The University of Helsinki Botanical Garden is an institution subordinate to the

Finnish Museum of Natural History The Finnish Museum of Natural History ( fi, Luonnontieteellinen keskusmuseo, sv, Naturhistoriska centralmuseet), established in 1988, is a research institution under the University of Helsinki in Finland, based in Helsinki, Finland. It is a natur ...

of the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, which maintains a collection of live plants for use in research and teaching. The Botanical Garden has two separate sites: one in

Kaisaniemi Kaisaniemi ( sv, Kajsaniemi) is a part of the centre of Helsinki, Finland. It is located immediately north of the Helsinki Central railway station and south of Hakaniemi. The most famous part of Kaisaniemi is the Kaisaniemi park, a park covering ...

Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden: Introduction
Luomos: Finnish Museum of Natural History (accessed 20 October 2022) and one in

Kumpula Kumpula ( sv, Gumtäkt) is a verdant neighbourhood in Helsinki, bordered by Eastern Pasila to the west, Vallila to the south, Käpylä and Koskela to the north and Toukola and Arabianranta to the east. As of January 1, 2003, Kumpula had approxim ...

.Kumpula Botanic Garden: Introduction to Botanic Garden
Luomos: Finnish Museum of Natural History (accessed 20 October 2022) The Kaisaniemi Garden is open to the public. Its greenhouse is currently home to more than 800 different species of plants and its grounds to more than 2,800 plants of different origins. Construction on the Kumpula Garden started in 1987 and opened to the public in 2009.

History of the Kaisaniemi Garden

A walking area for the people of Helsinki

In 1763, Governor Hans Henrik Böje rented a plot of land from the city of Helsinki bordered by Hämeen maantie (nowadays Siltasaarenkatu) and started a garden on it. In 1773, control of the garden was handed over to gardener Erik Edbom. When Helsinki became the capital in 1812, the garden became a municipal garden. Later on, in 1827, work on transforming the garden into a walking area for the denizens of Helsinki commenced according to plans drawn up by

Carl Ludvig Engel Carl Ludvig Engel, or Johann Carl Ludwig Engel (3 July 1778 – 14 May 1840), was a German architect whose most noted work can be found in Helsinki, which he helped rebuild. His works include most of the buildings around the capital's monumental ...

. His plans divided the park into two distinct areas: a symmetrical, tree-lined park and a landscaped garden formed by winding paths. In 1829, the walking area was pared back once the Imperial Academy of Turku Botanical Garden moved next to it after the Great Fire hit Turku and the Imperial Academy relocated to Helsinki.

History of the Botanical Garden

The University of Helsinki Botanical Garden has its roots in the Imperial Academy of Turku Botanical Garden, which was established by Professor

Elias Tillandz Elias Tillandz (1640–1693; born Tillander) was a Swedish-born doctor and botanist who worked in Finland. He was the professor of medicine at the Academy of Turku. He wrote the country's first botanical work, the '' Catalogus Plantarum'', which w ...

in 1678. Tillandz’ garden was a small garden for growing

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

s and

medicinal plant Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including Plant defense against her ...

s. After Tillandz’ death, the garden was left to its own demise until Professor

Pehr Kalm Pehr Kalm (6 March 1716 – 16 November 1779), also known as Peter Kalm, was a Swedish explorer, botanist, naturalist, and agricultural economist. He was one of the most important apostles of Carl Linnaeus. In 1747, he was commissioned by the R ...

took responsibility for it. The garden started to flourish as Kalm brought hundreds of useful plants with him from North America. When the Imperial Academy of Turku relocated to Helsinki in 1828, it was allocated a piece of land in Kaisaniemi that had previously served as common pasture for the people of Helsinki. Professor of Zoology and Botany

Carl Reinhold Sahlberg Carl Reinhold Sahlberg (January 22, 1779, Eura – October 18, 1860, Yläne) was a Finnish naturalist, primarily an entomologist specializing in beetles. He was the father of entomologist Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg (1811-1874), grandfather of ...

started construction on a new garden, relying on his extensive private collection that was not destroyed in the

Great Fire of Turku The Great Fire of Turku ( fi, Turun palo, sv, Åbo brand and russian: Пожар Або) was a conflagration in the city of Turku in 1827. It is still the largest urban fire in the history of Finland and the Nordic countries. The city had burned ...

