Botanic Garden Jena

A small “Medical Garden” (Hortus Medicus) was founded as early as 1586 and later became the “Hortus Botanicus". But above all modern development is closely associated with the name of J.W. Goethe. Today, an old and mighty gingko tree still survives from this era of the Botanical Garden.

On an area of 4.5 hectares, some 10,000 plant species from major vegetation regions of the world are cultivated outside and in greenhouses and presented in an aesthetically impressive form. In the outside complex, you will find an arboretum with about 900 deciduous trees and conifers, an alpinum with some 2,500 species and also a small hill showing representatives of the species-rich Jena kalkflora.

In the greenhouses, you can revel in the variety of colours, shapes and fragrances of the tropical and sub-tropical flora. The greenhouses are divided as follows: a cactus and succulent house, a hard deciduous and laurel wood house, a combined palm and tropical house, a small aquarium and paludaria house and finally the Victoria house with the Amazonian giant water lily (Victoria) with its unusually large leaves.

The Botanical Garden in Jena is located in the centre of the town and is part of the Friedrich Schiller University. It belongs to the Institute for Special Botany. The primary assignments of the Jena Botanical Garden include: collaboration in academic teaching, continuation of botanical research, preservation of floral and genetic diversity, cultivation of a wide range of species and rare and endangered plants.