Botanical Garden of Strasbourg University

The Strasbourg Botanic Gardens or rather Jardin Botanique de l’Université de Strasbourg is a botanical garden and arboretum. It is open daily without charge.

The garden was established in 1619 for the city’s Académie (which in 1621 became the university) and is thus the second oldest botanical garden in France after that of Montpellier. It was created on the cemetery grounds of the convent Saint-Nicolas-aux-Ondes. This first site was then known as the Krutenau (plain of cabbage), and is now the Place de l’Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. This early garden was kept by the faculty of medicine. Its first inventory, published in 1670 by Marcus Mappus, listed some 1600 species. The entire university was suppressed in 1792 after the French Revolution, but the garden’s director, Jean Hermann, managed to preserve not just the garden itself but also the statues of the Strasbourg Cathedral, which he buried within the garden.

In 1919 the garden reverted to French territory after World War I. Most of its greenhouses were destroyed by hail in 1958. Newer greenhouses were built in 1967.

Today the garden contains about 15,000 specimens representing more than 6,000 species of plants, and is operated by the University of Strasbourg. It consists of 9 plots surrounding the Institute of Botany: an arboretum, tropical greenhouse, cold greenhouse, the Bary Greenhouse, a greenhouse of grasses, a pond, the systematic garden, ecological plantings, and useful plants.

It is a fantastic afternoon out in Strasbourg and one in which a perfectly packed french picnic could be brought along to enjoy during the summer in the gardens.