Fascinating plants from the whole world
Almost 7000 species of plants from the whole world are grown in the Botanical Garden. Here we have collected information about some of them.
To learn more about the different plants you will get redirected to The Linnaean Gardens, where you also can read about platnts in The Linnaeus Garden at Linnaeus' Hammarby.
Santa Cruz waterlily, Victoria cruziana
One of the most spectacular plants in the Botanical Garden is the giant waterlily. Summer time the leafs, lying flat on the water’s surface, may reach a diameter of two meter or more. The large, attractive flowers can only be seen at night in July-September. They are creamy-white on opening and become light pink on the second night.
The Linnaeus Bay Trees
Some of the oldest plants in the Botanical Garden are four bay (laurel) trees which Linnaeus ordered from Holland during the 18th century. In the past, all the leaves and twigs used in the laurel wreaths given to those who were awarded doctorates by Uppsala University were cut from Linnaeus’ bay trees.
A Spruce with a famous genome
A spruce tree has a genome seven times bigger than that of a human being. The Botanic Garden is home to one of the spruce trees used for mapping the spruce genome.
Aloe from the Horn of Africa
In the mid 1980s, Mats Thulin from the Department of Systematic Biology collected seeds of an aloe during an expedition to Somalia. The next year the seeds were sown in the Botanical Garden. Twenty five years later it flowered for the first time and proved to be a species new to science.
