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| Hortus Botanicus |
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| The 'Hortus Botanicus', one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world was founded by the city council in 1638. It was originally named 'Hortus Medicus' as it was at the beginning a place for the growing of medical herbs raised for usage by doctors and pharmacists. In 1682 the garden was transferred at the present location at the Plantage Middenlaan. The Hortus' collection contains at present about 6000 different, not only medicinal, plant species a big part of which was brought by means of the ships of the V.O.C in the 17th and 18th century. This includes amongst others a 300-year-old cycaspalm, some of the medicinal species grown there 300 years ago and plants threatened with extinction and is still expending with specimens that are preferable coming from the wild and fit in the Hortus specialities or have an extraordinary application. The grounds include the open garden area, the palm house (1912), the Mexican Californian desert house, the three climate house (subtropical/desert/tropical part) built in 1993, a propagation greenhouse, the cactus house, and the education greenhouse which also houses several butterfly species. Hortus Botanicus, among other things the provider of the first oil palms to Indonesia, the bringer of the first coffee plant in Europe from which the coffee plantations in Brazil originate, and a preserver of rare plant species is also a place to see! |
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