Mission
The mission of the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory is to inspire, facilitate, promote and engage our visitors with an understanding and appreciation of plants, their diversity and the pivotal role they serve in the environments where they are found. The Conservatory and the collections within serve as an interactive and multi-sensory museum containing a large diversity of live specimens relied on for teaching and/or research purposes at the UC Davis campus and available for other academic institutions including K-12 in northern California.
History
The collection began in 1959 as a teaching collection of coleus plants within the 3,600 sq foot greenhouse now known as the Botanical Conservatory. Today, the complex north of Storer Hall serves the University and public communities as an educational facility, research resource and genetic diversity preserve. The complex houses over 4,000 plant species in more than 150 families, including examples from most of the world's climatic regions.