The Conservatoire botanique national méditerranéen de Porquerolles (180 hectares) is a national conservatory and botanical garden

Botanical garden

A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...

 located within the Parc National de Port-Cros on Porquerolles

Porquerolles

Porquerolles , also known as the Île de Porquerolles, is an island in the Îles d'Hyères, Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. Its population was about 200 inhabitants in 2004 and occupies ....

 in the Îles d'Hyères

Îles d'Hyères

The Îles d'Hyères is a group of three islands off Hyères in the Var département, in the south-east of France. The three mediterranean islands are named Porquerolles, Port-Cros and Île du Levant. Together, they make up an area of .-See also:...

, Var, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Active conservation on Porquerolles began in 1971 when the state bought 80% of the island to protect it from development. The conservatory itself was founded in 1979 and became a Conservatoire botanique national in 1990 to serve the French Mediterranean regions of Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...

, Provence

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

, and the Côte d'Azur.

Today the conservatory manages 180 hectares of agricultural land, as well as three vineyard

Vineyard

A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...

s, and preserves several collections of rare varieties of olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

 trees (more than 500 trees), fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 trees including stone fruit and citrus

Citrus

Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...

es, mulberry

Mulberry

Morus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae. The 10–16 species of deciduous trees it contains are commonly known as Mulberries....

, fig

Ficus

Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...

 trees, and palm trees, with a particular emphasis on heritage varieties that serve as a gene reserve. It also conserves some 2,000 plant gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s in its seed bank.