The Arboretum du Cranou is an arboretum

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

 located within the Forêt du Cranou (600 hectares) in Saint-Eloy

Saint-Eloy, Finistère

Saint-Eloy is a commune in the Finistère department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-References:** -External links:*...

, Finistère

Finistère

Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...

, Brittany, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It is open daily without charge.

The arboretum was created in 1970 by the Office national des forêts (ONF) and the Institut national de recherche agronomique (INRA) for reforestation studies. As such, it contained experimental plantings of a limited number of species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

, each represented by many subjects, including 51 species of hardwood

Hardwood

Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...

s and conifers such as Sitka spruce

Sitka Spruce

Picea sitchensis, the Sitka Spruce, is a large coniferous evergreen tree growing to 50–70 m tall, exceptionally to 95 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 5 m, exceptionally to 6–7 m diameter...

, larch

Larch

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...

, and cryptomeria

Cryptomeria

Cryptomeria is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family Cupressaceae formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae; it includes only one species, Cryptomeria japonica . It is endemic to Japan, where it is known as Sugi...

. The arboretum was refreshed in 2006 to add 45 species (100 specimens), with an additional 90 species (250 specimens) planted in 2007, and a plan of reaching 150 species.