The Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse
René Berger (1878 to 1954) · Opened 1937
Step through the doors and the temperature jumps, the air thickens and the sound of the city gives way to dripping water. The largest of the great greenhouses is a jungle under glass, kept at around twenty two degrees all year, with palms and banana plants pushing toward the roof, tree ferns, orchids, climbing vines and a stream running through an artificial rock grotto. Paths wind between the beds and a raised walkway lets you look down into the canopy. It is the most popular of the four houses, especially on a grey Paris winter day.
The building is as interesting as the plants. It was designed by René Berger and completed in 1937 to replace the winter garden of the 1830s, and it is one of the finest Art Deco greenhouses in Europe. Look at the entrance, a tall glazed facade framed in geometric metalwork, and at the elegant curved roof. Inside, the structure is almost invisible behind the greenery, which was exactly the intention. The neighbouring pavilions, built by Charles Rohault de Fleury in the 1830s, were among the first large iron and glass greenhouses in the world and now house the plants of New Caledonia and the story of plant evolution.
The greenhouses were restored between 2005 and 2010, and a new house for desert and arid zone plants was added, with cacti, agaves and the strange bottle trees of Madagascar and Australia. Walk through all four in order and you travel from rainforest to desert to island to deep time. The oldest tradition of the Jardin des Plantes was growing exotic plants brought back by explorers, and this is where that tradition still lives.
Did You Know? The New Caledonia house next door displays plants from an island where nearly three quarters of the species grow nowhere else on Earth.
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