Paris

A visit to the Jardin des Plantes in June

A stroll along the Left Bank of the Seine in the 5th arrondissement will lead you to the Jardin des Plantes. At 6nly 8 acres these gardens are relatively small for being the botanic gardens of a major capital, but being free to enter, and providing a cut-through from the river to the leafy boulevards beyond, they are an enticing location for a rendezvous, or to just sit and contemplate life and nature, but also, as with any botanic garden, this is a place full of fascinating botanical information and history.

Originally named Jardin du Roi, (the King’s Garden), these gardens were created in 1626 by Louis X111’s physician, Guy De La Brosse. As both pharmacist and botanist, he was in a perfect position to create a medicinal garden of herbs for treating the King’s various ailments. As early as 1650 the gardens were opened to the public and then officially became the Jardin des Plantes following the 1789 Revolution.

There are eight distinct sections in the gardens; you enter into the Garden of Perspective Squares, of  traditional French design, this consists, rather confusingly, of rectangular lawns and beds, until you learn that the French for  “squares” is derived from “carre,” a cultivating frame. The Perspective Squares are separated by broad paths, some lined with formal hedging and others with magnificent Platanus orientalis, (London Planes to us in the UK), a common feature of main thoroughfares in France, often planted on Napoleon’s orders to provide shade for his troops moving through the country.

The Garden of Perspective Squares

From these grand boulevards you enter the Jardin de Plantes Resources, (The Garden of Useful Plants), the origin of the ancient medicinal garden. Herbs such as Salvia rosmarinus (Rosemary has recently been re-classified from Rosmarinus officinalis, when the Royal Horticultural Society discovered it is in fact a type of Saliva), with a useful explanation of its anti-oxidant properties, grow alongside plants used for textiles, dyes, crops, perfumes, cosmetics and medicinal purposes. The roots of Saponaria officinalis (Soapwort), for example, were, in the Middle Ages, used as a herbal remedy for syphilis and tinnitus (two of King Louis’ ailments) as well as used for washing.

The Water Garden

Adjacent to this is the Water Garden, the only one I have encountered quite like this with specially built stone ponds subdivided to keep each species from invading their neighbour.   

Frog on Lily in the water garden

One of the most fantastic things about botanic gardens is that the plants are labelled, and in the common language of Latin, so that us gardeners, horticulturalists and botanists can all identify the  names without having to be a poly-linguist. We may not know the French for the common name of cotton grass but we may recognise Eriophorum angustifolium. The other useful thing about the classification of plants, as with all species, is that whilst the genus (for example, Eriophorum) is similar to our surnames, which we may often identify it by, the specific name (in this case angustifolium) more often than not describes the plants’ colour, form or habit. Angustifolium, for instance, means narrow leaves. The ‘officinalis’ (of Rosmarinus or Saponaria for example) indicates that this plant was found in an ‘officīna', (the storeroom of a monastery), where medicines and useful plant products were kept. In this way we can know that plants with the species name officinalis are most likely to have a medicinal use. Plant labels in botanic gardens (see below) also usually include the family name in the corner, in the case of the Eriophorum, (Cotton Grass) it is Cyperaceae (the Sedge family); the distribution of the plant, eg: Europe; and often the botanist who either discovered or named the plant, in this case, Honck which refers to the German botanist, Gerhard Honckeny (1724–1805) after whom the succulent perennial herb found in sandy coastal regions, Honckenya peploides, is named.

Eriophorum angustifolium

Often seen in wild meadows, the cotton grass is not where are T-shirts and sheets are made from, that being Gossypium species. But Eriophorum, had various useful properties including making paper, pillows, candle-wicks, and wound-dressings, whilst the indigenous peoples of North America still use it for treating digestive problems.

One of the most celebrated areas of Les Jardin des Plantes is the expansive Alpine Garden with more than 2000 different species. Intersected by yews providing welcome shade, and cooled by trickling streams and mini-waterfalls, this is a tranquil area to sit and read a French novel. Collette’s Claudine in Paris will do: “What a wonderful life I’ve had,” wrote Collette, “I only wished I’d realised it sooner.” I am sure lots of people who come here for the first time feel the same about this garden – they only wished they’d discovered it sooner.

The tranquil Alpine Garden                    

There is also an educational Ecological Garden, a very calming Iris and Perennial Garden, and a beautifully aromatic English Rose Garden. The latter contains some of the oldest natural roses, the pre 1867 forefathers and mothers of our many splendid modern cultivars, which as well as providing a riot of colour, are the victims of free rose-pruning classes from the Jardin des Plantes’ team of expert gardeners.

There are some truly ancient trees in this garden including a three hundred and fifteen year old pistachio tree, used by botanist Sebastien Vaillant in 1718 to prove that plants have sexual characteristics. He discovered that Pistacio vera is dioecious; you need both a male and a female tree for pollination. Vaillant was an enthusiastic plant scientist from early childhood; at the age of six, when suffering from a prolonged fever at boarding school, he believed he cured himself by eating lettuce sprinkled with vinegar. He went on to train in both medicine and botany and worked at the Jardin des Plantes as both doctor and botanist. But the oldest tree I could find was the gigantic and  magnificent Cedrus libani  planted in 1714. What this tree must have lived through; if only it could talk! 

Cedrus libani (planted 1714)

I looked down upon this Cedar from the Maze Garden, which is planted on what was originally a rubbish dump. At the maze’s central apex is one of the oldest metal constructions in the world, the Gloriette de Buffon. This unusual structure once held a bizarre solar gong on its top hat, across which was stretched each day a new single horsehair. As the blazing sun burned through the hair, it split, causeing the gong to chime. Unfortunately the gong has now gone, but after negotiating the labyrinth, which whilst not of Blenheim Palace complexity, the Goriette de Buffon provides a welcome pew and a great view of the gardens.

The Gloriette de Buffon

Of the six glasshouses in Les Jardin des Plantes, the opaque steel-framed art deco house dominates. Designed in 1936 by Rene-Felix Berger, it accommodates huge, tropical foliage; Ficus species, palms and wonderful tree ferns, with fronds hanging still and silent in the dusky humidity, punctuated by the occasional exploding orange of a Bromeliad. Strolling under these great canopies, one can feel the excitement that plant collectors must have felt when discovering these exotic and hitherto unknown species.

Rene-Felix Berger’s Art Deco glasshouse

Indeed, akin to all botanic gardens this is most definitely a place of learning as well as of beauty, with plenty of information boards about the geological and ecological origins of flora, including a collection of plant fossils, millions of years old. There is certainly no lack of material to tax you intellectually and if you feel the need for more educational stimulation you could spend all day here – there is a botanical school, a museum of natural history, and endless Galeries, de l’Evolution, de Paleontologie et d’Anatomie,  de Minderalogie et de Geologie and there, perhaps more for the kids there also a zoo: it goes on and on. But I can only take in so much, and for me, a pleasant informative walk and then a glass of vin blanc in the gardens’ Les Belles Plantes restaurant is an absolutely delightful way to end a balmy, late afternoon and begin a cooler evening in this beautiful, creamy, dreamy city.   

Nymph tormenting a dolphin by Jospeh Felon 1868, under Ginkgo biloba