Lucca Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden of Lucca is a cultural and museum institute of the Municipality of Lucca open to the public. It preserves a historical-scientific and architectural heritage of nineteenth-century origin, living and museum collections of great interest and charm. Often perceived as an aesthetic and landscape garden, through activities of enhancement, dissemination and awareness it affirms its role as a witness and spokesperson for current issues such as the loss and protection of biodiversity, sustainability, the indissoluble relationship between man and the plant world. The institution is an integral part of the city’s cultural network and declines themes that can be shared according to its nature. Founded in 1820, as part of a series of initiatives aimed at increasing university scientific education, today it maintains most of the nineteenth-century accommodations and structures. The southern portion of the garden houses the large Arboretum with centuries-old trees with a monumental appearance, the Montagnola destined to the native flora of the nearby mountains, the Pond and the collection of camellias and rhododendrons. In the northern part, there is the Botanical School with a large collection of medicinal plants. Here are the old greenhouses and the newly built ones, the Library, the “Cesare Bicchi” Museum with precious herbaria, one of the headquarters of the Regional Bank of Germoplasma, which preserves the seeds of local varieties of agricultural interest at risk of extinction. A sensory path for the blind has recently been created, which can be visited independently with the support of an audio guide. The main activities are aimed at raising awareness and teaching, the ex-situ conservation of the hygrophilous flora of Tuscany and the variety of agricultural interest at risk of extinction, the study of the local ethnobotanical tradition. An Index Seminum is drawn up every year, with which the seeds collected in the garden and outside are made available to other botanical gardens.