Forstbotanischer Garten Köln - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Forstbotanischer Garten Köln (25 hectares) is an arboretum

Arboretum

An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...

and woodland 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 at Schillingsrotterstraße 100, Rodenkirchen

Rodenkirchen

Rodenkirchen is a southern city district of Cologne in Germany. It has about 100,000 inhabitants and covers as an area of 54.56 square kilometres...

, Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It forms part of the city's outer green belt and is open daily without charge.

The garden was created between 1962-1964 on a former military site which was, until the end of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, a part of the Äußerer Festungsring Köln, the outer ring of fortresses surrounding Cologne. Its ruins have been integrated into the plantings as a rock garden. In the 1980s, an adjoining natural area was created as the Friedenswald with additional tree plantings.

Today the garden contains exotic and native trees. Of particular interest are the Rhododendron

Rhododendron

Rhododendron is a genus of over 1 000 species of woody plants in the heath family, most with showy flowers...

ravine, heather

Erica

Erica ,the heaths or heathers, is a genus of approximately 860 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. The English common names "heath" and "heather" are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance....

garden, peonies (Paeonia), Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese plantings (including Acer palmatum
Acer palmatum
Acer palmatum, called Japanese Maple or Smooth Japanese Maple is a species of woody plant native to Japan, North Korea, South Korea, China, eastern Mongolia, and southeast Russia. Many different cultivars of this maple have been selected and they are grown worldwide for their attractive leaf...

, Cercidiphyllum, and Bambusoideae
Bambusoideae
The Bambusoideae is a subfamily of the true grass family Poaceae, and is characterized by having 3 stigmas and are mostly tree-like. However, there are uncertainties at practically every taxonomic level within the Bambusoideae, and different types of data often result in support for differing...

), and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n plantings (1.5 hectares, including Sequoiadendron giganteum
Sequoiadendron
Sequoiadendron giganteum is the sole living species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as redwoods, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae, together with Sequoia sempervirens and...

, Pinus ponderosa, and Abies concolor). The Friedenswald (20 hectares) contains a large meadow

Meadow

A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants . The term is from Old English mædwe. In agriculture a meadow is grassland which is not grazed by domestic livestock but rather allowed to grow unchecked in order to make hay...

surrounded by deciduous and coniferous forests containing trees and shrubs from all nations with which Germany has diplomatic relations; tropical

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

and subtropical

Subtropics

The subtropics are the geographical and climatical zone of the Earth immediately north and south of the tropical zone, which is bounded by the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, at latitudes 23.5°N and 23.5°S...

species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

are represented by symbolic trees.

See also