Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne Gardens

About Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Melbourne Gardens is a things to do venue in Melbourne, Victoria.

Visitors can explore the wide variety of garden beds, lakes, and lawns and see nearly 50,000 individual plants representing 8,500 different species, spread across 30 living plant collections. The second location of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Cranbourne Gardens, was established in 1970, where land was acquired by the Gardens on Melbourne’s south-eastern urban fringe.

This location aims to preserve biodiversity and hosts native bushland, heathlands, wetlands, and woodlands, spread across 363 hectares (897 acres). A significant feature of Cranbourne Gardens is the Australian Garden, which celebrates Australian landscapes and flora through the display of approximately 170,000 plants from 1,700 plant varieties.

It was completed in 2012. The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is proud to house the State Botanical Collection, constituted by 1.5 million preserved plants, fungi, and algae, making it the largest herbarium collection present in Australia and wider Oceania.

The National Herbarium of Victoria and Australia’s most comprehensive botanical library are other features of the State Botanical Collection. The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is governed under the Royal Botanic Gardens Act 1991 by the Royal Botanic Gardens Board, responsible to the Minister for Environment.

The Gardens’ first director was Ferdinand von Mueller, who created the National Herbarium of Victoria and brought in many plants. In 1873,

Good to know

• Type: Things to Do
• Area: Melbourne, Victoria
• Phone: (03) 9252 2300
• Website: visit ↗

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