Weather device at the Buenos Aires Botanical Gardens

The Buenos Aires Botanical Garden (official name in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

: ''Jardín Botánico

Carlos Thays Carlos Thays (August 20, 1849 – January 31, 1934)Biog ...

de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires'') is a

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

located in the

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

neighborhood of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. The garden is triangular in shape, and is bounded by

Santa Fe Avenue Avenida Santa Fe is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The artery is essential to the imaginary axis of Barrio Norte, Buenos Aires, Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires, comprising the areas influenced by the route of the aven ...

, Las Heras Avenue and República Árabe Siria Street. The garden, which was declared a national monument in 1996, has a total area of , and holds approximately 5,500 species of plants, trees and shrubs, as well as a number of sculptures, monuments and five greenhouses.

Origin

Carlos Thays Carlos Thays (August 20, 1849 – January 31, 1934)Biog ...

, the garden was inaugurated on September 7, 1898. Thays and his family lived in an English style mansion, located within the gardens, between 1892 and 1898, when he served as director of parks and walks in the city. The mansion, built in 1881, is currently the main building of the complex.

Collections

The park has three distinct

landscape gardening A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Diction ...

styles; the symmetric, the mixed and the picturesque, recreated in the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

, French and Oriental gardens.

Roman garden

:This holds species of tree that the first century

botanist

Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo; 61 – ), better known in English as Pliny the Younger ( ), was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and e ...

had in his villa in the

Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...

, such as cypresses, poplars, and

laurel Laurel may refer to: Plants * Lauraceae, the laurel family * Laurel (plant), including a list of trees and plants known as laurel People * Laurel (given name), people with the given name * Laurel (surname), people with the surname * Laurel (mus ...

French garden

:This has a symmetric French style of the 17th and 18th century.

Oriental garden

:In other areas the plants are ordered by origin; from

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

can be seen ''

Ginkgo biloba ''Ginkgo biloba'', commonly known as ginkgo or gingko ( ), also known as the maidenhair tree, is a species of gymnosperm tree native to East Asia. It is the last living species in the order Ginkgoales, which first appeared over 290 million year ...

''; from

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

Acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Austral ...

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of ''Eucalyptus'' are trees, often Mallee (habit), mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalyp ...

and

Casuarina ''Casuarina'', also known as she-oak, Australian pine and native pine, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Casuarinaceae, and is native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and e ...

s; from

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

s and

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according to ...

trees; from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

bracken Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family (biology), family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that undergo alternation of generations, having both large plants that produce spores and small ...

s and

palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae ** List of Arecaceae genera **Palm oil * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music ...

Argentinean Indigenous Americas garden

There are an abundant collection of flora from Argentina and the

Southern Cone The Southern Cone (, ) is a geographical and cultural subregion composed of the southernmost areas of South America, mostly south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Traditionally, it covers Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, bounded on the west by the Pac ...

present in the design, such as

Araucaria ''Araucaria'' (; original pronunciation: .ɾawˈka. ɾja is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. While today they are largely confined to the Southern Hemisphere, during the Jurassic and Cretaceous they were glo ...

and Blue Patagonian Spruce, and evergreen trees. In other sections plant species are systematically ordered by their

taxonomic 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...

qualification. There are also other plantae from the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

, such as sequoias from

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and " Palo Borracho" Chorisia speciosa, also called Floss silk tree from Brazil and Northern Argentina.

Installations

Within the garden is the Municipal Gardening School Cristóbal María Hicken, which is linked to the Faculty of Agronomy of the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

. The garden also contains 33 artistic works including sculptures, busts and monuments. Among these are ''Los primeros Fríos'' by the Catalan sculptor Blay y Fábregas, ''Sagunto'' by Querol y Subirats, ''Figura de mujer'' by Lola Mora, and ''Saturnalia'' made in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

by Ernesto Biondi. Other attractions include the five winter-houses, the biggest of which is in

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

style and received recognition in the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889. It has a length of , a width of , contains 2500 tropical plants and is considered to be the only winter-house in that style still conserved in the world. There is also a monument entitled ''Indicador Meteorológico'' (Weather Indicator), designed by José Markovich, and presented by the Austro-Hungarian Empire community for the

Exposición Internacional del Centenario (1910) The Argentine Centennial International Exhibition () was an exhibition held between May and November 1910 in Buenos Aires, to commemorate the Centennial of the May Revolution in Argentina (the formation of the first local government on May 25, 18 ...

. The Botanic Library has 1,000 books and 10,000 publications from all parts of the world, which are freely available to visitors. The park also contains a Botanical Museum.

Cat population

In recent years, the Botanical Garden has become home to a large population of

cat The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

s. The cats are not feral animals born in the Garden, but are all domestic cats abandoned there by owners who wished for unknown reasons to get rid of their household cats. Garden authorities and security personnel have so far been unable to check the regular abandonment of unwanted household cats. Projects to remove the cats have been rejected due to objection from neighbors and animal protection agencies. Removal of the existing cats would not solve the problem of the cat population in the Garden, since, in summer, abandonment rates are as high as one cat per day. Thanks to the dedication of volunteers in the animal protection community who formed a voluntary committee, a humane temporary solution became possible. Cats are allowed to live in the Garden; the volunteer committee feeds the cats, puts them up for adoption and provides vaccines and veterinary care for them, and organizes

castration Castration is any action, surgery, surgical, chemical substance, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical cas ...

operatives, sometimes with the cooperation of the Instituto de Zoonosis Luis Pasteur.

Gallery

File:Buenos Aires Jardin Botanico Carlos Thays 00.jpg, File:Buenos Aires Jardin Botanico Carlos Thays 02.jpg, File:Indicador Meteorológico.jpg, File:Blay Fabregas, los primeros frios 2.jpg, File:2019 Buenos Aires - El despertar de la naturaleza, estatua de Juan de Pari.jpg, File:Escultura Saturnalia de Ernesto Biondi.jpg,

References

Bibliography

*Mimi Böhm – ''Buenos Aires, Art Nouveau'' - Ediciones Xavier Verstraeten - Buenos Aires, (2005) * Armando T. Hunziker – ''Flora Fanerogámica Argentina''
Raymond Sutton Books
- (1997) ISSN 0040-0262

External links

– Palermo On Line
Jardín Botanico
– Government of the City {{coord, -34.582470, -58.418598, format=dms, type:landmark, display=title Botanical gardens in Argentina National Historic Monuments of Argentina

Botanical Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

Art Nouveau architecture in Buenos Aires