The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens is a

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 at 900 South Palm Avenue in

Sarasota Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the sout ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The Gardens are located on the grounds of the former home of Marie and William Selby.

Flora

The Gardens feature preserved collections of

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, feature more than 20,000 living plants including 5,500

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 ...

s, 3,500

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, ...

s and 1,600 other plants. The living collection is accompanied by an

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

, with dried and preserved specimens of tropical flora; the world's second-largest spirit collection consisting of vials of mostly orchid flowers in preservative fluids; and a library. More than 150 expeditions to the tropics and subtropics have contributed to these collections. Selby Gardens' botanists have discovered or described more than 2,000 plant species previously unknown to science. The Gardens maintain

banyan A banyan, also spelled "banian", is a fig that develops accessory trunks from adventitious prop roots, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely. This distinguishes banyans from other trees with a strangler habit that begin life as a ...

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

live oak Live oak or evergreen oak is any of a number of oaks in several different sections of the genus ''Quercus'' that share the characteristic of evergreen foliage. These oaks are not more closely related to each other than they are to other oaks. ...

palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

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 ...

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the w ...

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

s, a butterfly garden, a fragrance garden, an edible garden, and a

koi or more specifically , are colored varieties of the Amur carp ('' Cyprinus rubrofuscus'') that are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi is an informal name for the colored variants of ''C. rubrofuscus'' ke ...

pond, on a site bordering

Sarasota Bay Sarasota Bay is a lagoon located off the central west coast of Florida in the United States. Though no significant single stream of freshwater enters the bay, with a drainage basin limited to 150 square miles in Manatee and Sarasota Counties, it ...

. The interactive Ann Goldstein Children's Rainforest Garden is designed to help children develop a lifelong appreciation for

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

plants.

Divisions

Major divisions of the Gardens are as follows: * The

Mulford B. Foster Mulford Bateman Foster (December 25, 1888 – August 28, 1978Foster Family Bible) was a botanist known by many as the "Father of the Bromeliad" as he was instrumental in the discovery and introduction of many new species of Bromeliad to the United ...

Bromeliad Identification Center was established in 1979 in honor of Mulford Foster, one of the leading bromeliad collectors to provide information on the

horticultural Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

and botanical aspects of the Bromeliaceae. It maintains

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

files for over 2800 species,

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

, and subfamilies, and houses more than 2,000 photographic slides for use by individuals, institutions and societies. It is supported by local and international bromeliad societies. *

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 contain over 10,500 accessions in more than 600 genera representing 92 plant families, including 4900

s, 3600

s, 660

aroid The Araceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants in which flowers are borne on a type of inflorescence called a spadix. The spadix is usually accompanied by, and sometimes partially enclosed in, a spathe (or leaf-like bract). Also ...

s, 240

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except t ...

s, 140

gesneriad Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), with ...

s, and 1,300 other plants. * Gardens contain approximately 2,300 recorded tropical and subtropical plantings, representing some 1,200 species, 620 genera, and 165 plant families. A significant portion are well-documented, vouchered species collected from native habitats. * The Herbarium contains approximately 106,000 specimens of tropical flora, largely

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

, with an emphasis on

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

flora and flora of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

are well represented. Current collections of families, with number of types for each, is:

Orchidaceae 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 ...

(1,200),

Bromeliaceae The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain o ...

(109),

Gesneriaceae Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), with ...

(105),

Araceae The Araceae are a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants in which flowers are borne on a type of inflorescence called a spadix. The spadix is usually accompanied by, and sometimes partially enclosed in, a spathe (or leaf-like bract). Also ...

(62),

Marantaceae The Marantaceae are a family, the arrowroot family, of flowering plants consisting of 31 genera and around 530 species, defining it as one of the most species-rich families in its order.Kennedy, H. (2000). “Diversification in pollination mechan ...

(16),

Heliconiaceae ''Heliconia'', derived from the Ancient Greek language, Greek word (), is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the ca 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to c ...

