Arboretum

William McKinley Klein Jr., 63, a visionary botanist who turned an aging and neglected Morris Arboretum into a national showcase and research center, died Wednesday of heart failure at Coral Gables (Fla.) Hospital. Mr. Klein, who had seemed in excellent health since recovering from triple-bypass surgery in 1989, passed out while exercising and died three hours later, at 1:30 p.m., at the hospital. The arboretum's director from 1977 to 1991, he was credited with rescuing the 166-acre garden in Chestnut Hill from near extinction.

With fat buds and shiny new leaves, the rose bushes at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania are full of promise this month. Soon, visitors will reap the benefits of the hard work of the arboretum's rosarian, Judy McKeon, and her crew. If you are a rose fancier, plan a trip to the arboretum, just off Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill section, on the weekend of June 1 and 2 to see the Philadelphia Rose Show, co-sponsored by the arboretum and the Philadelphia Rose Society.

For the second extended sculptural presentation in its Butcher Sculpture Garden, the Morris Arboretum has chosen a three-part installation by Scott Sherk, who teaches at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. The piece is based on the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne. Rejecting the proposal of the sun god, who pursues her, the nymph Daphne calls for help to her father, the river god, who changes her into a laurel tree. Each of the three sculptural groups is supposed to be animated by the passage of the sun across the sky. To observe these effects, assuming they exist to any meaningful degree, one would have to spend several hours with this installation, which the average visitor seems unlikely to do. Therefore, one receives his or her principal impression from the forms themselves, which are arranged in different areas of the garden.

The owls come out at night at Tyler Arboretum, and children ages 6 and older can look for them during the Owl Prowl from 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow at the arboretum, 515 Painter Rd., Media. The program will begin inside with an educational talk, then move outdoors, where intrepid trackers can search for great horned owls and Easter screech owls. Refreshments will follow. Wear sturdy shoes and bring a flashlight. Admission is $8, $6 for members. Registration is required. At 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday, children ages 4 to 6 can take a trip back in time to explore the life of the Lenape Indians.

Kathryn "Brooke" Baxter, 32, formerly of New Hope, a student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, died Sunday in a bus accident in Tanzania. Ms. Baxter was in Africa for the summer as a volunteer for the Lwala Community Alliance in Kenya, working with pregnant women infected with HIV and malaria. She was commissioned as an Army lieutenant last summer, and had completed her first year of medical school on an Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship.

Tyler Arboretum's historic Lachford Hall and Painter Library will be repaired and renovated with the help of a $37,500 state grant, officials announced last week. The arboretum, in Lima, dates back to 1681, when Thomas Minshall acquired the land through a grant from William Penn. The land remained in the same family for seven generations before it was bequeathed to the public as an arboretum and opened in 1946. "I am very pleased that Tyler is a recipient of this grant," said arboretum director Richard Colbert.

It was a grand idea at the start, but now the township wants out of its role as manager of the 30-acre Taylor Memorial Arboretum along Ridley Creek. "It has been taking too much time and energy from municipal resources," Township Manager Gary Cummings said yesterday of the 18-month-old arrangement. "Our staff was overextended, and we didn't want to hire more people. " The arboretum was established in 1931 along Nether Providence's southernmost boundary by Chester lawyer Joshua C. Taylor in memory of his wife, Anne Rulon Gray.

"By all botanical rights, this tree shouldn't be growing here," Carl Suk said. Suk, director of the Tyler Arboretum in Middletown Township, was pointing to a giant sequoia, 80 feet high with a trunk that's 11 feet around, that stands majestically along Painter Road. Sequoias "are usually grown in a moist, humid atmosphere in the Pacific Northwest, and this one's growing on a dry hilltop," he said. The tree was planted in the late 1850s and is thought to be the oldest sequoia on the East Coast, Suk said.

Harold E. Sweetman, director of the Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, wishes there were more people like H. Lawrence and Elisabeth Phillippe Jenkins and Louisa P. Browning, for whom "money isn't everything. " In the early 1970s, the Jenkinses, followed by their neighbor, Louisa Browning, bequeathed a total of 46 acres to establish the Jenkins Arboretum on Berwyn-Baptist Road. The Jenkinses' public legacy, supported by the Elisabeth Phillippe Jenkins Foundation and private donations, is in its 13th year of providing a free retreat from the excesses of modern life.

Oh, take a hike! This, after all, is eminently walkable weather. You'll have plenty of company on Kelly Drive or the West River Drive in Fairmount Park. Ditto Penn's Landing. Or go to an Arboretum. Like Morris Arboretum. Located at 100 Northwestern Ave., Morris Arboretum is 92 acres of gorgeous trees, flower gardens, a Victorian fernery and more. Schoolchildren looking for a great show-and-tell exhibit will find the Arboretum a treasure trove. When all the trees are shedding leaves, you can pick up a veritable encyclopedia of leaf varieties just bending over.