Visited June 4th, 2014
The Uppsala University Botanical Garden showcases a manicured Baroque style garden from the 1750’s and a 21st century garden used currently for research and education at the university. Olof Rudbeck, the Elder, created Sweden’s first botanical garden in 1655 for Uppsala University. The purpose of the early botanical gardens was for educating students in botany and pharmacy in preparation for their occupation as a physician. As professors of medicine, Olof Rudbeck and his successor Carl Linnaeus, served the duel purpose of being botanists who supervised a garden for education purposes and professors of medicine teaching pharmacology to the university students.
After the death of Carl Linnaeus in 1778, his son Carl von Linné, succeeded his father as head professor of medicine at Uppsala University. The following year Karl Peter Thunberg, a student of Carl Linnaeus (and one of his seventeen disciples), returned to Sweden after nine years of travel abroad collecting plants in Japan, Java, South Africa and Sir Lanka. It was then that he learned of the death of his teacher. Thunberg was appointed professor of botany at the university until Carl von Linné’s untimely death of jaundice, at age 42 in 1783. Thunberg was appointed professor of medicine and held that post until his death in 1828.
Karl Peter Thunberg determined that the university garden near the River Fyris was inadequate for many of the plants due to the marshy soil, flooding, unfavorable weather conditions that affected the garden and the lack of space. Thunberg requested of King Gustav III to use the castle grounds, which were higher, as a garden for Uppsala University’s botanical garden. King Gustav III agreed to this plan, donated additional land and committed to pay for the universities costs for the new garden. The king signed the official grant in August 1787 and also laid a foundation stone for a future Orangery.
In 1802 the university garden that Linnaeus had restored after Olof Rudbeck’s tenure and the city fire, was closed and moved to the grounds of the Uppsala Castle. A large formal garden at the castle had been laid out in a baroque style in 1744 based on a plan by the Swedish architect, Carl Hårlemann, and has been restored to its original plans. The garden is walled with straight paths, and pruned hedges lined in a strict path. Clipped hedges surround individual flowerbeds with roses and peony in June and spring blooming bulbs prior. An allée of trees are planted along the outer brick walls. A lengthy expanse of lawn with pruned pyramids of spruce (Picea abies) on each side and a water fountain are in front of the Linnaean Orangery.
In honor of the birth of Linnaeus the Orangery, which were forerunners of the glass conservatories, opened on May 25th, 1807. In Uppsala where the winter temperature can reach a low of –22 degrees F (-30C), the Linnaeus Orangery is one of the few remaining that is used for its original purpose with tender plants being moved outside for the summer months and indoors where it is heated during the winter. The oldest plants in the Orangery are four of Linnaeus’s 250-year-old bay trees. Fig and olive trees are also housed in the Orangery during the winter months. A tropical greenhouse was built in the 1930’s, located in the contemporary garden. It currently houses economic plants from the rainforests and plants from the arid and desert regions. Unfortunately, the Orangery and the greenhouse closed for the day shortly before our mid-afternoon arrival.
A highway separates the Baroque Castle Garden from the contemporary garden. Open spaces are between the themed areas in the modern garden. There is a small café, sitting benches throughout, well-defined walking paths and spacious areas of lawn. Rock and tree shade gardens are planted on hillsides with large stones for pathways. Art is added to the garden with contemporary sculpture incorporated in many of the flowerbeds. University buildings are at the edge of the garden so many students were walking through the garden or meeting friends there.
The botanical gardens main mission and function is for research and education. Approximately 9,000 plus plant species and cultivars that have been collected worldwide, including endangered plants, provide plant material for research including DNA studies. The Botanical Garden is used to increase student’s knowledge of botany, pharmacology and ecology.
In the individual island beds the plants are arranged in groups with color-coded descriptive signs illustrating the classification of those plants in accordance with the latest scientific findings. Signage identifying plants in their Latin name throughout the garden also indicates the origin (or origins) and family name. The university, as a public service, strives to educate the general public not only in the identification of plants but to also appreciate the role of plants in nature and human affairs.
The garden is divided into several sections for programs of research, education, conservation, and medicinal plants. Herbs, vegetables, annual and perennial flowerbeds, rock and arid gardens, peat beds, stone troughs, aquatic, economic plants, and an arboretum are included in the thirty- four acres of the Uppsala University Botanical Garden. A recent addition is a garden with large rocks of Uppsala granite filled with sand and gravel planted with Scandinavian alpine plants.
It was during the 17th century botanical gardens focus changed from medicinal plants to display the exotic plants being imported from plant exploration outside of Europe. Botany and medicine separated and were taught independently. In the 18th century order beds were created for educational and scientific purposes. Carl Linnaeus’s system of binomial nomenclature was used to list the enormous number of incoming plants provided by plant explorers to numerous botanical gardens in the late 18th century.
Botanical gardens continued to change over the centuries depending on (to name a few) geographic location, public involvement, societies concerns and values, (ex –environment & conservation), and even funding. For a garden open to the public with “Botanical” attached to it’s name, it can be a balancing act between science and the public interest.
The Botanic Garden of Conservation International has currently defined the spirit of a true botanical garden as an “institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display and education.” Uppsala University has met these criteria for their botanical garden with the continuation of the early tradition of the studies of botany, pharmacology, horticulture and ecology as it confronts 21st century concerns of environmental issues, plant conservation and sustainability.
Travel Reflections
Late afternoon Lennie and I walked back from the botanical garden to the town center of Uppsala. It was a comfortable walk (even though we were trying to map directions) in a city with green spaces of parks throughout the city. Mature trees lined the wide park paths, accessible to bicyclists, (that may outnumber cars in this city), and pedestrians. The Horse Chestnut trees provided the June blooms. I thought, “Frederick Law Olmsted would give an approving nod to Uppsala and its parks.” In the evening we took a walk along the Fyris River that at one time had jeopardized the original botanical garden.
George had named this tour “Once Again In the Footsteps of Linnaeus,” as the Lakeland Horticulture Society had visited Sweden and Uppsala in 2007 for Linnaeus 300th birthday party. For the first two days I might have named it “Surrounded by Linnaeus.”
Our two-night stay in Uppsala was at the First Hotel Linné, situated alongside the Linnaeus Garden. At one time Linnaeus had one specimen of every known Swedish tree planted along side the garden border, but they are long gone. Now it is a wide strip of underbrush and younger trees separating the two properties. From our upper hotel room window a blooming Golden-rain tree barely blocked the distant view of Linnaeus’s controversial Venus holding center court in the garden. While eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, strawberry yogurt, and kiwi, with a morning wake-up of Gevalia coffee, (Turkish strong that I preferred and Lennie would water hers down), we would watch a garden crew trim the hedges and do any clean up needed before opening the garden to the public.
Our last outdoor evening dinner on Wednesday was once again at the Restaurant Lingon. With large heaters on poles and covered by a tent we had kept dry and warm the evening before during a brief but hard downpour. (Rainfall average yearly 21.7” or 550 mm) The dinner had been my introduction to Swedish cuisine of “savory” cheesecake with smoked reindeer steak, Lingon’s meatballs (surprising good-not the American meatball) with mashed potatoes (as good as my mother’s homemade), pickled cucumber and lingonberry. The crumble cake with summer berries and vanilla ice cream was familiar to home.
Linnaeus’s footsteps were still close by. Across the street from the Restaurant Lingon were Uppsala University Botanical Garden’s origins. The botanical garden that had been Carl Linnaeus’s educational forum reconstructed and reopened in 1923, according to the specifications of his own work, Hortus Upsaliensis from 1745, now named the Linnaean Garden.
Photos by Deborah McMillin