| Michigan State University campus | |
| W. J. Beal Botanical Garden | |
| Use | Botanical garden |
| Style | N/A (Outdoors) |
| Erected | 1872 |
| Demolished | N/A (Extant) |
| Location | "Sleepy Hollow" ravine |
| Namesake | William J. Beal |
| Architect | Wiliam J. Beal |
| Number of species | 5000 |
| Website | Official website |
The W. J. Beal Botanical Garden is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) botanical garden located on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It is claimed to be the oldest continually-maintained university botanical garden in the United States, and is open to the public without charge year round during daylight hours.
The Garden currently displays over 2,500 different plant taxa, comprising over 5,000 species, in economic, systematic, landscape and ecological groupings.
The Garden was started by Prof. William J. Beal in 1872 with a nursery, followed in the subsequent year by test plots of 140 species of forage grasses and clovers, and an arboretum in 1874 which began as two rows of swamp white oaks. The Gardens developed from these original starting points until 1950, when they were reorganized and redesigned by Prof. Milton Baron to form today's four main groupings. In 1954, the Garden began participating in the international seed exchange program, publishing its first Index Seminum, and in 1961 was extended with a collection of acidophilous plants including rhododendrons, azaleas, and ferns. More recently, a collection of Michigan's endangered plants was added in 1986, and the non-flowering vascular plant collection was started in 2001 with ephedras, conifers, ginkgo, cycads, ferns, horsetails and clubmosses.