Havana Attractions - Cuba's National Botanical Garden

The National Botanical Garden of Cuba was foundedlandscape from any point in the garden. It has a
in 1989 in the south part of Havana City with ancascade, a small lake and a mirador.
extension of 600 hectares and which shows todayThe scientific collection of the Botanical Garden of
around 4 thousand vegetable species. This Garden isCuba is stored in greenhouses near the administrative
part of the University of Havana, and its main goal isbuildings. If a visitor desires to go inside, he/she has
to promote the care of nature and the recognition ofto have a previous appointment with the specialists.
the vegetable world, especially, the autochthonousThis collection has specimens of the flora from Cuba
flora.and the rest of the world. It also has a herbarium
It has been organized in several restricted areas with(the second largest in the country) with more that
certain characteristics: plains of Palm trees, pine100 thousand specimens of the Cuban flora and a
forests, Eastern humid forests, wilderness, Mogotespecialized library with around 4700 titles of books
vegetation (mogote is a rock formation typical fromand 1084 titles of periodicals.
Pinar del Rio), coastal scrublands; and a sample of theThe tours around the Garden are always guided by a
tropical flora from Asia, Africa, The Americas andspecialist, who will be able to provide the visitor with
The Antilles, Australia and Oceania, and otherall the knowledge of the tropical flora. Being a
specialized collections (Palmetum, Archaic Forest, thespecialized institution for over 30 years, the technical
Ekman Collection and the Collection of Economicaland professional staff have been in charge of
Plants). Outside those areas, the visitor can enjoy aimproving the areas on display and plant species, as
collection of ornamental aquatic and land plants,well as protecting the plants from damage that can
including a section dedicated to plants with trunksbe caused by hurricanes.
especially designed by nature to store water.The collections of live plants being cultivated,
One of the main attractions of this institution is theespecially the native and endangered ones, have a
Japanese Garden inaugurated in 1989, a work by thedifferentiated attention; attention that has increased
Japanese landscape architect Yoshikuni Araki. Locateddue to the programs in charge of collecting genetic
in the phytogeographical area of Southeastern Asia,material in natural areas. The acquisition of seeds and
this garden has an extension of 5 hectares. There,sprouts from other intuitions, national and foreign, has
plants belonging to this Asian region are shown, alongmade possible the increase of the collections ex situ.
with others taken from others parts of the world toThe Garden has also promoted the food culture and
create the landscape environment "Kaiyu-Shiki-teien"the ecologic food in Cuba by means of its
(garden for walking) in which by means of thegastronomic chain, especially the vegetarian
"mie-gakure" technique, the visitor can see the wholerestaurant El Bambu.