“Dimitrie Brandza” Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden in Bucharest was founded in 1860 at the initiative of Doctor Carol Davila, being coordinated at that time by the University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Starting with 1874, the Botanical Garden was taken over by the University of Bucharest, and the merits for the establishment and for the development of the Garden belong to Professor Dimitrie Brandza.

Currently, the “Dimitrie Brandza” Botanical Garden manages collections of plants (either living or preserved) which are well-documented and used to instruct the students for scientific research, in order to protect the phytodiversity, in the educational programmes regarding the environment and for informing the public.

Having a surface of 18.2 hectares, the “Dimitrie Brandza” Botanical Garden is organized in specific exterior sectors (examples: Decorative, Rare Plants, the Dobrogra Flora, Rosarium Iridarium, Taxonomic, the Asian Flora, Useful Plants) and interior sectors (the Greenhouses, the Herbarium, the Library, the Ecological Education Centre). In the last years, new sectors have been developed: Grandma’s Garden – a traditional peasant’s garden, the Children’s Garden and the Library Garden.

The living plant collections of the “D. Brandza” Botanical Garden contain around 4.000 taxa, while the General Herbarium is the house of over 520.000 specimens.

The Botanical Museum hosts various collections: over 2.500 paintings representing spontaneous plants, cultivated in Romania, vegetal products and objects created out of plants, collections of seeds and fruit, collections of mushrooms, historically valuable exhibits and dioramas.

The “Dimitrie Brandza” Botanical Garden holds several programmes which are run in partnership with volunteers. One of these programmes was awarded in 2011 with the “Green Spaces Award” for the Grandma’s Garden project. Another programme concerning the spring cleaning was awarded in 2014 with the “Civil Society Award”.