Move over, Arnold, there's a new arboretum in town - the Northeastern University campus

Northeastern University reports its entire campus has been officially designated an arboretum by ArbNet, which, of course, has a formal accreditation program for arboreta, which is a word we'll have to get used to now that Boston has at least two of them.

In fact, Northeastern can boast something the Arnold Arboretum can't: "Northeastern is now the only university in Boston to have an arboretum on its campus." Sure, the Arnold is run by Harvard, but it's hardly part of the Harvard campus, not even the one across the river in Boston.

Northeastern says the designation is recognition of the school's work in creating a greenspace of more than 1,400 individual trees, representing 143 different species - no easy task on a campus carved out of an urban environment.

To be accredited, an arboretum needs to have a strategic plan, a governing board, public programming, and an inventory of every tree and woody plant on the grounds. Northeastern’s Boston campus was named a level two arboretum, which means that it met this criteria, in addition to having more than 100 different species of trees, a policy that documents how the trees are maintained and acquired, and educational programming for the public.