The Jardin botanique de la Villa Thuret () is a renowned

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 ...

located on the grounds of the Villa Thuret, 90, chemin Raymond,

Antibes Antibes (, also , ; oc, label= Provençal, Antíbol) is a coastal city in the Alpes-Maritimes department of southeastern France, on the Côte d'Azur between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is in the commune of Antibes and the Sop ...

Juan-les-Pins Juan-les-Pins (; oc, Joan dei Pins) is a town in the commune of Antibes in the Alpes-Maritimes department in Southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera, it is situated between Nice and Cannes, to the southwest of Nice Côte d'Azur Air ...

Alpes-Maritimes Alpes-Maritimes (; oc, Aups Maritims; it, Alpi Marittime, "Maritime Alps") is a department of France located in the country's southeast corner, on the Italian border and Mediterranean coast. Part of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, ...

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (; or , ; commonly shortened to PACA; en, Provence-Alps-French Riviera, italic=yes; also branded as Région Sud) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its pre ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is open weekdays without charge.

Overview

The garden was created in 1857 by Gustave Thuret (1817-1875), a botanist best known for studies of reproduction in

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular micr ...

, who used it to conduct plant acclimatization trials with friend and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Jean-Baptiste Édouard Bornet (1828-1911). In 1868, novelist

George Sand Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...

described it in her ''Traveller's Letters'' as the loveliest garden she had ever seen. It was bequeathed to the nation in 1878, and in 1927 attached to the Institute of Agronomic Research, which in 1946 became the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA). Today the garden contains approximately 2,500 trees and shrubs in its collections, representing some 1,600 exotic

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 appropriat ...

(144 genera, 131 families) from Mediterranean or hot climate countries including

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

, and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

, as well as

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

. About 50 to 100 new species are planted each year. The garden contains fine collections of

cycad Cycads are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male o ...

conifers Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All ext ...

(with an exceptional collection of

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the l ...

), palms (30 species including excellent specimens of

Jubaea ''Jubaea'' is a genus of palms with one species, ''Jubaea chilensis'' or ''Jubaea spectabilis'', commonly known in English as the Chilean wine palm or Chile cocopalm, and palma chilena in Spanish. It is native to southwestern South America and i ...

), legumes (various species of

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus nam ...

s), Mediterranean oaks,

Myrtaceae Myrtaceae, the myrtle family, is a family of dicotyledonous plants placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, pōhutukawa, bay rum tree, clove, guava, acca (feijoa), allspice, and eucalyptus are some notable members of this group. All sp ...

(

Callistemon ''Callistemon'' is a genus of shrubs in the family Myrtaceae, first described as a genus in 1814. The entire genus is endemic to Australia but widely cultivated in many other regions and naturalised in scattered locations. Their status as ...

, Calothamnus, Eucalyptus, Melaleuca), a large collection of

Pittosporum ''Pittosporum'' ( or ) is a genus of about 200 species of flowering plants in the family Pittosporaceae. The genus is probably Gondwanan in origin; its present range extends from Australasia, Oceania, eastern Asia and some parts of Africa. ''Cit ...

spp., and

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genera with about 1,660 known species. Together with the Platanaceae and Nelumbonaceae, they make up the order ...

including

Banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' range ...

Grevillea ''Grevillea'', commonly known as spider flowers, is a genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the family Proteaceae. Plants in the genus ''Grevillea'' are shrubs, rarely trees, with the leaves arranged alternately along the b ...

, Hakea, and

Leucadendron ''Leucadendron'' is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, endemic to South Africa, where they are a prominent part of the fynbos ecoregion and vegetation type. Description Species in the genus ''Leucadendron' ...

. Noteworthy specimens include a magnificent '' Jubaea spectabilis'', as well as very fine specimens of ''

Arbutus xalapensis ''Arbutus xalapensis'', commonly known as the Texas madrone, Amazaquitl, or Texas madroño, is a species of flowering plant in the heather family. It is native to Central America, the southwestern United States (western Texas and New Mexico), an ...

'', ''

Agathis robusta ''Agathis robusta'' (syn. ''A. palmerstonii''), the Queensland kauri (pine) or smooth-barked kauri, is a coniferous tree in the family Araucariaceae. (Although sometimes called a pine, it is not a true pine, and has leaves, not needles.) It has a ...

'', ''

Cupressus macrocarpa ''Hesperocyparis macrocarpa'' is a coniferous tree. It is commonly known as the Monterey cypress and is one of several species of cypress trees endemic to California. The Monterey cypress is found naturally only on the Central Coast of Califor ...

'', ''

Eucalyptus benthamii ''Eucalyptus benthamii'', commonly known as Camden white gum, Bentham's gum, Nepean River gum, kayer-ro or durrum-by-ang, is a species of tree that is endemic to New South Wales. It has mostly smooth bluish grey or white bark, lance-shaped to cu ...

'', ''

Melaleuca linariifolia ''Melaleuca linariifolia'' is a plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae, and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is commonly known as snow-in-summer, narrow-leaved paperbark, flax-leaved paperbark and in the language of the Gadigal people as ''budj ...

'', and ''

Taxodium mucronatum ''Taxodium mucronatum'', commonly known as Montezuma bald cypress, Montezuma cypress, or ahuehuete, is a species of '' Taxodium'' that is primarily native to Mexico and Guatemala, with a few populations in the southwestern United States. Ahuehue ...

''.

References

Jardin botanique de la Villa Thuret

INRA Sophia Antipolis description (French)

Villa Thuret, Jardin botanique Villa Thuret, Jardin botanique Villa Thuret, Jardin botanique Maisons des Illustres {{France-garden-stub

Overview

See also

References