Giardino Botanico Alpinia

Above Stresa, on the slopes of the Mottarone, four hectares of meadow hold around a thousand alpine species. The Giardino Botanico Alpinia, founded in 1934, combines its alpine plant collections with a panorama over Lake Maggiore and the Borromean Islands.

Why it matters

Alpinia belongs to a specific Italian tradition: the alpine botanical garden, created in the early 20th century to study and protect mountain flora at altitude. Established in 1934 under its original name Duxia on the slopes of Monte Mottarone, it sits at roughly 800 metres above Stresa, in the hamlet of Alpino. Its collections concentrate on the flora of the Alps alongside species from the Caucasus, China and Japan. A consortium of the neighbouring municipalities of Gignese, Stresa and Baveno has managed the garden since its foundation; it is set in a high meadow above Lake Maggiore.

What to notice

The beds include alpine genera such as Artemisia — including the genepí used in Alpine liqueur — Campanula, Centaurea, Dianthus, Geranium and Silene, grouped by provenance. The trees framing the walks — sycamore maple, beech and ash — give the garden its structure; the collection also includes gentians, rusty-leaved alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum) and poet's daffodil. The panorama is another feature of the garden: from its lawns, Lake Maggiore unrolls below with the Borromean Islands directly beneath, so the garden doubles as an elevated viewpoint over the lake as much as a botanical collection.

Context and history

The garden was founded in 1934, part of the wave of alpine gardens established in Italy between the wars, and its consortium management by Gignese, Stresa and Baveno reflects its position at the meeting point of their territories on the Mottarone massif, the prealpine peak between Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta. Alpino, the hill hamlet that hosts it, rises well above the lakeshore resorts, and the garden gave the scientific study of altitude flora a public home there.