6. Arthur Ross Pinetum (86th Street Entrance)
Like the Mall of Elms, this group of 600 pine trees is a single entry on the Great Tree list. It is the only entry for evergreens. In the original plan for Central Park, evergreens played a prominent role. Designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux planted a “Winter Drive”—a 30-block stretch of road visitors could enjoy from horse-drawn sleighs in the snow. But over time, the evergreens died and were replaced by deciduous trees.
Arthur Ross, a native New Yorker who made his name in the pulp and paper business, set out to return pines to the Park in 1971. Wanting to shield the view of the Great Lawn from the maintenance buildings on the 86th Street Transverse Road, he planted a grove of Himalayan pines. Those original trees are now 30 feet tall, and the Pinetum has expanded across the Park, adding about 35 trees a year. Home to seventeen species, from lands as distant as Macedonia, Japan and the Himalayas, it’s a most eclectic evergreen sanctuary—part tree museum, part miniature forest. Look for the distinctive leaning pines in the center section, and be sure to greet the small new saplings. Someday they will be as large as their neighbors.