Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Rank in Arizona: #313of 727 ranked
Overall score: Score 41.3 out of 100medium confidence
Most looked up: Marchby Wikipedia readers
Category: Botanical Garden

Boyce Thompson Arboretum is a botanical garden in the Sonoran Desert, on 392 acres along Queen Creek beneath Picketpost Mountain, a volcanic remnant. It was founded in 1924 as a desert plant research facility and living museum, and is the oldest and largest botanical garden in Arizona and one of the oldest botanical institutions west of the Mississippi River. It stands on U.S. Highway 60, 3 miles west of Superior and an hour's drive east of Phoenix. More than 2,600 species of arid-land plants from around the world grow there, among them agaves, aloes, boojum trees, cork oaks, jujube trees and legume trees. A looping 1.5-mile primary trail leads through the exhibits, which include a cactus garden, palm and eucalyptus groves, Australian and South American collections, an aloe garden and a herb garden; side trails include the Chihuahuan, Curandero and High trails. As a riparian zone the site draws Sonoran Desert wildlife and migrating birds, 270 bird species have been recorded, and the Audubon Society has designated it an Important Bird Area. As of 2014 it had 5,000 members and attracted more than 75,000 people a year.

Where it is

Boyce Thompson Arboretum is a botanical garden near Apache Junction, in Pinal County. It is one of the botanical gardens in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

No official visitor count is published for Boyce Thompson Arboretum, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.

Sources

Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
Coordinates and designations: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab)
County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
Official site: https://btarboretum.org/(opens in a new tab)

Record last verified 2026-08-12.

More photographs

Chris English, CC BY-SA 3.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)

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