Located on the south side of McCabe Hall, the spring flowers, dark green leaves, brilliant fall color, and striking bark make this tree of year-round interest. In addition to its notable attributes, the tree has a storied history. In 1765, father and son horticulturalists, John and William Bartram, brought seeds from a tree with showy white blossoms that they discovered in their travels to the Alatamaha River in Georgia. They planted it in their garden in Philadelphia and named it Franklinias, in honor of their friend Benjamin Franklin. The tree became extinct in the wild in the early 1800s, and only about 1,000 specimens survive today in cultivation, all direct descendants of the Bartrams' seeds.

Located on the quad near the East Quad Building, this majestic tree is the oldest and largest on campus. Old photographs show this tree being here when the university was founded in the late 1890's. Scarlet Oaks are the tree of the District of Columbia and this one certainly has stood the test of time. Structural support has been provided with cables connecting the main branches and lightening protection was recently upgraded to help ensure this tree provides shade for many more generations of AU students.

On April 8, 1943, on the site where SIS stands today, exiled president of Korea, Syngman Rhee and AU president Paul Douglass planted what they named "Korean Cherry Trees" as both a political statement and a show of support for Korean independence from Japan. A plaque was installed, Douglass read from the Korean Declaration of Independence, Korean folk songs filled the quad, and two Korean students were given AU scholarships. When Rhee eventually became president of a liberated Korea, Douglass became his advisor. Today, more than 60 years later, the original trees, and new trees propagated from them, still convey their message of beauty and friendship.

The Dawn Redwoods found on campus, most prominently at the amphitheater near Leonard Hall, were rescued in 2000 from a site that was to be bulldozed for a housing development. Until 1948, when it was discovered in the remote highlands of China, botanists thought Dawn Redwoods were long extinct. Its rediscovery was likened to finding a living fossil. The fast-growing upright trees’ needled branches often fool people to believing that they are evergreens. In reality, the tree is deciduous and turns a brilliant bronze color before shedding its needles each season, which often causes panic among observers on campus who become convinced that the tree is dying.

Young Ginkgo specimens are located throughout the American University campus and most visibly on the hillside overlooking Jacobs Field and in the amphitheater. They are easily recognized by their unique fan-shaped leaf. Fossil records indicate that the Gingko may be the oldest living seed plant and is by some seen as one of the wonders of the world.  Individual trees may live longer than 3,000 years and serve as a precious and tenuous link between the present and the remote past. Once thought to be extinct, scientists rediscovered the Ginkgo in Japan during the 1600s and its seeds were brought to Europe and America in the 1700s. The trees now grow all over the world.

The American papaw (also pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw) is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada. It produces large, oblong fruit varing between green and yellow, and has large brown seeds.