Jardim Botânico

Jardim Botânico

From Cosme Velho an Uber runs the short distance to Jardim Botânico, where the botanical garden sits at the foot of the same mountain you have just descended on the far side. Dom João VI — who had arrived in Rio the same year with the entire Portuguese royal court, fleeing Napoleon — founded the garden in 1808 as a royal nursery for acclimatising spices and economically useful plants brought from the East Indies. It opened to the public in 1822, the year Brazil declared independence. Today it covers 140 hectares (346 acres) and holds more than 6,000 species, only about forty percent of the park cultivated — the rest being Atlantic Forest climbing the slopes of Corcovado.

The most immediately striking feature is the Alameda das Palmeiras Imperiais, a 750-metre (2,460-foot) avenue of 134 royal palms reaching around 30 metres (100 feet) high, all descended from a single tree — the Palma Mater — long since destroyed by lightning. Other areas worth finding include the orchid and bromeliad greenhouses, the small Japanese garden established in 1935 from a donation of sixty-five native species, and the Lago Frei Leandro, where giant water lilies and herons share the pond. Capuchins and marmosets are not uncommon in the canopy overhead, and more than 140 bird species have been recorded within the grounds. The UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve designation, awarded in 1992, reflects the garden's role as a living research institute as much as a park.