New displays open at the refurbished Botanic Garden Glasshouse

Housed in one of the newly refurbished teak glasshouses, the collection includes a wide range of arid land plants and illustrates the strategies they use to survive in extremely dry and hot conditions.

The display shows how distinct evolutionary processes have resulted in parallel solutions to climate conditions, such as the water storage systems used by different families of plants in Africa and America.

The Arid Lands exhibit has been made possible by a private donation and a Sustainable City Grant from Cambridge City Council.

A new display of orchids is also unveiled this weekend in the Glasshouse's main corridor. With moth and slipper varieties included, the exhibit offers visitors an encounter with a range of colours and scents. The display leads on to the Tropical Houses where more orchids can be found in their natural tropical habitat.

As well as the warmth of Glasshouse displays, visitors may be interested in seeing the colourful Winter Garden which brings together coloured stems, leaves and winter flowers with a range of textures and forms.

Planted over 30 years ago, it is regarded as one of the finest winter gardens in the country. Designed to make most of winter light, the Garden contains a large number of flowering winter shrubs that supplying colour and scent.

The Botanic Garden, which attracts over 130,000 visitors a year, was established as a teaching and research resource by Professor John Stevens Henslow and was opened to the public in 1846.

The site comprises a selection of landscapes including a rock garden, water garden and the Systematic Beds which contain 1600 hardy representatives of more than 100 families of flowering plants.

The Garden, which has one of the most important collections of mature trees in the region, is located off Hills Road and can be accessed through the entrance on Bateman Street.

For further details please see the link at the top right of the page.