The Arboretum du Sarroudier (60 hectares) is a new 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...

 now taking shape in the village of Le Mas

Le Mas

Le Mas is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.-References:*...

, Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...

, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...

, 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...

. Its stated goal is to create the largest private arboretum in France.

The arboretum was founded in 2005 by Sauveur Gaëtan Mareschi on the grounds of a disused sheep farm owned by Cistercian monks of the Lérins Abbey

Lérins Abbey

Lérins Abbey is a Cistercian monastery on the island of Saint-Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands, on the French Riviera, with an active monastic community....

. Its hilly site is about 780 meters above sea level. Some 30 hectares have been designated for the arboretum proper, including a pond, with an adjacent 9 hectares set aside for growing organic vegetable

Vegetable

The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....

s and ancient fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

varieties.