Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna
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The Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna is a botanical garden in Vienna, Austria. It covers 8 hectares and is immediately adjacent to the Belvedere gardens.
The gardens date back to 1754 when Empress Maria Theresa founded the Hortus Botanicus Vindobonensis with renowned botanist Nikolaus von Jacquin as one of its first directors. His son, Joseph von Jacquin, succeeded him as director, as did a number of other leading botanists in turn, including Stefan Endlicher, Eduard Fenzl, Anton Kerner von Marilaun, Richard von Wettstein, Fritz Knoll, Karl von Frisch, and Lothar Geitler. The Institute of Botany building was opened in 1905. However, at the end of the Second World War, the institute, all the greenhouses, and the entire garden area were bombed and destroyed, and thus required to be completely rebuilt.
The gardens currently contain more than 9,000 species of plants, including well-documented woody tropical plants, particularly of such families as Annonaceae, Rubiaceae, Gesneriaceae, Bromeliaceae or Orchidaceae. Its greenhouses (ca. 1,500m²) were originally built between 1890 and 1893, but were severely damaged during the First and Second World Wars; they are now renovated or rebuilt, but are not open to the public.
The garden collections include:
- Abies pinsapo
- Aesculus pavia
- Cephalotaxus harringtonia
- Diospyros lotus
- Elaeagnus angustifolia
- Ephedra
- Ficus carica
- Ginkgo biloba
- Gunnera chilensis
- +Laburnocytisus adamii
- Liriodendron tulipifera
- Magnolia
- Metasequoia glyptostroboides
- Nothofagus antarctica
- Ostrya carpinifolia
- Parrotia persica
- Paulownia tomentosa
- Phyllostachys viridiglaucescens
- Pinus aristata
- Platanus orientalis
- Poncirus trifoliata
- Prunus tenella
- Rhododendron
- Salvia
- Sequioadendron giganteum
- Syringa
- Viburnum
- Vitis riparia
