Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam

The Hortus was founded in 1638 as a physic garden for the city's doctors and apothecaries and is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world. Its consequential episode is a plant: the Dutch East India Company brought coffee from Yemen via Java, and a seedling raised here was given to Louis XIV in 1714; a cutting from that plant was taken to Martinique in the 1720s and from it, by most accounts, descend a very large proportion of the coffee trees of Central and South America - so a single plant in this garden stands behind an industry. The garden holds about four thousand species on one and a half hectares, including a three-hundred-year-old cycad, a 1912 palm house, a butterfly house and a three-climate glasshouse. It sits beside the Artis zoo and the old Jewish quarter, and it is small, dense and quiet.

History

Amsterdam's council founded the garden in 1638 as the Hortus Medicus, a herb garden where doctors and apothecaries trained and sat exams. Its plants came largely from traders of the Dutch East India Company: a single coffee plant here became the parent of the coffee of Central and South America, and two potted oil palms from Mauritius gave seeds that spread through Southeast Asia (Wikipedia, Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam)).

What you'll find

• A physic garden of 1638 - among the oldest botanical gardens in the world.
• The coffee seedling story - the plant from which much of American coffee descends.
• A three-hundred-year-old cycad - among the oldest potted plants anywhere.
• A 1912 palm house - with a three-climate glasshouse alongside.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Good to know

It is small - one and a half hectares, and two hours covers it. Glasshouses are hot and humid. Busy at weekends. The coffee genealogy is the standard account and is debated in detail by historians.

Nearby

Artis zoo is next door; the Portuguese Synagogue is a short walk.

Key facts