List of botanical gardens

A botanical garden is a place where plants, especially ferns, conifers and flowering plants, are grown and displayed for the purposes of research, conservation, and education. This distinguishes them from parks and pleasure gardens where plants, usually with showy flowers, are grown for public amenity only. Botanical gardens that specialize in trees are sometimes referred to as arboretums. They are occasionally associated with zoos.

The earliest botanical gardens were founded in the late Renaissance at the University of Pisa (1543) and the University of Padua (1545) in Italy, for the study and teaching of medical botany. Many universities today have botanical gardens for student teaching and academic research, e.g. the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, US, the Bonn University Botanic Garden, Bonn, Germany, the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Cambridge, England, the Hortus Botanicus, Leiden, Netherlands, and the Kraus Preserve of Ohio Wesleyan University, US.

This page lists important botanical gardens throughout the world.

A useful database cataloging the world's botanic gardens can also be found at the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) website. With over 800 participating botanical gardens, BGCI forms the world's largest network for plant conservation and environmental education.[1]