Visit and video
If you happen to see a lotus flower, papyrus and a carnivorous drosera carnivora in the company of a Madagascar palm, the sanguisorba orobica, sugar cane and candelabra cactus you are probably at the Botanical Gardens of Bergamo. It is not the plant equivalent of the Tower of Babel but rather a small feud of the Plant Kingdom which collects representatives of flora from the principle categories into which botanists subdivide the over-250,000 species on our planet.
As you can seen from the logo of the Botanical Gardens, mankind influences the laws of nature here: it is artifice, study and constant care which permits the difficult co-habitation of over 1200 species, sub-species and varieties, all present in a mere 2,400 sq.m.: much less than a football field. Rich in plant life but not very big, the Botanical Gardens of Bergamo, which the magazine ‘Gardenia' defines as ‘that hidden jewel' is set in the ring of the Mura Venete and 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: traffic, noise and anxiety must be left at the bottom of the Colle Aperto staircase, near the seventeenth century Powder Magazine. A beautiful panorama repays your efforts on arrival, the view sweeps 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, helps to bring the public closer to the world of plants and fosters respect for nature. It carries out conservation activities for endangered plants and has undertaken projects for their reintroduction to their natural habitat. One of the latest successful ventures was the re-introduction 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 had disappeared in the wild state for a few decades, was reintroduced about a dozen years ago. The Gardens exchange seeds, fruit and spores collected in the Gardens themselves or in the wild. They are visited by many school children who come with their teachers and also by the general public attracted by the temporary exhibitions.