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Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw.

The Gardens

  • Tower Grove House (1849) and Herb Garden - Shaw's Victorian country house designed by prominent local architect George I. Barnett in the Italianate style.
  • Victory of Science Over Ignorance - Marble statue by Carlo Nicoli; a copy of the original (1859) by Vincenzo Consani in the Pitti Palace, Florence.
  • Linnean House (1882) - Said to be the oldest continually operated greenhouse west of the Mississippi River. Originally Shaw's orangery, in the late 1930s it was converted to house mostly camellias.
  • Gladney Rose Garden (1915) - Circular rose garden with arbors.
  • Climatron (1960) and Reflecting Pools - the world's first geodesic dome greenhouse designed by architect and engineer Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, Inc; lowland rain forest with approximately 1500 plants.
  • English Woodland Garden (1976) - aconite, azaleas, bluebells, dogwoods, hosta, trillium, and others beneath the tree canopy.
  • Seiwa-en Japanese Garden (1977) - is a 14-acre (5.7 ha) chisen kaiyu-shiki (wet strolling garden) with lawns and path set around a 4-acre (1.6 ha) central lake. It was designed by Koichi Kawana and is the largest Japanese Garden in North America.
  • Grigg Nanjing Friendship Chinese Garden (1995) - Designed by architect Yong Pan; major features were gifts from sister city Nanjing, and include a moon gate, lotus gate, pavilion, and Chinese scholar's rocks from Tai Hu.
  • Blanke Boxwood Garden (1996) - walled parterre with a fine boxwood collection.
  • Strassenfest German Garden (2000) - flora native to Germany and Central Europe; bust of botanist and Henry Shaw's scientific advisor George Engelmann (sculpted by Paul Granlund)
  • Biblical garden featuring Date palm, pomegranate, fig and olive trees, caper, mint, citron and other plants mentioned in the Bible.
  • Ottoman garden with water features and xeriscape.