. Head Gardener

Franz Faldermann Franz Faldermann (28 February 1799, Heidelberg – 30 November 1838, St. Petersburg) was a German entomologist who specialised in Coleoptera. Falderman described many new taxa of Coleoptera. His major works are: * Faldermann, F.: 1833, ''Species ...

of the

Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden The main Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden, officially known as the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Komarov Botanical Institute's Botanical Garden of Peter the Great (russian: Ботанический сад Петра Великого Б ...

was commissioned to design the botanical garden. According to his plan, the garden had two separate areas: gardens and a park-like arboretum. He also planned the greenhouse buildings, of which the first was completed in 1832. Sahlberg served as the first head and organizer of the botanical garden, whose ambitious goal was to create collections of all of the plants in Finland and as many of the non-Finnish plants that thrived in Finland. The wooden, single-storey main building designed by Engel was built in the middle of the garden by 1831. In the 1850s, it was expanded according to plans by . The wood building was moved out of the way of the new main building. In its new location, it became the gardeners’ living quarters, which is the purpose it still serves today. Wiik planned an

Empire style The Empire style (, ''style Empire'') is an early-nineteenth-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts, representing the second phase of Neoclassicism. It flourished between 1800 and 1815 durin ...

bakehouse for the garden and a fence to protect the garden from the cows grazing in pasture nearby. Engel also planned a joint

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

stable and cow barn, which has already been demolished. The botanical garden's current buildings are the handiwork of Architect

Gustaf Nyström Gustaf Nyström (21 January 1856 – 30 December 1917) was a Finnish architect. Nyström has been described as one of the most important architects in Finland at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. He was active bot ...

, as the original greenhouses designed by Faldermann were replaced at the end of the 19th century with new greenhouses designed by Nyström. Unlike Faldermann's greenhouses, Nyström's were made of wrought iron. In 1889, the large, tropical Palm House with its glass roof was finished and in 1896 the rest of the greenhouses. In 1903, construction on the institute building housing the Botanical Department and the

Botanical Museum The Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University at 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Botanical Museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural ...

that Nyström had designed to replace the original main building now serving as the gardeners’ living quarters and the professor's living quarters was finished. The Botanical Museum is still housed in the same building. The gardeners’ building was relocated to the western border of the botanical garden. Furthermore, wooden buildings from the 19th century were moved to the northern border of the garden from elsewhere in Helsinki during the 1990s. During the

Continuation War The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944, as part of World War II.; sv, fortsättningskriget; german: Fortsetzungskrieg. A ...

, the garden was hit by three bombs and the greenhouses were damaged. As a result, all of the more than 1,500

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

in the greenhouses, with the exception of a single cypress and the seeds of a water-lily, died due to freezing temperatures. The seeds survived at the bottom of the water-lily pool and the current water-lily in the pool is the descendant of that water-lily. In the 1950s, the greenhouses were restored and modernized and from 1996 to 1998, they were refurbished once again. The Kaisaniemi Garden and its greenhouses will continue to be used for exhibitions and research.

History of the Kumpula Garden

In the 20th century, the university's botanical garden started to run out of space, so when the decision was made to split the university into four separate campus areas in the 1970s, a plot of land for a new botanical garden was set aside on the

Kumpula Campus The Kumpula Campus ( fi, Kumpulan kampus, sv, Campus Gumtäkt) is a science campus of University of Helsinki. The campus is located some four kilometres from the centre of Helsinki, in the Kumpula district. Completed in 2005, it currently provi ...

. The boundaries of the Kumpula Garden were drawn in 1987. The new garden was built in the former garden of the Kumpula Manor. It opened to public in 2009. The garden is divided up into two separate sections: one for useful plants and one where the plants are arranged according to their geographical origin. The plants are gathered from areas that have climates similar to that of southern Finland, e.g., from Europe, North America and the Far East.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Helsinki Botanical Garden Botanical gardens in Finland Tourist attractions in Helsinki Parks in Helsinki Kluuvi Kumpula