Adjacent to the Lyman Conservatory, the systematics garden features planting beds that are arranged taxonomically, in groupings of related plant families. A valuable resource for teaching, the garden was originally laid out in 1894 and redesigned in the 1980s and again in 2014 to reflect more modern theories of plant classification.
Inside the iron fence along College Lane next to the systematics garden is a perennial border, which was planted in 1984 in memory of Ruth Brown Richardson, class of 1913.