The botanical garden in Florence was founded in 1545 and covers an area of about two and a half acres with trees of great height and wild growing plants in the beds of the garden. The 'giardino dei semplici' derives its name from the medical plants found there. In the 1800's it was a meeting place for the citizens of Florence; the first custodian, or 'semplicista' was Luca Ghini, and after him Cesalpino, Micheli, while the cardinal Gian Carlo de' Medici held evening parties there. In 1753 the Accademia dei Georgofili took over its upkeep and redid it with somewhat unappealing tall trees, designed by Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti. The wild growing plants are cultivated mainly in pots, in the greenhouse or outside; the 'hot' greenhouses are graced with autonomous and controlled heat, and in some of them a special instrument to regulate the greenhouse has been put into place: with this machine made of a series of air conditioned rooms, climates and meteorological situations can be reproduced for observation and botanical experimentation. The collections grow every year with new species and the exemplary old ones are renewed; the missions organized the places of origin, in Italy and abroad, are one of the principle activities for the researchers and technicians that work in the Garden. Often the plants' seeds are also requested at the other Botanical Gardens, so that research can be done on the spot. Every plant has been inserted in a numbered list with its own scientific name of the species, the appropriate taxonomy (order, family, genus), the geographical distribution, where it comes from, the distributor, or, in the case that it is taken directly from nature, the place it was found and the name of the person that found it. These informations constitute a precious documentation that is valid also after some period of time. The catalogue is computerized for a simpler and faster way of doing research. Apart from the conservation that can take on particular importance for plants that are becoming extinct, the principle desire of the Botanical Garden is its didactic-educative function that is revealed to university students and extended to high schools and junior high schools to help protect the environment. The Botanical Garden organizes guided visits for whoever requests them and to make the visit more enjoyable there have been guides published that are sold at the entrance. With the destruction of certain habitats and climactic changes due to pollution, more than one-fourth of all plant species on the planet could disappear. The Botanical Gardens and the Arboretums are some of the best ways to save the plants; today more than one-third of all the know species are cultivated within these structures. The defense of nature is in the hands and the conscience of future generations, which could be enlightened and instructed by visiting these green spaces, true living museums.

Apart from the dignified and ancient Taxus baccata, poisonous with both male and female flowers, there are also others of remarkable importance: the exemplary Quercus suber of exceptional dimensions, with its trunk surrounded by a mantle of cork of impressive width; the Metasequoia glyptostrobodies, discovered in one of its last living examples in China in 1941, is today considered a living fossil; Ginkgo biloba, the last species left of the Ginkgoceae, with leave that quickly fall away, each in the shape of a fan, is a dicot that in the Giardino dei Semplici is present in both masculine and feminine forms. Other trees that are the reason for visitors and researchers all over the world are: the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), originally from the Southeast United States, that lives in swampy areas with superficial roots and particular structures called, in Latin, 'Pneumatophora' that transport air to the roots under the soil; Zelkova serrata, native to Japan and Korea, that can reach up to thirty-five meters high and is praised for its quality of wood in furnituremaking, as well as for its foliage in autumn. Average time for the guided visit: 1 hour and 30 minutes


Indirizzo: via P.A. Micheli 3 - Firenze
Biglietto: Free entrance
Riduzioni: -
Orario apertura: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9-12 -- School: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the months of October, November, February, March, April, and May
Chiusura:
Telefono: 055/2757402