BGCI > Garden

Italy - Bergamo

Institution Code: BERG

International Agenda Registration: Y

BGCI Member: Y

If the lotus flower, the papyrus and a carnivorous drosera carnivora are in the company of a Madagascar palm, the sanguisorba orobica, sugar cane and candelabra cactus you are probably at the Botanic Gardens of Bergamo. It is not the plant Tower of Babel but rather a small feud of the Plant Kingdom which collects representatives of the principle categories into which botanists subdivide the over 250,000 species of flora on our planet. As seen in the logo of the Botanic Gardens, the laws of nature feel the influence of mankind here: it is artifice, study and constant care which permit the difficult co–habitation of over 900 species, sub–species and varieties, all present in only 1,750 sq.m.: much less than a football field.
Rich in plant life but not very big, the Botanic Gardens of Bergamo, which the magazine ‘Gardenia' defines as ‘that hidden jewel' squeezed into the ring of the Mura Venete has been visited by an average of 11,000 people from March to October in the last few years.
The Gardens can be only be reached on foot because traffic, noise and anxiety have to be left at the bottom of the Colle Aperto stairs, near the seventeenth century powder magazine. A beautiful panorama greets you on arrival sweeping across the rooftops and the monuments of the Città Alta to the foothills of the Prealps of Bergamo.
The Botanic Gardens of Bergamo, with its demonstrative and suggestive character, contributes to bringing the public closer to the world of plants and builds respect for nature. It carries out conservation activities for endangered plants and has undertaken projects for the reintroduction to the natural habitat of Osmunda regalis, a fern noted in 1853 by the botanist and doctor Lorenzo Rota, the first chronicler of the flora of Bergamo, who saw it in Val Calepio and on the banks of the River Adda.This fern which disappeared in the wild state over the last decades was reintroduced about a dozen years ago.
The Gardens exchanges seeds, fruit and spores coming from the Gardens itself or collected from the wild. It is visited by many school children who come with their teachers and also by the general public attracted by temporary shows. The Botanic Gardens of Bergamo form one of the nodes of the Network of Botanic Gardens of Lombardy and a member of the BGCI (Botanic Garden Conservation International).