Kew jumping - 25 botanic gardens to leap about
by Anthony Gardner
If you want to flummox a botanist, ask him or her to define a botanic garden. It is one of the great scientific paradoxes that people who spend their lives making finicky distinctions between different plants are unable to tell you exactly what sort of place it is that they cultivate and study them in. Nor for that matter can they agree on a precise term: some gardens are 'botanic', some 'botanical' - though according to Dr Etelka Leadlay of Kew Gardens in London, ' "Botanic" tends to be used more, because it's shorter.'
What can be so difficult about a definition? In part, it is that botanic gardens come in an enormous variety of guises. They range from the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden in Slovenia, which covers barely a quarter of a hectare, to the Kirchberg Arboretum in Luxemburg, which stretches across 360 hectares. Some - such as the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam - bring together specimens from all over the world, often as a reflection of a nation's colonial past; others concentrate exclusively on home-grown plants. In its 'International Agenda' for the millennium, the organisation Botanic Gardens Conservation International defined no fewer than twelve major types, including 'ornamental', 'thematic', 'historical' and 'agro-botanical'.
What is generally agreed is that botanic gardens need to be more than pleasant places to stroll in on a Sunday afternoon. They have to have some kind of scientific basis, even if this merely consists of labelling the plants with their correct Latin names. Ideally, they will also muster a seed bank, a herbarium (i.e. a collection of dried specimens), a library and a laboratory. Many are attached to universities - though equally, almost all are open to the public.
The supervisors of these gardens, and their visitors, have always been excited by the rare and exotic. Europe possesses over a third of the world's 1,800 botanic gardens, whereas South America - with its enormous wealth of native flora - has felt little need for them until recently. In the past twenty years, however, the environmental movement has given them an additional raison d'être as repositories for endangered species.
'It's desperately important that we understand the diversity of plants,' explains Etelka Leadlay, 'and only botanic gardens have the skills to differentiate between species, because they combine research, horticulture and education. You can see their new role in a country like Greece, which didn't have many gardens in the past, but is now establishing them in response to plant loss.'
It seems, then, that Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited was ahead of his time when he recommended Oxford's botanical gardens for 'a beautiful arch…and more species of ivy than I knew existed.' The following are some of the gardens in Europe which deserve to be visited and revisited.
AUSTRIA
Vienna University Botanical Garden
Location Beside Vienna's Belvedere Gardens. Size 8 hectares. History Founded in the mid-eighteenth century by Empress Maria Theresa. Its buildings were destroyed or badly damaged by bombing during World War II, but have since been restored and enlarged. Includes Over 9,000 species of plants, particularly tropical ones. http://www.botanik.univie.ac.at/index.htm
BELGIUM
The National Botanic Garden of Belgium
Location The grounds of the mediaeval Chateau Bouchot at Meise, near Brussels. Size 92 hectares. History Founded at Louvain University, it subsequently moved to Brussels, then to Meise in the 1940s. Includes A particularly impressive collection of plants from Central Africa. http://www.br.fgov.be/PUBLIC/GENERAL/index.html
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Prague Botanic Garden
Location In the Nové Mesto district of the city. Size 47 hectares. History Founded in 1775, but moved to its present site in 1898 to escape flooding. Includes The Fata Morgana greenhouse, divided into three parts mimicking different climatic conditions: one for desert plants, one for rainforest plants, and one for alpine plants. The grounds also contain a Japanese garden, and Prague's largest vineyard. http://www.botgarden.cz
DENMARK
Copenhagen University Botanic Garden
Location Laid out around the old ramparts of the city and what remains of its moat, which now serves as a lake. Size 10 hectares. History This is the university's fourth botanic garden history (the first was founded in 1600), dating from 1872. Includes One of the largest collections of annuals in the world; orchids from Thailand and East Asia are well represented, as are indigenous plants and mountain plants from Greece.
http://www.botanic-garden.ku.dk/eng
ENGLAND
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Location Kew in South West London, and Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. Size 121 hectares at Kew, 208 at Wakehurst. History Established by the Capel family in the seventeenth century, Kew became a royal garden in 1715, and flourished during the heyday of the British Empire. Includes Decimus Burton's Palm House, a Chinese pagoda, Princess of Wales conservatory (containing ten different climatic zones)
ESTONIA
Tallinn Botanic Garden
Location The east side of the city, on the site of a farm which once belonged to the long-serving Estonian President, Konstantin Päts. Size 123 hectares. History Founded in 1961. Includes Arboretum, rose garden, lilac garden; species from Australia and Madagascar.
FINLAND
Helsinki University Botanic Garden
Location Split between Kaisaniemi in the city centre and the university's campus at Kumpula. Size 11 hectares. History Originating in the old Finnish capital of Turku, the collection was moved to Helsinki by horse and cart in 1829. Includes Nineteenth-century greenhouses, arboretum, rock garden and perennials (at Kaisaniemi); geographical sections such as North East China and North America (at Kumpula).
http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/english
FRANCE
Jardin des Plantes
Location The Left Bank of the Seine in Paris's 5th arrondissement. Size 28 hectares. History Created by Louis XIII's doctor as a medicinal garden in 1626, and originally called the Jardin du Roi. Includes Iris garden, Mexican greenhouse, Alpine garden, the National Museum of Natural History, a maze, an aquarium and a small zoo.
GERMANY
Berlin-Dahlem Botanic Garden
Location Dahlem. Size 126 hectares History Founded in 1679 as an agricultural garden in Schöneberg (then a village), and relocated in Dahlem 200 years later. Includes Plant geography section covering twelve zones of the Northern Hemisphere, medicine garden in the shape of the human body, fragrance and touch garden, botanic museum. http://www.bgbm.org/bgbm/pr/kurzinfo/briefing/pg.htm
GREECE
Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia
Location Pontokerassia in the foothills of the Kroussia Mountains, 70 kms from Thessalonica. Size 30 hectares. History One of Europe's newest botanic gardens, created in 2001. Includes Greek trees and plants, particularly aromatic and pharmaceutical ones.
