​Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid

When in a new location I like to search for a garden that will provide some respite from my travels. Earlier this month my husband and I traveled to Spain and Portugal, our first visit to those countries. We especially enjoyed the food and wine while touring Madrid, Lisbon, and the Duoro Valley. While in Madrid we paid a visit to the Royal Botanical Garden.
The garden was founded in 1755 with over 2,000 plants, collected by José Quer, a botanist and surgeon, during his numerous trips and through exchange with other European botanists. Now, 270 years later, it includes about 90,000 plants and flowers, and 1,500 trees. The collection is arranged by botanical name and includes plants from former colonies and neighbors of Spain. That’s a lot of places in the world.
I had fun looking at plants out their normal environment, guessing the common name that is more familiar to us. It also struck me that many of the plants were the wrong plant in the wrong place. For example, our familiar spruce trees were visibly struggling in Madrid’s Mediterranean climate. It was also interesting to see plants we consider annuals and struggle here, due to our climate, flourishing in their native locale.
And as gardeners, we speak the language no matter where we visit. Botanical Latin is still the only language other than English accepted for descriptions.