Conservatory of Flowers

2007 January 17, 12:30 am
Filed under: There and Back Again

The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park is one of the most incredible buildings with an even more incredible history. The conservatory describes itself as is the oldest existing public conservatory in the Western Hemisphere. In 1876 the wealthiest man in California, James Lick died. He had purchased a 12,000 square foot Victorian wood and glass greenhouse for use on his Santa Clara property. At his death the Conservatory was still in crates which were found on his estate. In 1877, a syndicate of San Francisco businessmen purchased the Conservatory from Lick’s estate and donated it to the San Francisco Park Commission. Over the next two years, the Conservatory was erected in Golden Gate Park, it opened to the public in 1879 and began a long and eventful career. The Conservatory of Flowers houses thousands of species of plants from a wide range of climes. There are different rooms stuffed full of plants from the lowland tropics (basically tropical island plants) and highland tropics, then there is a room full of acquatic plants and another that has various types of carnivorous plants. I think my favorite was this enormous carnivorous plant that looked like it could easily swallow a good sized mouse. It was huge! Seriously, the “mouth” was as long as my hand, and the “stomach” was about the size of my fore-arm. Wouldn’t want to meet up with one of those in the dark! ;o)