Contact Us
W e welcome queries about trees on campus and off, requests for identification of trees, tips on unusual trees you have sighted, and reports of any errors on this site. If you’d like to collaborate or brainstorm, let’s have a chat. For tree maintenance please contact Stanford Grounds Services.
Sairus Patel , lead editor of the award-winning Trees of Stanford website since 2014, assists in teaching campus classes by invitation and leads tree tours, presenting the history of his alma mater through an arboreal lens. With a background in font formats, he brings a love for elegant typography to his work and consults for botanical publishers and institutions on both visual style and content. He has served on the boards of Canopy and Pacific Horticulture , where he taught tree identification, photographed for online catalogs, and exercised meticulous care in the accuracy and styling of botanical names.
Contact Sairus at saiINVALID rusINVALID @stanford.edu .
John Rawlings , co-editor, formed the Trees of Stanford website in 2003 while researching the book Trees of Stanford and Environs . In 2014 he retired from an extensive career at Stanford University Libraries. He is an affiliate of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, where he does field work and maintains the herbarium website . John and naturalist Ken Hickman are in their sixth year of surveys for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, currently working on an inventory of locally rare plants in the Santa Cruz Mountains Bioregion, in collaboration with botanists Toni Corelli and Dylan Neubauer.
Contact John at rawINVALID lingsINVALID @stanford.edu .
Carnegie & Stanford
Learning Among the Trees
8 Jul 2026 – The Trees of Stanford Weave a Rich Tapestry , Carnegie Science .
Dr. Devaki Bhaya has taught several popular Stanford classes on trees. Here she takes the reporter on a walk through campus, as Carnegie prepares to relocate to Caltech in Pasadena.
“‘In the great tradition of naturalists like Thoreau and Tagore, we embraced the idea that true learning often starts with keen observation of nature and questions,’ Bhaya [said].”
Image courtesy of Carnegie Science.
In Memorium
Remembering Dave Muffly
Dave Muffly (1965–2025), Stanford-educated engineer and master arborist, left an enduring mark on Stanford’s landscape and on the broader California tree canopy.
On May 22, 2026, a valley oak (Quercus lobata ) was planted in Dave’s memory on the north edge of Levin FieldQ. oblongifolia ) and Chisos red oak (Q. gravesii ), both new to Stanford, and West Texas live oak (Q. fusiformis × Q. virginiana ).
More about Dave: Tribute page .
Dave’s Oaktopia website.
Canopy photo album: Dave Muffly Memorial Events .
New & Revised Tree Maps
Outer Quad Tree Map (Draft)
30 Jan 2026 – Our new tree map of the entire Outer Quad and its environs also identifies court names, memorials, and sculptures. Let us know your feedback or corrections – details on the various citrus in Citrus Court are especially welcome.
We have also updated the following maps: Law School & Canfield Court, Green Library & Meyer Green, Cantor Arts Center Area.
Past Updates
Website Recognition
Trees of Stanford project featured in award-winning book
Amy Stewart’s acclaimed book The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession
Arnold Soforenko Award
25 Jan 2018 — The editors of our “one-of-a-kind” website were awarded Canopy’s Arnold Soforenko Award at Palo Alto’s City Hall. The award recognizes “significant contributions to our local urban forest.”
Read more (see January 2018 Award Recipients).
Featured in The Stanford Daily
29 Nov 2018 — “Trees of Stanford website details University’s rich botanical landscape and history” , by Olivia Mitchel, The Stanford Daily .
Maps
Updated Inner Quad Tree Map
Our new tree map notes which trees still stand from the original Inner Quad planting in 1890, and which trees are featured in detailed scenes set in the Inner Quad in Richard Powers’ 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner The Overstory . Let us know what you think.
At Stanford
Canopy–Stanford Regional Urban Forestry Symposium
4 Sep 2025 – Planting Hope: Planning for Equitable and Resilient Urban Forests in the Bay Area
California Garden & Landscape History Society Conference
24–26 Oct 2025 – Palo Alto and the Evolving Campus: Tracing the legacy of the modern campus, from Olmsted to Sunset
Partner with Trees
27 Sep 2022 – “Stanford Partner with Trees course allowed curiosity to go out on a limb.’” By Taylor Kubota, Stanford Report .
“Combining field trips, guest lectures, and an open-ended final project, the course was designed as an intentional contrast to how many students spent their time during the pandemic, off-campus and on Zoom.”
X-Trees at Stanford
7 Dec 2021 – Stanford professor spotlights evolutionary tree concepts with campus trees , Stanford News .
“More than a century of attentive groundskeeping has turned the Stanford campus into a museum of mathematical phylogenetics, says Noah Rosenberg, creator of the Stanford X-Tree Project.”
Donald Kennedy
21 Apr 2020 – We acknowledge the passing of Donald Kennedy, Stanford’s eighth president, earlier today. We are grateful for his immense support of Ronald Bracewell’s book Trees of Stanford and Environs here .
In our thumbnail picture, he poses for a quick snapshot with the book in the Inner Quad in November 2016.
Donald Kennedy’s obituary (Stanford Report ).
Past Event Highlights
Arboretum Tree Walk
12 Oct 2019 – Sairus Patel, co-editor of Trees of Stanford and former editorial assistant for Pacific Horticulture , will lead us through the arboreal drama of natives & exotics within the Stanford Arboretum. Organized by Canopy.
Tree Walk: Trees of Stanford
9 Dec 2017 – With expert arborist Dave Muffly. View a stunning Quercus nigra Photos of the event .
Trees of Stanford Symposium
Oct 10, 2015 – Trees of Stanford: A Walk through Time Herb Fong Stanford Grounds guru for over 36 years.Matt Ritter Author of “A Californian’s Guide to the Trees Among Us.”Dave Muffly Senior Arborist for Apple.
Moderated by Sairus Patel.
Guided tree walks afterwards. Co-presented by Canopy and the Stanford Historical Society.
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