Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste

On the Chiadino hill above Trieste, a botanical garden born in 1842 from an experiment with Austrian black pines became a civic scientific institution. Its themed areas include medicinal plants, regional endemisms, dye plants and a geopaleontological path through the Karst landscape.

Why it matters

The garden began in 1842 as a municipal trial to test whether Austrian black pine could grow on the Karst, under the direction of the pharmacist-botanist Bartolomeo Biasoletto. From 1861, Muzio de' Tommasini expanded it with plants collected in the Giulian Alps, Istria and Dalmatia. A municipal resolution opened it to the public in 1873, and a seed-exchange catalogue followed in 1877. The institution developed from an experimental planting into a collection for the conservation and study of regional flora.

What to notice

The garden's areas include a Giardino dei Semplici of medicinal plants, a trail devoted to poisonous species, beds of dye plants, and a formal garden. Its scientific collections include medicinal, textile and food plants, local varieties, aquatic and marsh species, succulents and endemic flora of Friuli Venezia Giulia. A geopaleontological path connects the living collections to the geological history of the Karst; ferns and alpine plants are also represented.

Context and history

In 1871 the garden incorporated rare local species from botanist Elisa Braig's collection. Carlo de' Marchesetti reorganized it in 1903 as the Civico Orto Botanico, linking it to the city's natural history museum. After closing in 1986, the garden underwent restoration and partially reopened in 2001, when its seed exchange also resumed. It remains a municipal botanical collection devoted to regional plant diversity.