Orto Botanico di Firenze

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General view

Central fountain

The Orto Botanico di Firenze (2.3 hectares), also known as the Giardino dei Semplici, is a botanical garden maintained by the University of Florence. It is located at Via Micheli, 3, Florence, Italy, and open weekday mornings. An admission fee is charged.

The garden was established on December 1, 1545, by Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and is Europe's third oldest, behind the Orto Botanico di Pisa and the Orto Botanico di Padova. It was first laid out by landscape gardener Niccolò Pericoli to a botanical system and plantings chosen by Luca Ghini, and rose to prominence under Cosimo III, with Pier Antonio Micheli as its director. As was typical of early European botanical gardens, its prime interest was in medicinal plants. However, as in 1753 the Società Botanica was formed, the garden's focus turned to "experimental agriculture" amd its layout was revised accordingly. The garden grounds opened to the public in the mid 1800s, at about the same time that its glass houses (1694 m²) were constructed.

Today the garden contains some 9,000 plant specimens laid out in a roughly square site surrounded by walls, crossed by a grid of walkways, and with a central fountain. Some trees are quite old, including a Taxus baccata (1720) and Quercus suber (1805). Other species include Acer negundo, Aesculus hippocastanum, Alnus cordata, Araucaria imbricata, Arbutus × andrachinoides, Archontophoenix cunninghamii, Calocedrus decurrens, Cedrus atlantica, Cedrus deodara, Cedrus libani, Celtis occidentalis, Ceratozamia mexicana, Cupressus funebris, Cupressus goveniana, Cupressus sempervirens, Cupressus torulosa, Cycas revoluta, Cydonia oblonga, Digitalis lanata, Digitalis purpurea, Dionaea muscipula, Dioon edule, Dioon purpusii, Diospyros lotus, Encephalartos caffer, Encephalartos ferox, Encephalartos horridus, Encephalartos munchii, Encephalartos natalensis, Encephalartos trispinosus, Erithea armata, Fagus sylvatica, Fagus sylvatica pendula, Fraxinus excelsior, Gingko biloba, Juglans nigra, Lagerstroemia indica, Liriodendron tulipifera, Magnolia grandiflora, Melissa officinalis, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, Ostrya carpinifolia, Pinus halepensis sbsp brutia, Pinus nigra sbsp laricio, Pinus wallichiana, Pistacia chinensis, Pistacia terebinthus, Platanus spp., Pterocarya stenoptera, Quercus cerris, Quercus ilex, Quercus lusitanica, Quercus macrolepsis, Quercus robur, Sequoia sempervirens, Sophora japonica, Taxodium distichum, Taxodium mucronatum, Tilia platiphyllos, Torreya californica, Torreya nucifera, Torreya nucifera, Trachycarpus fortunei, Washingtonia filifera, Yucca australis, Zelkova carpinifolia, Zelkova crenata, and Zelkova serrata.