(14), and miscellany (61). * The Orchid Identification Center was established in 1975 to study and curate wild-collected and conservatory grown orchids, and to serve as a center for their identification. It has amassed a collection of more than 20,000 taxonomic reference files, a collection of photographs, and 24,000 spirit preserved specimens, with particular strengths in collections from Mexico, Central America, Andean South America, and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. * The Christy Payne House houses the Museum of Botany and the Arts, the Garden's gallery for changing exhibits of botanical art and photography. It is listed on the US

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, to which it was added on September 25, 1998. * The Research Library houses approximately 124,000 volumes, dealing primarily with tropical plants, and especially epiphytes. It includes a rare book collection dating to the late 18th century, 14,000 issues of scientific journals, 2,500 microfiche of early botanical references and herbaria, a photographic slide collection, and other related holdings. * The Spirit Collection contains nearly 28,000 vials of flowers in preservative fluids, making it the second-largest such collection in the world after the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 ...

. The collection includes 24,000 vials of the

family (

); several thousand vials of

s (

); and 300 vials of

s (

Selby Gardens Research Library (Research Library)

The Selby Gardens Research Library began with a request made from William Cole's estate in 1973. Building the research library was part of the requirement when planning and building the Selby Botanical Gardens and began acquiring the book collection even before the Botanical Gardens opened to the public. It is considered to be one of the finest, most respected botanical libraries in the United States, with many scientists from all over the world coming to visit the numerous collections. Since the library opened in 1975, many people have contributed to the growing collection of botanical research, including collections from L.O. Williams, Dr. Helen Miller, and Dr. Bruce McAlpin. The library is primarily a research tool and reference for scientists and horticulturalists, along with amateur plant enthusiasts. A searchable catalogue of the collection is available online for viewing.

Library collections

* Main library collection - holds 7,000 volumes with 4,900 titles. This collection consists of ecology,

systematic botany Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, identifies, describes, classifies, and names plants. It is one of the main branches of taxonomy (the science that finds, describes, classifies, and names living things). Plant taxonomy is closely allied ...

, a taxonomy of epiphytic plant families, and

ethnobotany Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for m ...

, among other subjects. * Rare Books - the collection contains over 500 volumes, with some volumes being over 200 years old. This collection includes the ''Curtis’ Botanical Magazine'' from 1788. However access to this collection is only available through an appointment and accompaniment with a librarian. * Serials - over 310 titles on horticultural and botanical journals, along with newsletters. * Botanical Prints - part of the Rare Books but separate. Access is extremely limited, normally not open to the general public. * Blueprints, Slides, CDs are also available to view in the main library collection * Microfiche collection - over 141 titles including the hard-to-find

. The library is only open on Monday (9 am to 12 pm) and on Friday (1 pm to 4 pm). It is open to the general public but an appointment must be made ahead of time to view and use the collection. Also, no materials can be checked out to the general public. For members and volunteers, they can visit the library during library hours and check out books and journal collections for a two-week period.

Selby Botanical Gardens Press

The Selby Botanical Gardens Press publishes the research journal ''Selbyana – The Journal of The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens'', botanical books, proceedings, field guides, and posters. ''Selbyana'' (, ), published since 1975, is a peer-reviewed scientific journal issued twice a year, focusing on research on canopy biology and

tropical plants Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse that in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole ye ...

, especially

epiphytes 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 ...

. This includes many papers on

gesneriads Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World (almost all Didymocarpoideae) and the New World (most Gesnerioideae), with ...

, including valuable contributions by

Hans Wiehler Hans Joachim Wiehler (8 July 1930 in Klecie, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Klettendorf – 2003) was a German botanist who specialized in the plant family Gesneriaceae. In 1954 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana a ...

and Larry Skog, bromeliads and

orchids 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 ...

Barancik Foundation Grant

In 2018 the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation in Sarasota, Florida, announced that it had awarded a $2 million grant to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, in support of its greening-focused master plan and sustainability going forward."Barancik Foundation Awards $4 Million in Grants,"
''Philanthropy News Digest''.

Gallery

File:Sarasota FL Selby Gardens01.jpg, Entrance File:Sarasota FL Selby Gardens Selby House02.jpg, Selby House File:Sarasota FL Selby Gardens koi02.jpg, Koi pond File:Sarasota FL Selby Gardens bonsai chloroleucon t02.jpg, Chloroleucon tortum File:Sarasota FL Selby Gardens bonsai tamarindus i01.jpg, Bonsai - Tamarindus indica