The Botanic Garden of

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...

is an institution of

Osnabrück University Osnabrück University () is a public research university located in the city of Osnabrück in Lower Saxony, Germany. The university is known for its many interdisciplinary degree programmes, some of them rare or even unique among German uni ...

. It is located in the Westerberg area of the city in a former

Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; ) is a sequence of sedimentary rock, sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 m ...

quarry, Muschelkalk (“

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

”) being a shell-bearing

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

age typical of Central and Western Europe (although absent from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

). The Botanic Garden is part of the University’
Faculty of Biology and Chemistry
and was established in 1984. Main tasks of the Garden are education and research, as well as public relations.

Description

It comprises an area of 8.4 ha, subdivided between two quarries. One quarry of 5.6 ha houses the outdoor display gardens as well as the glasshouse. The second quarry of 2.8 ha is a conservation area and home to rare plant associations typical to recently abandoned limestone quarries. The garden’s outdoor display areas show different plant communities from all over the world such as Mediterranean and alpine plants, or North American and Eurasian forests. There are also thematic collections of medical and aromatic plants and plant families (e.g. the garlic family or the

heath family The Ericaceae () are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with about 4,250 known species spread across 124 genera, maki ...

). In the Lowland Rainforest House more than 800 species of tropical plants provide an example for the vegetation of the Amazon basin.

Research

Research in the Botanic Garden of Osnabrück focuses on

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

and the evolution of land plants. Special interest lies in the phylogeny of the genus

Allium ''Allium'' is a large genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants with around 1000 accepted species, making ''Allium'' the largest genus in the family Amaryllidaceae and among the largest plant genera in the world. Many of the species are edible, ...

, to which belong such well-known vegetables as

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

chives Chives, scientific name ''Allium schoenoprasum'', is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae. A perennial plant, ''A. schoenoprasum'' is widespread in nature across much of Eurasia and North America. It is the only spe ...

leek A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...

s and

shallot The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was t ...

s. The Allium collection of the Botanic Garden comprises no fewer than 230 species. Different departments, especially the Departments of Botany and Ecology, use the Botanic Garden for outdoor testing. The Botanic Garden of Osnabrück houses the

Loki Schmidt Hannelore "Loki" Schmidt (; 3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010) was a German teacher and environmentalist. She was the wife of Helmut Schmidt, who was the Chancellor of Germany from 1974 to 1982. Life and work Hannelore Glaser was born in 1919 i ...

br>Genbank
a seed bank for wild plant conservation founded in 2003. The Garden also coordinates th
WEL-Genbank
(Genbank Wildpflanzen für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft). This seed bank, focusing on the conservation of the wild relatives of economically used plants, is under construction in cooperation with the Botanic Gardens of Berlin-Dahlem, Regensburg and Karlsruhe as well as the University of Education Karlsruhe.

Education

The collections of the Botanic Gardens are used intensively in biological education at both school and university level. Many biologists working on Bachelor-, Master-, Diplom- and Ph.D. theses collaborate with the Botanic Garden.

Public Relations

The Botanic Garden of Osnabrück attracts approximately 70,000 visitors a year. Entry is free. There are guided tours of the Garden on a regular basis, the so-called “Sonntagsspaziergänge”. The “Grüne Schule” offering these Sunday tours also provides a range of different thematic and seasonal tours which can be booked by interested groups. The offers and services of the “Grüne Schule” are especially aimed at children and groups of pupils, but there are also a variety of tours for adults. In 2010 400 guided tours of the Garden took place. Since 2011 there has also been a self-guided tour available which is based on GPS Points of Interest. The Botanic Garden and its public relations are strongly supported by the 300-or-so Friends of the Garden, who make up the “Freundeskreis des Botanischen Gartens der Universität Osnabrück e.V.”.

External links

Botanischer Garten der Universität Osnabrück
{{DEFAULTSORT:Botanischer Garten Der Universitat Osnabruck Osnabruck, Botanischer Garten der Universitat Osnabruck, Botanischer Garten der Universitat Buildings and structures in Osnabrück Tourist attractions in Osnabrück

Description

Research

Education

Public Relations

See also

External links