Inaugural event of the Botanical Garden. Renewal and new goals

On Wednesday 28 May 2025, at 12 noon, the inaugural event of the University Botanical Garden in Via Licio Giorgieri will take place.

Speakers will include:

Andrea Moro, curator of the Botanical Collections

Marinella Perosa, author of the book “Botanica&Erbario” (Quaderni Visionari, Effigi editions)

The Botanical Garden of the University of Trieste, with a surface area of 2,400 m2, houses around 400 listed species from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, including endemisms from the Karst, Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Mediterranean area, with a small section dedicated to pteridophytes. The Botanical Garden boasts a two-century-old monumental specimen of downy oak (Quercus pubescens), the only tree preserved during wartime deforestation. An integral part of the Botanical Garden, but outside its enclosure and without time limits, is the Monte Valerio Nature Trail, with several points of interest enhanced by explanatory signs on the flora and fauna.

A Botanical Garden, the Hortus vivus of the ancients, is an institution that maintains living plants, documented and labelled, arranged and ordered according to scientific criteria, open to the public for the purposes of research, education, display, recreation and conservation. The identity of a garden is determined by the prevalence of one of these purposes. At the time of its creation in 1963, by Prof. Sandro Pignatti, the Garden of the Institute of Botany of the University of Trieste was conceived as a collection mainly devoted to Karst and regional flora with several specimens with an Illyrian distribution. Budget cuts, staff shortages and different directions in research activity led to a serious decline, reducing the Garden to a mere green space between the buildings on campus. Despite its state of abandonment, the Garden remained the privileged space for research and teaching with the construction of a new greenhouse and equipping itself - the first in Europe - with interactive keys for plant identification, tools used by students on the Systematic Botany course. Starting in 2022, thanks to the impetus of Andrea Nardini, full professor of Plant Physiology and Professor Mauro Tretiach, then Director of the Department of Life Sciences, the Garden resumed its form with the acquisition of numerous exotic essences and the definition of large spaces dedicated to research activities.

The presence in the area of two other institutions dedicated to botany: the Giardino Botanico Carsiana, dedicated to the flora of the Karst, and the Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste, with cultivars and exotic plants, forced a redefinition of the mission of the small university garden, which could not be just an exhibition space but had to strengthen its function as a teaching space. An Orchard understood as an extension of the classroom or laboratory, a space for observing the forms and functional traits of plants, and therefore a place of direct knowledge and in-depth study of notions and information acquired during courses.

The University Botanical Garden continues to be a recreational space for students, but also a place for meetings and gatherings compatible with limited space and plant conservation requirements.

Admission to the opening event is free.