HUNGARY
Budapest University Botanical Garden (Füvészkert)
Location Off the city's Ülloi út thoroughfare. Size 3 hectares. History Originated at the Loránd Eötvös University Medical School in 1769; moved to its current site in 1847. Includes Victoria House with giant Amazonian White Waterlily, 800 species of cacti and succulents.
http://www.vendegvaro.hu/en/34-40
IRELAND
National Botanic Gardens
Location Glasnevin, north Dublin, on the banks of the River Tolka. Size 19 hectares. History Created in 1795 for the study of agriculture. Includes Yew walk, a bog garden, and splendid Victorian glasshouses. http://www.botanicgardens.ie
ITALY
Botanic Garden of Padua
Location Close to Padua University, by the Canale San Massimo. Size 2 hectares. History Founded in 1545, it is considered to be the oldest university garden in the world. (Pisa's, though established two years earlier, was moved from its original location.) Includes The 'Goethe Palm', which was planted in 1585 and inspired an essay by the great German writer 200 years later; insectivorous, poisonous and medical plants; rare plants from North East Italy. http://www.cbft.unipd.it/pdtour/garden.html
LATVIA
National Botanic Garden of Latvia
Location Salapsils, 18 kms from Riga. Size 126 hectares. History Established in 1956, on the site of a 120-year-old commercial nursery. Includes Over 5,000 trees and shrubs, and national collections of ornamental plants.
http://www.nbd.gov.lv/english
LITHUANIA
Vilnius University Botanical Garden
Location The village of Kairenai, to the north-east of Vilnius. Size 199 hectares. History Started in 1919 in Vingis Park; moved to its present location in 1974. Includes A 'flower valley' with plants arranged according to the seasons of the year in terraces around three ponds; a large collection of rhododendrons. http://www.botanikos-sodas.vu.lt/en
LUXEMBOURG
Kirchberg Arboretum
Location The new Kirchberg public parks, just across the river from the city centre. Size 360 hectares. History Begun in 1994. Includes European trees and shrubs; marshland plants.
MALTA
Argotti Botanical Gardens
Location Floriana. Size ? History Created in 1805 by a Carmelite friar, and moved to their present location 50 years later. Includes Cacti, horticultural museum, new herbarium, ornamental grotto.
NETHERLANDS
Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam
Location Amsterdam's Plantage district. Size 1 hectare. History Founded in 1638 as a medicinal garden in the wake of a plague epidemic. Enriched by plants brought back from overseas by the Dutch East India company. Includes Butterfly greenhouse, three-climate greenhouse (desert, subtropical and tropical), palm house with 300-year-old Eastern Cape giant cycad.
http://www.hortus-botanicus.nl/
POLAND
Warsaw University Botanic Garden
Location Warsaw's Łazienki Park, beside the Observatory. Size 5 hectares. History A present to Poland from Alexander 1 of Russia in 1818, its buildings were destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It has gradually been re-established over the last 20 years. Includes Polish lowland flora, rose garden, climbers' garden.
PORTUGAL
Coimbra University Botanic Garden
Location Coimbra, 200 km north of Lisbon. Size 13 hectares. History Founded in 1772. Includes A formal garden laid out on terraces, an arboretum with a bamboo forest, a library and a herbarium.
http://www.uc.pt/botanica/!botgard.htm
SCOTLAND
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Location Inverleith, near the centre of Edinburgh, plus further sites at Benmore in Argyll, Logan in Galloway, and Dawyck in the Borders. Size 28 hectares in Edinburgh, 265 altogether. History Founded in the 17th century, as a physic garden in the grounds of Holyrood Palace. Includes Rock, peat and woodland gardens (Edinburgh), conifers and rhododendrons (Benmore), Southern Hemisphere plants (Logan), desert plants (Dawyck).
SLOVAKIA
Comenius University Botanic Garden
Location Bratislava, Stupava and Blatnica. Size 5 hectares in Bratislava, 33 hectares overall. History Founded in 1942. Includes Rose garden and woodland garden in Bratislava, peach trees in Stupava and alpine flora in Blatnica. http://www.uniba.sk/bzuk/e_index.htm
SLOVENIA
Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden
Location The Trenta Valley. Size 0.25 hectares History Albert Bois de Chesne, a timber merchant from Trieste, created this tiny, sloping rock garden in the 1920s. Includes 500 species of plants native to the Slovenian Alps.
http://www2.pms-lj.si/garden/information.html
SPAIN
Royal Botanic Garden of Madrid
Location Across the Plaza de Murillo from the Prado Museum. Size 8 hectares. History Founded by King Ferdinand VI in 1755. Includes The splendid Villanueva Pavilion glass house, and important collections from the Iberian Peninsula, Western Mediterranea and the Americas.
http://www.rjb.csic.es/infov_eng.php
SWEDEN
Uppsala University Botanical Garden
Location Uppsala Castle. Size 34 acres. History Founded in 1655, on a site beside the river Fyrisån; largely destroyed by fire before being restored by the university's Professor of Medicine, Carl Linnaeus, in 1741. Moved to Uppsala Castle's baroque garden in 1807. Includes Rock gardens, peat gardens, an orangery, and four 250-year-old trees known as 'Linnaeus's laurels'. In addition, a reconstruction of Linnaeus's garden stands on the original site.
http://www.botan.uu.se/Botaneng.html
© Anthony Gardner. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.