Description
The Botanical Garden of Palermo, a stone's throw from the Kalsa and next to Villa Giulia, is one of the city's best-loved gardens: ten hectares with over 12,000 plant species, neoclassical buildings, ponds and giant trees. The right place for a break in the shade.
The garden's symbol is the great Moreton Bay fig, brought in 1845 from the Norfolk Islands in the Pacific: a giant with an enormous crown that by itself shades half an avenue.
At the center, facing the gate, stands the Gymnasium, a small neoclassical temple with two greenhouses at its sides, the Calidarium and the Tepidarium, built for plants of warm and temperate climates. At the end of the central avenue opens the Aquarium, a large circular pool with water lilies and lotus flowers.
The oldest section is the Linnaean System: flower beds laid out according to Linnaeus's classification, with a large ginkgo. Also don't miss the Serra Maria Carolina, the cast-iron winter garden, and the palm grove with the cycads.
The story begins in 1779, when the Academy of Royal Studies set up a chair of Botany and a small garden of medicinal plants. Too small: in 1786 it was moved to the Piano di Sant'Erasmo, then known for the Inquisition's bonfires.
In 1787 Goethe, traveling in Sicily, visited the garden and left an enchanted description of it. The buildings were designed by the French architect Léon Dufourny, struck by the island's Greek temples. The new garden was inaugurated in 1795.
In the 1800s Palermo became a point of reference for the great gardens of Northern Europe, which transferred many still little-known exotic species here. From here, the mandarin and the loquat were introduced across the Mediterranean.
The garden also keeps a germplasm bank, created in 1993: it preserves the seeds of rare or threatened species of Mediterranean flora, in glass ampoules.
The garden's symbol is the great Moreton Bay fig, brought in 1845 from the Norfolk Islands in the Pacific: a giant with an enormous crown that by itself shades half an avenue.
At the center, facing the gate, stands the Gymnasium, a small neoclassical temple with two greenhouses at its sides, the Calidarium and the Tepidarium, built for plants of warm and temperate climates. At the end of the central avenue opens the Aquarium, a large circular pool with water lilies and lotus flowers.
The oldest section is the Linnaean System: flower beds laid out according to Linnaeus's classification, with a large ginkgo. Also don't miss the Serra Maria Carolina, the cast-iron winter garden, and the palm grove with the cycads.
The story begins in 1779, when the Academy of Royal Studies set up a chair of Botany and a small garden of medicinal plants. Too small: in 1786 it was moved to the Piano di Sant'Erasmo, then known for the Inquisition's bonfires.
In 1787 Goethe, traveling in Sicily, visited the garden and left an enchanted description of it. The buildings were designed by the French architect Léon Dufourny, struck by the island's Greek temples. The new garden was inaugurated in 1795.
In the 1800s Palermo became a point of reference for the great gardens of Northern Europe, which transferred many still little-known exotic species here. From here, the mandarin and the loquat were introduced across the Mediterranean.
The garden also keeps a germplasm bank, created in 1993: it preserves the seeds of rare or threatened species of Mediterranean flora, in glass ampoules.