400 Years of Garden History On the ancient agricultural land
which is now home of Bonn Botanic Gardens at Poppelsdorf Palace,
there used to be a medieval moated castle, owned by the
Archbishop of Cologne from around 1340. Around 1650, the castle
was surrounded by magnificent renaissance gardens and
conservatories. The more recent baroque garden, unchanged in its
basic structure to this day, was constructed around 1720. The
rococo palace of ‘Clemensruh’ was completed in 1746 by the
Archbishop Clemens August. When the University of Bonn was
founded in 1818, the first director, Dr Christian Gottfried
Daniel Nees von Esenbeck, turned the gardens’ focus towards
scientific aims. Nees described more than 5,200 plant species
from tropical areas throughout the world: Goethea cauliflora
reminds us that he maintained a close relationship with the
famous poet; some more species described by Nees are the well-
known gloxinias (Sinningia speciosa) and the giant bamboos
(Dendrocalamus). Important scientists like Sir Dietrich