The Kresko Victorian Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a highly manicured garden.The Climatron greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden simulates the climate of a rainforest for conservational and educational purposes.
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 philanthropistHenry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 7.5 million specimens,[3] is the second largest in North America, behind that of the New York Botanical Garden. Its Peter H. Raven Library contains 85% coverage of all literature ever published on systematic botany and plant taxonomy.[4] The Index Herbariorum code assigned to the herbarium is MO[5] and it is used when citing housed specimens.
The garden is a center for botanical research and science education of international repute, as well as an oasis in the city of St. Louis, with 79 acres (32ha) of horticultural display. It includes a 14-acre (5.7ha)Japanese strolling garden named Seiwa-en; the Climatron geodesic dome conservatory; a children's garden, including a pioneer village; a playground; a fountain area and a water locking system, somewhat similar to the locking system at the Panama Canal; an Osage camp; and Henry Shaw's original 1850 estate home. It is adjacent to Tower Grove Park, another of Shaw's legacies.[6]
For part of 2006, the Missouri Botanical Garden featured "Glass in the Garden", with glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly placed throughout the garden. Four pieces were purchased to remain at the gardens. In 2008 sculptures of the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle were placed throughout the garden. In 2009, the 150th anniversary of the garden was celebrated, including a floral clock display.
After 40 years of service to the garden, Dr. Peter Raven retired from his presidential post on September 1, 2010. Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson replaced him as President.[7]
In 2024, the Tower Grove House was added to the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Records show that in 1855, four people enslaved by Shaw escaped the house and crossed the Mississippi River with help from Mary Meachum. A woman, Esther, and her three children were captured immediately after crossing. Shaw placed a bounty on Jim Kennerly, who had escaped.[8]
Lúcia G. Lohmann, president and director, starting January 2, 2025
Peter H. Raven Library
Founded by Henry Shaw with the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1859, the Peter H. Raven Library general collection contains more than 160,300 items of plant taxonomic literature.[9]
Sturtevant Pre-Linnaean Collection
The Sturtevant Pre-Linnaean Collection includes works published between 1474 – 1753 that were donated to the Missouri Botanical Garden Library in 1892 by botanist and agronomist Edward Lewis Sturtevant.[9] The collection contains over 1000 volumes.[9]
Linnaean Collection
The Linnaean Collection contains more than 900 volumes by Carl Linnaeus including his works, revisions of his work, and his students’ work.[9]
Post-1753 Rare Book Collection
The Post-1753 Rare Book Collection contains more than 3,000 books. Holdings include works by Charles Darwin, and George Engelmann.[9]
Folio Collection
The folio collection houses over 1,000 volumes of full-sized plant illustrations. The collection includes Banks' Florilegium.[9]
Steere Collection
Named after its donor, William C. Steere, the Steere Collection consists of more than 1,000 titles on bryology, as well as 2,000 pamphlets and reprints.[9]
Digitized Collection
The Peter H. Raven Library has worked closely with the Biodiversity Heritage Library to provide digital scans of works in their collection.
Cultural festivals
The garden is a place for many annual cultural festivals, such as the Japanese Festival and the Chinese Culture Days by the St. Louis Chinese Culture Days Committee.[10] During this time, there are showcases of the culture's botanics as well as cultural arts, crafts, music and food. The Japanese Festival features sumo wrestling, taiko drumming, koma-mawashi top spinning, and kimono fashion shows. The garden is known for its bonsai growing, which can be seen all year round but is highlighted during the multiple Asian festivals.
Tower Grove House (1849) and Herb Garden – Shaw's Victorian country house, designed by prominent local architect George I. Barnett in the Italianate style
Linnean House (1882) – reputedly the oldest continually operated greenhouse west of the Mississippi River; originally Shaw's orangery, in the late 1930s converted to house mostly camellias
Gladney Rose Garden (1915) – circular rose garden with arbors
Climatron (1960) and Reflecting Pools – world's first geodesic dome greenhouse, designed by architect and engineer Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, Inc; lowland rain forest with approximately 1500 plants
Seiwa-en Japanese Garden (1977) – 14-acre (5.7ha)chisen kaiyu-shiki (wet strolling garden) with lawns and path set around a 4-acre (1.6ha) central lake, designed by Koichi Kawana; the largest Japanese Garden in North America
Blanke Boxwood Garden (1996) – walled parterre with a fine boxwood collection
Strassenfest German Garden (2000) – flora native to Germany and Central Europe and a bust of botanist and Henry Shaw's scientific advisor George Engelmann (sculpted by Paul Granlund)
Douglas Trumbull, the director of the 1972 science fiction classic film Silent Running, stated that the geodesic domes on the spaceship Valley Forge were based on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Climatron dome.[11]
Site plan, as of 1974–1977
View of Seiwa-en, the largest Japanese garden in North America
Missouri Botanical Garden also operates the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield. The Butterfly House includes an 8,000-square-foot (740m2) indoor butterfly conservatory as well as an outdoor butterfly garden.
EarthWays Center
The EarthWays Center is a group at the Missouri Botanical Garden that provides resources on and educates the public about green practices, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability matters.[12]
The Shaw Nature Reserve was started by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1925 as a place to store plants away from the pollution of the city. The air in St. Louis later cleared up, and the reserve has continued to be open to the public for enjoyment, research, and education ever since. The 2,400-acre (9.7km2) reserve is located in Gray Summit, Missouri, 35 miles (56km) away from the city.[13]
In September 2017 the Missouri Botanical Garden teamed up with the St. Louis Zoo and Washington University in St. Louis in a conservation effort known as the Living Earth Collaborative.[16] The collaborative, run by Washington University scientist Jonathan Losos, seeks to promote further understanding of the ways humans can help to preserve the varied natural environments that allow plants, animals and microbes to survive and thrive.[17]
Sponsorship
Monsanto had donated $10 million to the Missouri Botanical Garden since the 1970s, which named its 1998 plant science facility the Monsanto Center.[18] The center has since been renamed to the Bayer Center following Monsanto's acquisition by Bayer.[19]
↑ "Missouri Botanical Garden". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2008.
↑ "Herbarium". Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved September 19, 2025.
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