Old Botanical Garden (Göttingen)

Scene in the old botanical garden

Fern House (built in 1857 as an orangery)

The old botanical garden is an institution of the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen . The garden is located in the northeast of the medieval city center. The garden is adjacent to the auditorium building to the west and the Deutsches Theater to the southeast . It has a size of 5 hectares and contains more than 12,000 different plant species, which are supervised by the Albrecht von Haller Institute for Plant Sciences at the university.

description

The garden was founded in 1736 by the polyhistor Albrecht von Haller immediately after the university was established. When the University of Helmstedt was abolished in 1810, the plant stocks from its botanical garden were transferred to the Göttingen garden. After Haller's houses at the Botanical Garden were demolished, the Albrecht von Haller Institute for Plant Sciences was erected there in 1956, which also manages the algae collection of the University of Göttingen and its herbarium.

The historical layout of the garden was later expanded outside the city wall. These areas are connected by three historic tunnels that cross under the wall. Within a wall are several greenhouses publicly accessible (historic fern house, orangery , cold house, Rain Forest House, Cycadeenhaus , Araceenhaus , succulent , cactus house ) and the Institute building. Outside the wall there is a planting according to the latest phylogenetic knowledge. Information boards convey the basics of the systematics of the plant kingdom to visitors . There are also u. a. an alpinum with different habitats, a historical garden and an arboretum . The facility is operated according to the principles of the Biodiversity Convention .

The garden has around 100,000 visitors a year.

Personalities

The names of are associated with this garden

Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777), founder and director of the garden from 1736 to 1753;
Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling (1798–1875), director of the garden from 1837 to 1875;
Gustav Albert Peter (1853–1937), director of the garden from 1888 to 1923;
Carl Bonstedt (1866–1953), inspector of the garden from 1900 to 1931;
Herold Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt (1903–1977), inspector of the garden from 1940 to 1964.