Palermo (gro) Now probably the most beautiful time of the year begins in Sicily. It blooms and sprouts with power. As if the island wanted to trumpet its vitality to an unjustly troubled world. “Look how beautiful nature is with its splendid diversity,” it shouts in meadows, forests, by the sea and in the mountains of the island. And even on salt-encrusted sea beaches, bright carpets of flowers develop. Nowhere else in the Mediterranean is there such a variety of plants as in Sicily. And this diversity is most beautifully revealed in the Botanical Garden of Palermo. More than 3000 plants of all species are at home on the island. Many lead a hidden existence in well-tempered niches on the slopes of Mount Etna and in the mountainous interior, others provide on sandy beaches for vivid color, such as the silvery-blue beach thistle, which glitters and shines especially in southern Sicily. Those who travel through the interior later in the spring, after a drive through seemingly endless fields of wheat and rye, understand why Sicily once rose to become the granary of the Roman Empire. in the middle of it, below Caltanisetta, that lake which Demeter, the goddess of fertility, is said to have once used as an entrance to our world.
Where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe searched for the original leaf.
Germany’s most famous poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was also a natural scientist, searched in the 18th century in Sicily, in the then just opened Botanical Garden of Palermo, for the original plant, the original leaf. He recorded numerous botanical findings in drawings. In Taormina, Goethe even believed to have found the true Arcadia. Incidentally, he recorded in his two-volume “Italian Journey”, Italy could only be understood by “those who have also come to know Sicily”.
Research facility of the University .
The Botanical Garden of Palermo on via Lincoln, which leads from the main train station down to the port area, is located not far from the promenade on the seashore to the east of the old Arab district of Kalsa. The “Orto Botanico” is rightly one of the crowd pullers of the island metropolis. The garden with its neoclassical entrance building was opened in 1786. It was extended at the beginning of the 20th century. With its palm avenues, aquariums, gardens, fountains. Lagoons, greenhouses and fantastic rubber trees (picture), the Orto Botanico di Palermo today has an extension of about 10 hectares. The Botanical Garden is used and maintained as a teaching and research facility by the University of Palermo. The facility includes a “Herbarium mediterraneum” with 6000 square meters and since 1993 also a gene database to safeguard the regional flora.