At Padua’s World Heritage-listed Orto Botanico, the world’s oldest botanic garden throws up some surprises on where our food comes from.
Why the Padua’s Orto Botanico is World Heritage-listed
Sometimes the new can rudely shoulder-barge the old out of the way without intending to. And it’s the old that you come to Padua’s Orto Botanico for. The UNESCO World Heritage List has this down as the world’s oldest botanic garden, and it has been in the same place, with almost exactly the same layout since 1545.
The number of species grown there – now around 7,000 – has grown since. But there’s still a quaint meticulousness in how they’re ordered and hand-labelled.
Goethe’s tree in the Orto Botanico
The garden’s original purpose was to help doctors and university professors study the health effects of various plants. It still does this, but is now more of a monument to the idea of such study. The oldest tree – named the Goethe palm after the German poet mentioned it in an essay – has been there since 1585.
There’s a small sense of delight in the sheer diligence of what’s on display. There’s a wonderful carefulness about making sure everything’s in the right place, and properly categorised. It’s a celebration of fastidiousness, and in that, mildly heartwarming.
The Garden of Biodiversity in Padua
But the Orto Botanico has a new addition. The Garden of Biodiversity – an enormous glasshouse complex – was built in 2014, and it houses plants that wouldn’t otherwise be too grateful for the climate of northern Italy.
Lots of botanic gardens do this. It’s not especially groundbreaking to have sub-tropical and tropical species divided off. But it’s what surrounds these plants, in an inexplicably underadvertised way, that makes the Garden of Biodiversity so riveting.
All around are display boards, and they have a remarkable hit rate of being really interesting. One goes into ‘a chimp’s pharmacy’. Chimps, apparently, will seek specific plants when unwell and chew on barks that have little nutritional value but are rich in chemical compounds that play preventative roles against diseases such as malaria.
How humans have cultivated peas and apples
Where it all gets really fascinating, though, is when these signs delve into the origins of various crops, then explaining how they have spread around the world. This is something, I soon discovered, that I know disgracefully little about.
Humans, it turns out, have cultivated peas to be ten times bigger than they were when growing wild. Genetic mutations that would be harmful in the wild have also been encouraged in apples – which are now three times bigger.
The origin of sugar cane
The criss-crossing paths of now common foods are entrancing. Sugar cane, now generally seen as something grown in the Americas, originally came from New Guinea (as, incidentally, did the banana). The Chinese then found it and cultivated it before it spread to Persia, and the Arabs brought it to Europe (as they did with rice). It was only in the 1700s that Europeans realised that sugar beet – which they used for livestock fodder – contained sucrose and did much the same job.
Learning about plants in Padua
Walking through, it’s a constant barrage of these sorts of revelations. Vitis vinifera – the grape vine – is the world’s most widespread, commonly grown and economically important fruit plant. When Columbus was first given tobacco leaves as a gift, he threw them away because he didn’t know what to do with them. Henry VIII made hemp-farming in England compulsory, as it was needed by the Navy for ropes and sacks, although the plant is originally from Central Asia and China (which for a long time refused to allow the sale of seeds abroad).
Thinking about where food comes from
It’s a relentless geeky eye-opener, and it properly sets the mind whirring about taken-for-granted staples such as tomatoes and potatoes. Or the idea that fiery, spicy food is an inherently Asian thing, when in reality it was the Europeans that brought chillis over from the Americas. Similar applies to the rubber plant – born in the Amazon, now largely raised for commercial gain in South-East Asia.
Sometimes, it’s good to have your thoughts jolted like this. The way human beings have changed and transported nature over the centuries is often brushed over. That such an exhibition is in a place dedicated to the effects of plants on humans is deliciously ironic.
Orto Botanico ticket prices and opening hours
The Orto Botanico’s opening hours vary month to month. Check the garden’s website for closing times. Entrance tickets cost €10.
More Italy travel ideas
Other Padua experiences include wine-tasting sessions, small group street food tours and pizza-cooking classes.
There are more Italy articles on Planet Whitley. These include:
- Why Bologna is Italy’s most underrated city.
- Rome’s ghoulish Capuchin Crypt.
- How to see the Last Supper in Milan if tickets have sold out.
- Why Rome is a brilliant city for solo travellers.
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