University of Washington Campus Tree Tours

An interactive experience with significant trees on the grounds of the University of Washington

Supported by the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences

Welcome to the Campus Tree Tours!

Here at the University of Washington, we are proud of our trees. About 570 different kinds of trees beautify the University of Washington grounds. This means that the U.W. provides a fantastic opportunity to observe and appreciate a wide variety of trees in a relatively small area, and this website is designed to introduce you to the great green realm of a campus renowned for its lovely landscape.

How to Meet all these Awesome Trees?

This website is the key to meeting the trees of UW, with a multitude of self-guided tour information and maps. These tours are designed to offer a simple introduction to some of the more than 12,000 individual tree specimens on the main campus. Visit the Tree Tours webpage to learn more about how to use these self-guided tours.

Guided tours offer an even more immersive experience:

We are pleased to be able to offer free guided UW Campus Tree Tours to supplement the self-guided versions on this website! Guided tree tours are generally offered about once per month during the school year and depart from a variety of places around campus. No registration is required, but this also means there is no check in list, so please arrive on time to ensure we do not depart without you (the tour usually departs the meeting location within 10 minutes). Tours generally last about 2 hours, but participants are welcome to leave early if they need. All tours are outdoors so please plan accordingly and dress for the weather! Upcoming tour dates are posted below once they are scheduled. For more information, please visit the guided tours page or follow @campus_tree_tours on Instagram.

Upcoming Guided Tour Dates:

Happy Summer! The Guided Tree Tours will return in Fall of 2025 after a pause during the summer quarter. To visit the trees during this warm season, consider using the self-guided tree tours on this website! Fall Tour dates and times are posted below!

Saturday, October 4th (12pm-2pm): Fossil Trees Tour
- Meeting at the front of Denny Hall.

Tuesday, October 7th (12p-1pm): Animal Interactions Tree Tour.
- Meet at the front of the Life Sciences Building.

Tuesday, October 28th (1-3pm): Fall Colors Tree Tour
- Meet at the Bus Shelter just west of Anderson Hall on Stevens Way.

Sunday, November 2nd (1pm-3pm): Fall Colors Tree Tour
- Meet at the Bus Shelter just west of Anderson Hall on Stevens Way.

Sunday, December 7th (1pm-3pm): Washington Native Trees Tour.
- Meet at the front of the Burke Museum of Natural History.

For more information, please visit the guided tours page or follow @campus_tree_tours on Instagram.

Land Acknowledgement

The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Duwamish, Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations. Since time immemorial, the Coast Salish peoples have been the original stewards of these lands. Colonization and its modern systems of oppression continue to disrupt their work. We hope that this acknowledgement serves as a first step in our commitment to authentic relationships with Native and Indigenous communities moving forward. Additionally, we wish to acknowledge the false narrative applied to the discovery of many of these species. The majority of these species were not in fact discovered by the generally white contingent of botanists arriving in lands besieged by European colonizers, but by the peoples who have lived on those lands since time immemorial. Indigenous peoples have developed connections with these trees going back generations. We would like to acknowledge too that many of these species have distinct practical and medicinal value which were known to the first peoples of their native ranges. Credit for the discovery of these properties is too often given to colonizers who did not in fact discover the uses of these plants. Where possible we have avoided common names which memorialize such botanists whose work disregarded the knowledge of indigenous peoples.

A Long Description of How To Use This Website

Looking for a long-winded explanation of exactly what can be found on this website?! This is it! This tree tour website is meant to incorporate information to suit a wide variety of interests. On each tree's individual page one may find information regarding the tree's range, its historical uses, and its identification features, broken down into the categories of leaves, bark, and reproductive bodies. There also are photos of significant features of each tree on the tour and of the specimen as it appears on the UW Campus. Each page also includes the short summary for each species written at the time the tour was first created (information in these original tour portions may be inaccurate, especially tree locations, since the tour has changed significantly since the 1980s). This historical tree profiles can provide insight into the changes in mindset regarding forest sciences in the last 40 years. One can navigate through the tour either by entering each tree's individual page from this homepage or by navigating from one page to the following or previous using the "next" and "back" buttons on each individual page. Additionally, maps are available (both in satellite and street base layers) to show the location of trees relative to each other on campus.

This website includes a short biography on C. Frank Brockman, for whom it is named, as well as resources to aid the user in identifying plant and tree species. This identification addendum includes the botanical names of the different types of leaves, growing patterns, and how these resources might be used in conjunction with a field guide to identify various species not included on this tour. For those wishing to extend their love of trees beyond the boundaries of the Campus Tree Tours, this site contains resources to connect users with trees around Seattle, including a Tree Map of every tree on the UW Grounds, a map of Trees in the Washington Park Arboretum, and the City of Seattle Street Trees website. These maps allow the user to identify thousands of trees all over the city, even those not present on the UW Campus Tours! There are also dozens of other Tree Walks and Tree Tours available in the Emerald City. A list of those created by the City of Seattle may be found on their Seattle Tree Walks website. Others crafted for the Washington Park Arboretum may be found from the UW Botanic Gardens.

Additionally, for those who would like to experience the tour without having to look at their screen as they enjoy the campus grounds, there are several printable tour information options available, including the Brockman Memorial Tree Tour Guide and Native Trees of Washington Guide. These booklets include small summaries and works in tandem with the maps on this website (or a printable summary map for a fully non-digital tree experience). The Booklet may be picked up free of charge at the office of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences in Winkenwerder Hall, or from the Center for Urban Horticulture.

Dedication

This tour is dedicated to the memory of Professor C. Frank Brockman (1902-1985), who capped an influential, productive career in forestry and outdoor recreation by producing in 1980 the original University of Washington tree tour. Edited by Louise M. Hastie, that eight-page publication featured 81 campus trees, and had to be reprinted by popular demand. Along with the tour, Brockman authored five articles about campus trees for the U.W. Arboretum Bulletin. In 1968, the year he retired from the U.W. College of Forestry (now the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences), his best-selling "Golden Guide" to Trees of North America was released. Brockman's enthusiasm and love of sharing knowledge suggests he would love to see a continued appreciation for the beautiful trees on the U.W. campus. This newly updated tour reflects a compilation of new information and fresh presentation created to ensure that future students may still engage with this resource.

Brockman Memorial Tree Tour