Our plants

Plants in Uppsala Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden is home to many unusual plant varieties which have been collected during expeditions around the world. One of the purposes of the garden is to provide plant material for research and teaching at the university. We also collect seeds in our gardens which we share with other botanical gardens in an international seed exchange.

Some of the plants grown here are endangered. By cultivating them, we save the species and generate understanding for biodiversity.

In our garden you can also find inspiration for your own garden.

Amazing plants

Almost 7,000 species of plants from the whole world are cultivated in the Botanical Garden. Here we have collected information about some of them (in Swedish).


Hoya gigas is the species of the hoya genus with the largest flower. In 2014 it flowered in the Tropical Greenhouse, (as far as we know) for the first time in Europe. We have received the plant through the conservation project “Paradise Forest”, which saves hoyas from extinction in the exceedlingly destroyed forests of New Guinea.

Hoya gigas in the Tropical Greenhouse.

In the mid 1980s, Mats Thulin from the Department of Systematic Biology collected seeds of an aloe during an expedition to Somalia. The next year the seeds were sown in the Botanical Garden. Twenty five years later it flowered for the first time and turned out to be a species new to science.

How the new species Aloe nugalensis got its name in 2011.

Aloe nugalensis, in the Cactus department in the Orangery in the Botanical Garden.

A spruce tree has a genome seven times bigger than that of a human being. The Botanical Garden is home to one of the spruce trees used for mapping the spruce genome.

Read more about the spruce genome.

Some of the oldest plants in the Botanical Garden are three bay (laurel) trees which Linnaeus ordered from Holland during the 18th century. In the past, all the leaves and twigs used in the laurel wreaths given to those who were awarded doctorates by Uppsala University were cut from Linnaeus’ bay trees.

Read more about Linnaeus' bay trees.

 

One of the most spectacular plants in the Botanical Garden is the Santa Cruz waterlily. In summertime, the leaves, lying flat on the water’s surface, may reach a diameter of two meter or more. The large, attractive flowers can only be seen at night in July-September. They are creamy-white on opening and become light pink on the second night.

Read more about Santa Cruz waterlily.

Santa Cruz waterlily, Victoria cruziana. Photo: Per Erixon, Uppsala University.

Veckans växt


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  • Aeollanthus holstii, v 2 2025
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