What to See in Marburg - Top Sights and Attractions

Botanical garden in Marburg, Germany. The Botanischer Garten Marburg, also known as the Neuer Botanischer Garten Marburg, is a botanical garden maintained by the University of Marburg, located on Karl-von-Frisch-Straße, Marburg, Hesse, Germany, and open daily. An admission fee is charged.

The garden was created between 1961-1977 to replace the Alter Botanischer Garten Marburg, dating from 1810. Its construction involved movement of some 80,000 m³ of earth, creating a pond and a brook about 1 km long, as well as a major effort to build greenhouses. The garden was inaugurated in June 1977 to celebrate the university's 450th anniversary.

Outdoor areas of the garden are organized as follows:

• Alpinum - rock garden representing plants from the high mountains of Europe, western Asia, the Himalayas, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Arboretum - focusing on conifers, including Sequoiadendron giganteum and Metasequoia glyptostroboides, as well as alders, ash, birches, ginkgos, hazels, maples, oaks, deciduous poplars, sycamores, and willows, representing both native and exotic species.
• Burial mounds - Bronze Age graves.
• Fern collection - 80 fern species.
• Forest - spring-blooming plants including Anemone, Gagea, Iris, Narcissus, Pulsatilla, Scilla, and Tulipa.
• Heather and rhododendron garden - numerous heather and rhododendron species including Calluna vulgaris, Erica carnea, Erica cinerea, and Erica tetralix.
• Medicinal and useful plants - including cereals and other carbohydrates, succulents, vegetables, fiber plants, tobacco plants, rubber plants, and dye plants.
• Systematic garden - representatives of seed plant families organized by biological classification

In addition, the garden's greenhouses cover total area of 1,700 square meters as follows: tropical house (545 m², 12 m height); Canary Islands house (182 m² + 82 m², 7 m); tropical crop house (182 m², 7 m) with plants including Ananas comosus and Coffea arabica; Amazon house (123 m², 6 m) containing aquatic plants of the Amazon region including Bruguiera sexangula and Victoria amazonica; tropical fern house (182 m², 7 m); succulent house (227 m², 7 m); Australian outback house (182 m², 7 m); and carnivorous plant house (not open to the public).^[2]

Botanical garden in Marburg, Germany. The Alter Botanischer Garten Marburg, also known as the Alter Botanischer Garten am Pilgrimstein, is a historic arboretum and botanical garden maintained by the University of Marburg and located at Pilgrimstein 3, Marburg, Hesse, Germany. It is open daily without charge.

Marburg's first botanical garden was established between 1527-1533 when the humanist, poet, physician and botanist Euricius Cordus, considered a founder of scientific botany in Germany, is known to have set up a private botanical garden of which designs little is known today. In 1786 a second garden attempt was created by Professor Conrad Moench near the Elisabeth Church (Marburg).

Today's garden dates to 1810 when Georg Wilhelm Franz Wenderoth (1774-1861) obtained the site from Jérôme Bonaparte in exchange for the earlier Ketzerbach garden, which he then developed into the English style to create a combination of park landscape and scientific garden. In 1861 Albert Wigand transformed the garden to conform with the school of Peter Joseph Lenné and Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer, creating sections especially for trees. Later on, 1873-1875 the Botanical Institute was built at Pilgrimstein 4 in Gothic Revival style.

In 1977 the university's gardens were transferred to the Neuer Botanischer Garten Marburg, and in 1994 the Old Botanical Garden became a registered cultural monument. Although still owned by the university, it is now used mainly as a public park containing a fine arboretum of mature trees that are over 200 years old, including specimens Quercus petraea, Platanus x acerifolia, Salix alba, Liriodendron tulipifera, and many conifers.^[5]