by the Carrie T. Watson Garden Club marked an early milestone. Officially dedicated in 2003, the arboretum gained further standing when the college joined the American Public Gardens Association that year. Today it preserves and studies more than 200 species of trees and woody plants.