Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1983-0606-016, Halle, Botanischer Garten, Seerosenteich, Gewächshäuser

The Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (4.5 hectares) is an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

and

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

maintained by the

University of Halle-Wittenberg Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...

. It is located at ''Am Kirchtor 3'' in the city of

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hall ...

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and open daily in the warmer months. An admission fee is charged. The garden's origins can be traced back to 1698 when Frederick III,

Prince Elector The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, la, Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 13th century onwards, the prince ...

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...

donated parts of his ''hortus medicus'' to the university in Halle. By 1749 the garden contained 191 plants

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. In 1787 it was enlarged to its present size by Karl Christoph von Hoffmann (1735-1801), university chancellor, in response to activities of garden directors Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798), who participated in Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

's second world expedition, and Philipp Jung Hans Caspar (1736-1798). Towards the end of the 18th century many

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

s were constructed, and by 1825 the garden contained some 7,000

. Its tropical greenhouse was built in 1872 with the Victoria greenhouse following in 1902. During the 20th century, additional modern green houses were built and old ones renovated, including the 1994 reconstruction of the Victoria greenhouse. The garden grounds also contain the former university observatory, designed by

Carl Gotthard Langhans Carl Gotthard Langhans (15 December 1732 – 1 October 1808) was a Prussian master builder and royal architect. His churches, palaces, grand houses, interiors, city gates and theatres in Silesia (now Poland), Berlin, Potsdam and elsewhere bel ...

(1732-1808). Today the garden contains about 12,000

, including systematic collections of

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...

carnivorous plant Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryot ...

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

species (especially from the tribe

Aveneae The Poeae are the largest tribe of the grasses, with around 2,500 species in 121 genera. The tribe includes many lawn and pasture grasses. Taxonomy Two separate tribes, Poeae and Aveneae, used to be distinguished based on morphology, but phylog ...

), Mammillaria (

Cactaceae A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...

Echinodorus ''Echinodorus'', commonly known as burhead or Amazon sword, is a genus of plants in the family Alismataceae, native to the Western Hemisphere from the central United States to Argentina. Its scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek ' – " ...

( Alismataceae), and

Cryptocoryne ''Cryptocoryne'' is a genus of aquatic plants from the family Araceae. The genus is naturally distributed in tropical regions of India, Southeast Asia and New Guinea. The typical habitats of ''Cryptocoryne'' are mostly streams and rivers with n ...

( Araceae). It also contains an important collection of

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n plants, especially from

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

, which is believed to be one of the largest such collections outside

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

, and preserves some rare and extinct plants with emphasis on the local region of

, including ''

Artemisia rupestris ''Artemisia rupestris'' is a species of plants belonging to the family Asteraceae. Its native range is Europe to Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region ...

'', as well as exotics such as ''

Carlina diae ''Carlina'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. It is distributed from Madeira and the Canary Islands across Europe and northern Africa to Siberia and northwestern China.Kovanda, M. (2002)Observations on ''Carlina bieberstein ...

'' (

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

) from

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

and '' Sophora toromiro'' from the

Easter Islands Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...

. The garden is organized into the following major areas: * Alpine garden with many high mountain plants surrounds a small plant bed with beach and

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

plants. *

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

plants. *

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

n plants, particularly Berberis and Cotoneaster. *

Arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

, systematically arranged, with very old specimens of '' Acer campestre'', '' Gymnocladus dioicus'', '' Juglans nigra'', '' Metasequoia glyptostroboides'', and ''

Sophora japonica ''Styphnolobium japonicum'', the Japanese pagoda tree (also known as the Chinese scholar tree and pagoda tree; syn. ''Sophora japonica'') is a species of tree in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. It was formerly included withi ...

''. *

Steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

plants from the East Mediterranean region and

. * Systematic garden, organized according to the "System der natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien" of A. Engler. The garden also contains a number of greenhouses (3,000 m² total area) including: * Arid greenhouse -

cacti A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...

and

succulent In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...

s from the Americas and Africa, with a smaller section dedicated to

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. * Evergreen plant greenhouse. * Orangery. * Tropical greenhouse -

liana A liana is a long- stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. The word ''liana'' does not refer to a ta ...

epiphyte An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

s and useful plants including

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

, and

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

. * Victoria greenhouse - tropical

aquatic plant Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments (saltwater or freshwater). They are also referred to as hydrophytes or macrophytes to distinguish them from algae and other microphytes. A macrophyte is a plant that ...

s including mangroves and collections of

and

External links

Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Halle: Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Trivago entry, with photographs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Halle-Wittenberg, Botanische Garten der Martin-Luther-Universitat Botanical gardens in Germany Gardens in Saxony-Anhalt

See also

External links