Botanical Garden Marimurtra In Catalonia

There is something Indian in the name of the Marimurtra garden. But no, it is located on the famous Costa Brava in Catalonia, in the town of Blanes. A bus called “Bus botanic Marimurtra” takes tourists from the city square of Catalunya.

The mountain on which the Marimurtra Botanical Garden is located

Entrance to the Botanical Garden of Marimurtra

Despite the fact that attempts to create it were made much earlier, the history of the garden's formation is usually associated with the name of Karl Faust (1874-1952). This German enthusiast decided to create a botanical garden on the rocks between the picturesque bays of San Francesco and San Forsanera. The beauty of the sea and the coastline is clearly visible from the observation decks of the garden and the alley that runs along the coast. The name "Marimurtra" belongs to the same author, which means "Sea and myrtle" in Spanish. Not surprising, because myrtle is one of the most revered plants in the Mediterranean. The garden also shows many other plants - not only from this region, but also from other continents.

Bay view

Now the botanical garden covers an area of 16 hectares, and its collections include more than 3,000 plant species, which are grouped by geographical and taxonomic characteristics, by classes. These include all the endemics of the Mediterranean. There are a lot of palms, bamboos, succulents in the garden.

Alley along the coast

Cannes

Bamboo

Practically, these are three gardens in one: a garden of a temperate climate, a garden of subtropical plants and the Mediterranean garden itself.

Marimurtra Botanical Garden Map

The first garden is subtropical and includes the gallery of the architect Goday in the Moorish style. Here you can see the subtropical vegetation of Macaronesia, the arid African and American regions (a special place is given to Mexico), the Zenon Schreiber alpine slide.

California site

Alpine slide

The most notable plants in this part of the garden are the date of Theophrastus (Phoenix theophrasti) - one of the two endemic palms in Europe (Crete) and the most frost-resistant in the world, the Cycas revoluta, the Roxburgh pine (Pinus roxburghii) from the Himalayas, one of the longest conifers (up to 35 cm), aloe Marlota (Aloe marlothii) from South Africa, up to 4 m tall, distinguished by a silvery-bluish color of leaves, compressed bokarnea (Beaucarnea stricta) from the center of Mexico, Nikolai's strelitzia (S trelitzia nicolai) from Madagascar, named after the Russian monarch Nicholas I, Echinopsis (Echinopsis atacamensi s) is a tall, up to 10 m, cactus from the Atacama plateau in South America.

The second garden is more flat and temperate. There is a palm forest and an ethnobotanical zone. Places Eugenie Sierra and Willie Narberhaus are terraced. On the Francis Bai Terrace there is a small vegetable garden and a vineyard (each object in the garden is dedicated to one of the famous contemporaries of Karl Faust).

Garden

In this garden there are many rare plants: Chilean jubaea (Jubaea chilensis), also called an elephant palm, large-fruited cypress trees (Сupressus macrocarpa) with needles smelling of lemon, and weeping cypress (Cupressus funebris) from China, Novokanarsky laurel (Laurus novocansis) green-blue leaf grate (Phyllostachys viridiglaucescens), Bidvilla araucaria, or Bunia bunia (Araucaria bidwillii) from Australia, Ciagrus Rumyantsev palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) native to South America (Argentina), named after the Russian Count N.P. Rumyantsev, who organized a round-the-world expedition.

Site of the Karoo Desert (South Africa)

Finally, the third, the Mediterranean garden. It is dominated by local and imported cycad plants and finbosh - plants from South Africa. Heat-loving water lilies adorn the picturesque pond. Several architectural objects are delicately inscribed in the landscape - the Fon and Coeur stairs beautifully framed by plant cushions, the Linnaeus rotunda, which offers a wonderful view of the sea and the surf, Epicurus stairs, the poetic Goethe square.

Pond

A feature of this part of the botanical garden is that most of the endemics of the Mediterranean grow here, none of which has escaped the attention of botanists. The collection also includes 200 endangered plants.

View from the rotunda of Linnaeus

Cycads

Vegetable attractions worth paying attention to are Brahea armata, or Eritea, the Mexican blue palm (Brahea armata), a fan palm that makes a magnificent sight in garlands of flowers. Tavor oak (Quercus ithaburensis), growing in Albania and Greece, the leaves of which are a bit like birch, and the puffs of acorns are covered with thorns. Allep pine (Pinus halepensis) - from Morocco, with a wide openwork crown. Arboreal spurge (Euphorbia dendroides) - from Greece, from the island of Crete, sometimes growing into a shrub or small tree up to 2 m tall, with yellow flowers and leaves, it resembles the well-known cypress spurge. The dragon tree (Dracaena draco) comes from Africa and the islands of Southeast Asia, is a plant symbol of the Spanish island of Tenerife, was considered sacred and medicinal,it is distinguished by its amazing longevity (up to 3000 years). Hamerops squat (Chamaerops humilis) is the second endemic palm tree in the Mediterranean (Spain and southern France), fan.

One of the stairs

Second staircase

Alley along the coast

As you can see, walking through the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, you can get to know in detail the vegetation of the Mediterranean region and different parts of the world, recognizing in them some of the famous houseplants and greenhouse inhabitants.

Photo by authors