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“Viote” Alpine Botanical Garden was created within the “Tre Cime del Monte Bondone Nature Reserve” (see related page) in 1938, with the aim of promoting knowledge and protection of the alpine flora in one of the oldest Italian gardens of this kind; this facility also belongs to the territorial section of Trento’s Science Museum and can be reached by car from this city in half an hour.

Set at 4.921 ft above sea level, it stretches on some 25 acres near a peat bog – a place, therefore, rich in water.

Vittorio Marchesoni was the botanist who took great care of the garden, eventually giving it its current mesmerizing appearance – he wanted to host and protect the regional flora and promote naturalistic awareness, vital to the enhancement and conservation of the natural heritage.

Inside the garden, there are thousands of plant species belonging to the typical alpine vegetation, organized according to their different natural habitats. Many medicinal species and endangered varieties are thoroughly protected and used to circulate their seeds among a thick international network of professional botanists and scientists.

The main nucleus of this green facility (approx. 2.5 acres) houses a rock garden with alpine plants from the different mountains of Earth, while the remaining portion hosts small lakes, wetlands, ponds, flowers, a mountain vegetable garden, a medicinal one and some fields cultivated with cereals and other plant varieties from the Alps.

There is also a path of lichens, a shrub, and a beautiful arboretum dedicated to the different habitats of the Alps and the woods of the world.

The local information centre offers a wealth of information about this garden and all its plant species.

FLORA

There are, for instance, Astragalaus centralpinus, Eryngium alpinum, Lychnis flos-jovis , the “Venus’s slipper” orchid (Cypripedium calceolus), , and a collection of edelweiss (Leontopodium spp.) from the mountains around the world.