Jardí Botànic de la Universitat de València, Valencia

The Jardí Botànic de la Universitat de València is a living scientific garden, established in 1802 on Calle Quart and administered by the University of Valencia. Its story reaches back further: university teaching once depended on medicinal plant collections, linking this site to the long relationship between botany and medical education. The garden took its permanent home in a former orchard that could be irrigated from the Rovella canal, near the Turia.

Look at the iron-and-glass conservatory: Sebastián Monleón designed it, and it was built from 1860 to 1862 as a curved glazed structure measuring 24 metres in length, 8.25 metres across and 9 metres high. Its generous interior allowed large exotic plants to grow, including a Ficus benjamina that could exceed 5 metres. During the nineteenth century, José Pizcueta reshaped the garden, adding plant-acclimatisation work and bringing botanical and agricultural teaching together.

A catalogue published in 1856 recorded more than 6,000 living species. Today, this university garden belongs to international botanical conservation networks, and in 2006 it received recognition as a historic garden of cultural interest.