The History of Friends' Central Arboretum extends as far back as the original owner of the property, Wistar Morris. Morris hired Frederick Olmstead to plan out the landscape of his vast estate. Olmstead was noted for planning the landscape of New York’s Central Park and was renowned by many as the father of American landscape. The campus is home to a number of large native trees, a wide variety of shrubbery, a large perennial garden, and many container plantings. The flagship of the arboretum is a Burr Oak that is not only  one of the largest of its kind but was documented in the 1981 book “Penn's Woods 1682-1982” by Wertz and Callender, and is thought to be a William Penn tree.

Friends' Central has long been aware of its priceless plantings and has strived to maintain and grow its collection throughout the years