The Alexandru Borza Botanical Garden

RO-400015 Cluj-Napoca
No 42 Republicii Street
Telephone: 0264.592152
e-mail: gradina.botanica@ubbcluj.ro   

The Botanical Garden from Cluj is a scientific, didactic and educational institution, subordinate to the Babes-Bolyai University. This prestigious institution was founded by professor Alexandru Borza in 1920. Covering a 14 hectares land of various geological configurations, suitable for growing and developping plants from various continents, 10,000 specific plant categories are being cultivated here.

The Botanical Garden is divided into several sections: ornamental, phytogeographic, systematic, economic and medicinal.

The ornamental section houses, depending on season, numerous plant species and variations which are destined exclusively for a decorative purpose.

Over 120 tulip, hyacinth, crocus and daffodil taxa are to be found here every spring. During the summer season the ornamental sector contains around 350 varieties of roses and also of garden flowers varieties and species that are known and cultivated as decorative plants all over the world. One will identify over 200 taxa of Tagetes, Zinnia, Callistephus, Petunia, Dahlia, Canna, Gladiolus, Ocimum, Verbena, Ipomoea and many others.

The phytogeographic section contains a gyo-no-niwa Japanese garden, with specific landscape elements, representative of the East. The Romanian flora is also well represented for all the geographical regions of the country. The plain region, the Transylvanian plateau, the Banat region, the Moldavian region, the Oltenia region, the Carpathians vegetation, the Black Sea coast.

Another special attraction is the Roman Garden. Also known as Pliny's garden, it is towered by the statue of the Roman goddess Ceres, framed on both sides by two genuine coffins discovered in the old Roman city of Napoca.
This garden also contains plants that used to grow in the Roman cities and in the peasant gardens from Roman Dacia and their scientific names are recognizable in the popular names of some plants that grow here.

The systematic section is one of the garden’s most important, covering a 4 hectares surface and consisting of the most important plant families. The garden also has two greenhouses where equatorial, tropical and subtropical plants grow, which are of great importance for research activities.  The large greenhouse complex consists of six sections: aquatic plants greenhouse, palm trees greenhouse, Mediterranean and Australian vegetation greenhouse, succulent plants greenhouse, bromeliacea greenhouse, ferns and orchirds greenhouse.

The economic section groups plants together according to their function in: alimentary, technical, fodder, melliferous and tinctorial.

Continuing with the tradition of the first botanical gardens which were mostly medicinal plant gardens, the Botanical Garden from Cluj contains a medicinal plants section.  The plants that are cultivated here are both traditonal folklore curative plants and plants mentioned by the Romanian Pharmacopoeia.

The garden contains two more areas of general interest: The Herbarium and the Botanical Museum. The herbarium consists of 655,000 pages from all over the world, which hold special scientific value being available for the Romanian and foreign students and researchers.

CURIOSITIES AND RARITIES

The Botanical Garden owns rare indigenous plants which are vulnerable or going extinct, some of them being endemic, such as: Saponaria bellidifolia, Papaver corona sancti-stephani, Armeria maritima, Dianthus spiculifolius, Dianthus petraeus ssp. simonkaianus, Campanula carpatica, Centaurea reichenbachii, Echinops banaticus, Hepatica transilvanica, Knautia drymeia, Petrorhagia saxifraga, Pritzelago alpina, Astragalus peterfii etc.
The greenhouse plants are also well represented. There are species such as the Amazon water lily (lily photo), sugar reed, papyrus, mangroves, tree fern, insectivore plants, eucalyptus, the Welwitschia mirabilis gymnosperm, sugar palm tree, oil palm tree, and also the ingenious rock resembling plants belonging to the Lithops genre and originating from South Africa.

SPECIAL PROGRAMME AND EXHIBITIONS

The Botanical Garden provides the specialty practice for students in Biology, but also for students in the Agricultural Sciences University, Veterinary Medicine University and Medicine and Pharmaceutics University.
The primary school children have been offered in the last years a training programme that instructs and prepares them to be able to guide their colleagues through the Botanical Garden.

SCIENTIFIC AND RESEARCH PROJECTS INTERNAL AND INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS PUBLICATIONS

Based on the annual Seeds Catalogue, the Alexandru Borza Botanical Garden operates exchanges of vegetal material with over 400 similar institutions from all continents.
The Cluj-Napoca Botanical Garden is a member in several associations of the type: Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), The Romanian Botanical Gardens Association (AGBR) and Plant Europe.
The activity of the researchers belonging to the Botanical Garden from Cluj resulted in their participation to numerous grants: a common research programme for the Romanian botanical gardens, financed with Tempus-Phare funds; 3 CNCSIS grants for studying protected areas from Romania; a grant coordinated by the Embassy of Holland for creating a seeds bank; an ecological educational grant financed by the Foundation for an Open Society.

PUBLICATIONS

The Seeds Catalogue and the Botanical Contributions review

VISITING HOURS:

Programme:

 


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